On Tuesday September 5, a major new Mercedes NFT collection is set to launch. Mercedes-Benz NXT Icons will not be Mercedes’ first web3 experience, but it describes it as a core collection.
The collectible cards feature historical car models with various custom traits. The German luxury carmaker is taking the initiative seriously with a long term commitment. Not only has it created a subsidiary Mercedes-Benz NXT, but so has creative partner Omnicom, setting up the OxNXT studio. Mercedes sees the upside in developing a digital brand to reach new customer groups and develop fresh experiences.
Owing to legal restrictions the collectibles will not be available globally. However, it will release them in many of Mercedes’ major markets, including the United States. On Twitter and the website, the company emphasized that they are purely digital collectibles. “They should not be purchased with future benefits in mind, but instead be collected for the enjoyment of collecting.”
Mercedes NFTs this year
Earlier this month the automaker launched a very different Mercedes NFT initiative. Mercedes-Benz NXT Eternities targets a small number of VIP customers and it plans to mint Eternities IRL at top customer events over a long period, potentially years. For the project, it partnered with Youba to create an NFC hardware wallet that looks like a card. By tapping the card on a phone it creates an Ethereum wallet and mints and transfers the collectible.
In April Mercedes launched its first collection, “Maschine”, a series of digital art pieces that are inspired by wheel spokes. Holders of Eternities and Maschine NFTs get a free mint pass for Icons which can be used in any of the Icon Eras.
The NXT Icon NFT collection
There will be 18,860 Icons split into seven eras. September mints are for the Era of Luxury with 2,694 collectibles.
Earlier this year another German luxury brand Porsche had a not-so-successful NFT drop, with a quick corrective save. Originally it planned to release 7,500 NFTs for $1,500, but more than two thirds went unsold, so it reduced the supply.
Mercedes seems keen to avoid this fate, so it adopted a complicated-sounding rebate Dutch auction. Bids will open at 1 ETH ($1,700) and over 90 minutes the price will drop in increments until all the NFTs are sold or it hits the minimum of 0.1 ETH ($170). Once the auction is over, the final price will be the lowest one. But given it’s blockchain, people will first pay their (higher) bid price. They will need to claim the rebate on the Mercedes website.
Some collectors may believe that they might as well make a high bid since the final price will be the lower one. But with that logic, the collection would sell out at a higher price. The floor price on OpenSea for the less appealing Maschine collection is 0.1388 ETH.
Other Mercedes blockchain initiatives
Meanwhile, Mercedes F1 had a sponsorship with the FTX crypto exchange for NFTs, which was ditched when the exchange entered bankruptcy.
The luxury car brand is also a member of the AURA luxury blockchain consortium which uses blockchain to enhance product traceability and authentication. It also has an NFT solution.
Earlier this year Daimler South East Asia, part of the Mercedes Benz Group, launched a groundbreaking Acentrik blockchain platform, to help with data sharing for AI and machine learning.
