Am I About to Get Rich On Racing NFT? (No.)
Motorsports has its own cryptocurrency and it’s off to a wild start.
A weekly newsletter by Ryan K. ZumMallen | @zoomy575m
HAPPY RACE DAY, especially to Generation Z who have apparently begun referring to non-Teslas as “manual” cars and manual transmission cars as “advanced manuals.”
Bless their hearts.
COULD YOU do me a favor? Send this newsletter to one person in your life. Any one! Sure, that one. Every subscriber is a big help and I greatly appreciate your support.
Here’s this week’s top article:
The NFT Rush Isn’t Coming to Motorsports
It’s Already Here
OKAY, STICK with me. All of the rage in the past week has been about NFT, or non-fungible tokens. These are essentially digital videos or cards or other collectibles that exist only online. You can buy them or sell them like physical trading cars, or stocks.
And lately, they’ve been growing like crazy.
This market recently exploded on the news that someone bought a video NFT of a LeBron James dunk for upwards of $207,000. The NBA certifies specific highlights and licenses them for digital sale. And someone came up big.
Most people first thought, this is insanity. That much money? For a video? They are…correct. But my first thought was, “If this ever comes to motorsports it’s a wrap.”
After all, if a random LeBron dunk in a meaningless game against Sacramento is worth 207 stacks, imagine what Ford crossing the finish line over Ferrari is worth. Imagine what Danica Patrick’s historic Indy 500 is worth. Imagine what Ayrton Senna’s magical lap at Monaco is worth!
I scrambled onto the first marketplace I could find, called OpenSea, to see what’s out there. What I found is not quite as evolved as what the NBA has done.
HERE’S HOW it works: the NBA has its own product called TopShot. As it turns out, Formula One also has its own product called DeltaTime. This encompasses not only F1 content, but also Formula E and MotoGP.
Do I think this is a 100-percent guaranteed sound financial investment? No. Am I about to watch the next BTC or GME skate right past me? Also no.
That’s why [FULL DISCLOSURE] I invested $100 USD in it. I bought a very small amount of REVV, the currency you use to purchase NFT for F1, FE and MotoGP content in DeltaTime. To be honest, all of the NFT that I found on OpenSea is trading way above my budget. So there’s a possibility I’m already priced out.
BUT THE BEAUTY of REVV is it has its own value, which you can track by the minute. In theory, if more people want to acquire REVV in order to play DeltaTime or acquire NFT then the value of your tiny slice of REVV goes up.
My bet is that people will want to acquire REVV. For two reasons:
First, the NBA has outwardly promoted TopShot, but F1 has scarcely mentioned DeltaTime. With the season fast approaching, and NFT garnering headlines around the world, that could drive up REVV values along with it.
Second, DeltaTime has a game associated with it that provides an interactive aspect to buying and owning the cryptocurrency. You can use REVV to buy content and collectibles, but you can also buy cars and parts to race and win against other players. What do you win? More REVV. The NBA has talked about TopShot gameplay, but it doesn’t exist yet. F1 already has that.
SO I THINK there’s room for automotive NFT to grow. Motorsports memorabilia has historically been a rich person’s game because there aren’t racing trading cards — no Senna rookies or Schumacher limiteds. All there is to collect is high-priced helmets or suits or actual cars. REVV offers to level the collectible playing field.
Imagine owning a small slice of a real life dream car, or even an F1 car, and having the ability to earn real money off it. I can confirm that the Gran Turismo franchise has experimented with licensing digital versions of real cars for their own purposes — that isn’t necessarily a play into NFT, but it is an effort to give digital value to real-life items. That in itself is an incredible prospect.
What’s more, I don’t see the next 50 years of the collectible industry bending away from the digital world. If anything we are witnessing the very early stages of a potential juggernaut.
That said, immediately after I bought REVV it plummeted 14-percent and took all day to get back to a six-percent loss. LOL. Here we go!
THANKS FOR reading Race Day. Did you know I also wrote a book? Click the link below to buy a signed copy of my book, Slow Car Fast, available now.
Culture
Some things I liked this week:
CarBibles wrote a piece on the micro-meet trend gaining popularity in a pandemic world. Kind of the antithesis to formalized Cars And Coffee.
Fantastic episode of the Racing Lives podcast — the premier of season two! — with former Williams Racing team principal Claire Williams as guest.
Friend of the newsletter Ethan Gaines has another enthralling column up at Hagerty about his colorful experiences at a luxury used car dealership. I seriously can’t look away from his articles.
Another newsletter friend, Toni Scott, penned an absolute opus about her transition during COVID and the cars that helped. What an ending!
Ask A Millennial! Anthony DiGiovanni, 24
YOU MAY KNOW that my publishing company is called Carrara Media. Imagine my shock when my friends started sharing incredible renderings from an account called Carrara Design. And when I say incredible, I mean the graphics and specs these guys put on cars looked out of this world. So I reached out to learn the story behind the account and met Anthony. Here is an edited version of our conversation:
It all started back when I was 12, drawing cars on forums for fun. When I turned 18 my buddy and I started NS2 Media which became the page you see now. That was at the height of Instagram where you could easily skyrocket — it’s harder now. This company was born on the forums and social media. Instagram and Rennlist are the only places that we do marketing. Just last month I changed the name back because I always preferred it, to be honest. Why Carrara Design? The Porsche color is Carrara White and our specialty is Porsche. Also, I couldn’t think of anything else.
Probably 99 percent of our work is Porsche. I don’t think I have any non-Porsche customers right now. Porsches have always been my passion and favorite brand. Our specialty is being able to evaluate what looks good and finding something balanced. Between the recent 911.1 and 991.2 GT cars we probably helped with paint decisions and interior decisions on well over 120 different cars. At this point it’s almost second nature.
Green paint. Green paint is like a very big thing — it seems everybody wants to do greens and blues. Brown interiors, tan. That sort of thing. People are trying to be a little more classy and restrained. The biggest thing for me is it’s important to make everything look like it could come from the factory. If the measurements of a stripe or a font don’t match it’s really easy to tell.
There’s definitely, moreso than ever, a need to personalize. My business is a symptom. When the Carrera GTs were getting delivered it was crazy to have a different interior color or wheels. Then with the 918 it was almost every single car had $50,000 worth of personalized options. Now it’s with every GT3. Everybody wants to feel they have something unique and different, especially Porsche guys. I don’t need to market because they’re all coming to me. At this point there’s more business than I could possibly handle. It’s been fun and I’m extremely grateful.
And Finally…
NETFLIX IS ABOUT to return with Season 3 of its popular documentary series on Formula One called Drive to Survive. I have several friends who turned into F1 fans solely on the drama from S1 and S2. The new season drops March 19.
Drive hard and be safe. Black Lives Matter.
Want your event included? Shoot me a note with subject line “Race Day” at ryan@carrarabooks.com.
Don’t forget to follow Carrara Media on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and visit our store to order your copy of Slow Car Fast in paperback or eBook.