Adidas has made a splash into crypto, establishing a partnership with Coinbase as well as with metaverse playground The Sandbox this week.
The deals have a limited amount of details thus far, and immerse the powerhouse apparel brand into it’s first major foray in crypto and blockchain technology.
The move is likely to be Adidas’ initial step into ‘metaverse apparel,’ an increasing topic that’s been mostly engaged in by way of high fashion brands thus far.
Adidas Is Lacing Up
A tweet from the Adidas Originals account has given us a taste of what’s to come, but little to no details have emerged quite yet.
We’ve partnered with @coinbase.
Probably nothing.— adidas Originals (@adidasoriginals) November 24, 2021
However, given Coinbase’s recent maneuver in focusing intensely on NFTs, our team speculates that arguably the scope of this partnership is highly likely to be focused on NFTs. Intellectual property in NFTs has been a topic of hot contention within the crypto community legal chatter. In real life, we know individuals are willing to pay a premium for brand names. Don’t be surprised if the same is true in the metaverse, too. Even simple Adidas collectibles could command a premium, depending on the rollout strategy.
Speculation has also emerged in early reports that the collaboration between Coinbase and Adidas could be rooted in payments as well, perhaps bringing some sort of crypto payment integration to the Adidas shopping ecosystem.
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Adidas' stock on the OTC market has had no substantial reaction to the firm's partnerships with Coinbase and The Sandbox; however, it's worth noting that a big press rollout did not accompany these announcements. | Source: OTC: ADDYY on TradingView.com
The Metaverse Is Booming
The Coinbase announcement was preluded by a Sandbox tweet in recent days, which hyperlinks to a 144-parcel Adidas Originals space on The Sandbox. The 144 parcels were commanding north of 400 ETH quite quickly – that’s around $1.7M.
This comes on the heels of a record $2.4M purchase for a virtual real estate plot on Decentraland. The whales have entered the room.
Hey @adidasoriginals, impossible is nothing in the Metaverse. What if we invite all of the original thinkers and do-ers to design our future together?https://t.co/xQrfAWHBky pic.twitter.com/fTCaqf6fho
— The Sandbox (@TheSandboxGame) November 22, 2021
Adidas’ move always trails behind the likes of Nike, who collaborated with Roblox in the last week or so for virtual branding, dubbed ‘NIKELAND.’ Nike also has quite a history around patents, including several recent requests with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office that suggest that the brand could be furthering it’s presence in NFTs and the metaverse. The leading sports apparel brand first secured a patent for “CryptoKicks” back in late 2019.
The metaverse chatter and brand engagement has led to tokens like MANA (Decentraland) and SAND (The Sandbox) to surge substantially in the last week or so.
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Featured image from Pexels, Charts from TradingView.com The writer of this content is not associated or affiliated with any of the parties mentioned in this article. This is not financial advice.