According to reports, the e-commerce giant Amazon has recently invested in a fractional sports trading card marketplace called Dibbs. The platform, built on top of the Wax blockchain, allows users to purchase and sell fractions of collectible trading cards. Reports further add that the financial terms of Amazon’s backing of Dibbs have not been disclosed.
Reports reveal Amazon has entered the digital collectibles space
Non-fungible token (NFT) assets and digital collectibles have been gaining momentum in 2021 and it looks like everyone wants a slice of the billion dollar industry. Just recently, reports revealed that the online marketplace Amazon has invested in the Dibbs trading card platform. “We are delighted to announce that Amazon has entered the collectibles space by investing in [Dibbs.io]Wax blockchain’s official Twitter account tweeted on December 8. “[Dibbs] is a real-time split card marketplace using Wax vIRL NFT technology.
Dibbs was founded in 2020, and the platform allows members to list a collectible trading card and mint them into NFTs, then the NFTs can be fractionalized as well. While Amazon’s investment has not been publicized, the startup raised $16 million in a Series A funding round in July. Series A Dibb investors included athletes like Chris Paul, Channing Frye, DeAndre Hopkins, Kevin Love, Kris Bryant, and Skylar Diggins-Smith. Furthermore, the Series A in July was also backed by Foundry Group and Tusk Venture Partners.
The company has officially introduced a marketplace called “Sell with Dibbs” which allows owners to sell their collectibles, prizes, and split coins as well. Dibbs Founder and CEO Evan Vandenberg explains that NFTs and digital collectibles make the collectibles market, in general, more accessible. “For too long, the collectibles market has been riddled with barriers to entry that make it inaccessible and unfair,” Vandenberg said in a statement last week. The Dibbs executive added:
Traditional ownership has limitations that the emerging metaverse eliminates. Moving these collectibles, which genuinely represent an individual’s online persona, into the digital domain is essential for the future of ownership and identity.
Dibbs envisions other types of digital collectibles, fractional collectibles become big business in 2021
The CEO of Dibbs also noted that cards aren’t the only goal his startup is focusing on and that the company is considering moving into other avenues as well. “Cards are one thing we do, but it’s one thing,” Vandenberg remarked. “It can be so much bigger than cards. Besides the Dibbs concept, NFT splitting has become an important trend that is growing exponentially. Blockchain projects moving forward with fractional NFTs include platforms like Otis, Unicly, Fractional, and Daofi.
Cryptopunk collectibles have been fractionalized alongside the famous Doge NFT as well. This past week the Ross Ulbricht Genesis NFT Collection raised over $6 million at auction and the collection will be broken up into pieces and fractionalized among members of a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
