Adidas and Prada Unite to Hit the NFT Market with a First-of-its-Kind Collaboration

While the crypto market sees deep red, as FED policy and regulatory chatter break investor resolve, the NFT market has kicked off the year in stellar fashion.

Founded in 1913, Italian fashion house Prada has joined forces with Germany leading sports brand, Adidas.

Fashion, Sport, and NFTs

Sports and NFTs have been in partnership for some time now. U.S leading sports franchises the NFL and the NBA both launched NFT market places to allow sports fans to collect or trade scoring moments and digital highlights.

Such is the growth in the NFT space that leading player Dapper Lab (Flow) became the first NFT-linked company to register to lobby with the U.S government. Regulatory scrutiny has spiked at the turn of the year, with the SEC warning of more regulatory activity to come.

Europe and the NFT Market

Prada and Adidas are not the first big European brand names to enter the NFT space. Other big brands include Gucci and Louis Vuitton.

RTFKT, formed back in 2020, has certainly influenced fashion houses and sports brands to enter the space. RTFKT creates digital collectibles and sneakers. Such was RTFKT’s success that Nike bought RTFKT late last year.

Gucci was among the first fashion houses to enter the NFT space. Last year, Gucci sold a 4-minute video at Christie’s auction for $25m. Proceeds of the sale were reportedly to be donated to UNICEF USA to support the non-profit COVAX initiative.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Paris Fashion Week went NFT last year. Not only has fashion embraced NFTs but are now selling product as NFTs. RTFKT and Gucci have sold digital sneakers in the NFT market place. Other big names selling virtual articles have included Stella McCartney and Nike. Valentino, Burberry, Balenciaga, and Hermes are other big names that have also entered the virtual world.

The Prada Adidas Collaboration

This week, Adidas and Prada announced a “first-of-its-kind open-Metaverse & user-generated NFT project”. The project will be on the Polygon (MATIC) blockchain and is titled the “Adidas for Prada re-source”.

According to the announcement, 3,000 community-sourced artworks will be minted as NFTs. The NFTs will form tiles in a “mass-patchwork NFT”, which will be designed by Zach Lieberman. NFT market place SuperRare (RARE) will auction the final NFT.

From Monday 24^th January, “anyone can register with a digital wallet and have a chance to create and mint a pseudonymous NFT”. Selected contributions will then appears as individual tiles in the final “mass-patchwork NFT”.

Polygon Price Action

At the time of writing, MATIC was up by 0.35% to $1.708. The modest rise this morning comes off the back of a 13.2% tumble on Friday. Market sentiment towards FED monetary policy and a global equity sell-off weighed on the crypto markets on Friday, leaving MATIC in the deep red.

Sitting well below November’s ATH $2.925, a move back through January’s high $2.603 would give MATIC a run at $3.00 levels. Sentiment across the broader market would need to change, however, for MATIC to breakdown resistance at $2.00.