Physical collectible company Funko announced a collaboration with Warner Bros owned DC Comics to release physical comic book cover collectibles accompanied by a digital collectible NFT.
There are 30,000 physical units available for sale to be exclusively released on Walmart.com on October 7 in conjunction with Walmart’s Collector Con. The comic cover is from The Brave and the Bold, which features characters from various DC Comics brands.
This integration of NFTs is a key development in the world of collectibles. Funko has seen much mainstream success with physical collectibles and has followed that up with its Digital Pop! NFT products, helping it achieve a market capitalization of more than $1 billion. This is the latest example of mixing the physical and digital worlds, following others experimenting with PhyDigital, especially in the fashion realm.
Estimates of the size of the physical collectibles market vary significantly. That’s in part because it’s a vast field covering comics, sports, art, stamps, coins, sneakers and much more. eBay sells a billion dollars in sports trading cards in a quarter. Clearly, non-fungible tokens are helping to expand that market significantly, with NBA Top Shot alone passing the $1 billion mark in sales.
“To bring this new collection of digital collectibles to retail will allow for an even broader reach and invite fans – both avid collectors and those that are entering the space for the first time, the opportunity to engage, physically and digitally, with beloved franchises, like DC” said Warner Bros Head of NFT Commercial Development, Josh Hackbarth.
Warner Bros is no stranger to NFTs. As the DC Comics franchise is one of its major properties, it has capitalized on it through NFT collections. It has dropped NFTs as access tokens for fans to vote on storylines for Batman comics. And in July this year, DC launched its own NFT marketplace.
