NFTs have been hitting the racetrack this year in full force, and Porsche is the latest brand to hit the road. Our team at Bitcoinist has covered a substantial amount of crypto automotive activity in 2021. In just recent months, we’ve seen the Indy 500’s Bitcoin racecar, Crypto.com’s partnership with Formula 1, and more. Porsche is now taking the latest automotive endeavor in crypto, auctioning off a physical and digital NFT this week.
When The Rubber Hits The Road
The Porsche auction is being made available from brand subsidiary Porsche Digital and spin-off start-up Fanzone. The NFT will be made available for auction from August 2 through August 6, and features a design sketch from Porsche Director of Exterior Design, Peter Varga. The auction is currently live on SuperRare with a bid of just over 5 ETH at the time of writing. The auction winner will take home the digital NFT as well as the physical sketch. Varga described the sketch as a combination of the Taycan Cross Turismo and historic 911 body styles. “It links the design language of our iconic sports car with that of the youngest member of the model range,” said Varga. “Drawing a design sketch which is then traded online as a digital object was a completely new experience for me.”
The SuperRare listing describes the sketch as the true identity of the Porsche brand – “combining timeless beauty with state-of-the-art technology.”
The sketch is the first time Porsche has ventured into the NFT space with it’s recent development of Fanzone. Additionally, proceeds from this initial NFT will be donated to Viva con Agua, a non-profit committed to providing access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene.
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Part Of A Bigger Machine
The new project from the Porsche laboratory at Fanzone could be the makings of more to come. In June, Porsche company builder Forward31 (a Porsche Digital business unit) launched Fanzone as an online digital trading card marketplace for sports fans. In coming to market, the Berlin-based Fanzone locked in their first partner with the German Football Association.
Forward31 is continually building a portfolio of innovative, early-growth start-ups to engage a non-endemic audience with the Porsche brand. Fanzone looks to be an excellent addition to that portfolio, tapping in with the crypto and NFT-first audience. Fanzone will be bringing initial NFTs to market by way of the Lukso blockchain. Lukso is a German-based blockchain project built for serving culture and fashion.
“We are convinced that innovative, digital interaction platforms between sports fans and their favourite teams offer huge growth potential,” stated Fanzone CEO Dirk Weyel. Porsche and it’s internal partners are certainly looking aggressive in addressing exactly that.
Porsche's in-house NFT start-up, Fanzone, will be looking to leverage the Lukso blockchain. | Source: LYXE-USDT on TradingView.com
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Featured image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com