Some fans will win a free trip to Seoul to meet the group.
On Friday, Sotheby’s New York plans to unveil a new NFT collection featuring the Korean pop group Aespa, best known for hits like "Black Mamba" and "Savage." The all-female group is minting a non-fungible token collection with Los Angeles-based 3D artist Blake Kathryn, marking the world's first collaboration between a K-pop musical group and an NFT artist.
Starting Thursday, October 13, the three-part NFT collection will be auctioned on Sotheby’s Metaverse. Fans and collectors will be able to buy "my pass," an access key offering an NFT from 16 pieces of art prepared by the four members of Aespa, Karina, Giselle, Winter, and Ningning.
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According to Sotheby’s, the collection will feature the personality and signature identity of every Aespa member, fused together with the futurist surrealism of Blake Kathryn’s artwork. Each NFT will pay homage to the individual artists, celebrating their unique personalities and traits.
In the second part of the auction, collectors will also be able to buy "Altars," limited edition digital artwork accompanied by personalized recordings from Aespa members, along with a signed autograph from Aespa and Kathryn.
For die-hard fans wanting greater intimacy with the artists, the third part of the collection – "Dreamspace" – offers the greatest rewards. It provides a rare NFT offering access to an exclusive video from Aespa and Kathryn, a digital meet-and-greet with Kathryn, on top of a real-life meet-and-greet with the South Korean quartet (along with a free flight to South Korea to a free Aespa concert).
Aespa NFTs. Courtesy of Blake Kathryn.
Since NFTs have exploded in 2021, celebrities across the world have hopped on the bandwagon. Last December, American rapper Snoop Dogg scooped up the most expensive NFT ever sold, paying $7 million for an NFT of the "Right Click and Save As guy." The rap mogul added it to his already large collection of CryptoPunks and Bored Apes NFTs, according to CoinGecko data pulled from transactions on the world's largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea.
Snoop Dogg joined the ranks of other celebrities like Madonna ($466,461 for a Bored Ape), Eminem ($453,776, also a Bored Ape), YouTuber Logan Paul ($624,669 for an NFT), and Tom Brady ($453,062, also a Bored Ape) in flexing their appreciation for art and technology through digital collectibles.
This January, "Baby" singer Justin Bieber bought the world's third most-expensive NFT, spending $1.3 million on a Bored Ape. The move, however, only earned him mockery from fans who assumed he had overpaid (by four times) for a Bored Ape that was only valued at $270,908 at the time.
Although sales of NFTs have dropped precipitously this year, resulting in $5 billion in losses, some South Korean megastars have still embraced the trend – even against strong fan backlash. In January, the pop group BTS said it was moving ahead with its NFT drop despite fan concerns over the environmental harm from crypto mining. Acolytes of the popular boy band pushed out social media hashtags decrying the move, such as #BoycottHybeNFT and #ARMYsAgainstNFT.
Despite the outcry, NFTs remain wildly popular in South Korea due to lower regulations on digital collectibles than crypto. President Yoon Suk-yeol even released his own NFT collection before this year's election and campaigned aggressively on a pro-crypto platform pledging to lower capital gains taxes on crypto profits and helping victims of crypto scams.
In February, Korea's Ministry of ICT, Science and Future Planning also invested nearly $190 million toward a national metaverse project that will center cities, education and media under a “Digital New Deal” to stimulate growth in the country's digital technologies.
This March, one South Korean university, Hoseo University, even issued more than 2,800 diplomas as NFTs.
Sabrina Toppa is an award-winning journalist focusing on cryptocurrency, blockchain, DeFi, NFTs, and Web3. She has written for The Guardian, TIME Magazine, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other publications. Follow her on Twitter @SabrinaToppa. For story tips: sabrina.toppa@roundtable.io.
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