Disney To Launch an NFT Platform in Partnership With Dapper Labs
Entertainment giant Disney is set to launch a non-fungible token (NFT) platform in collaboration with blockchain and metaverse company Dapper Labs, the creator of NBA Top Shot. The NFT platform will be called Disney Pinnacle.
In a Tuesday announcement, the two companies said they plan to tokenize Disney’s iconic cartoon characters inspired by a century of iconic IPs onto a new non-fungible token marketplace.
The NFT marketplace will also feature icons from Pixar and heroes and villains drawn from the Star Wars galaxy. These icons have been uniquely styled as tradable pins and collectibles. These dynamic pins can be collected by fans from across the globe on their phones and traded instantly and securely among one another no matter their location, according to Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou.
The Disney Pinnacle NFT platform is set to launch before the end of the year on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. It will also be available on the web.
Nothing concrete has been uploaded online so far apart from a landing site on Disney’s official site. The Disney Pinnacle platform has been created on the layer-1 blockchain Flow, which was created by Dapper Labs. Previously, NFT event tickets were minted on the Flow blockchain by Ticketmaster.
This Disney NFT collection is modeled on the physical pins that the entertainment company sells at its theme parks which are usually collected and traded by fans. Disney Pinnacle will give fans pin-inspired digital collectibles minted as non-fungible tokens on the Flow blockchain, the same network that runs the NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day NFT platforms. Like the upcoming Disney Pinnacle, the NBA Top Shot NFT digital collectible platform gives fans access to brand-inspired merchandise, enabling them to buy and trade collectibles or own officially licensed video highlights that are packaged in the form of unique “Moments” collectibles.
The Disney NFT platform offers fans pins inspired by Disney, Pixar, and Star Wars characters and other IP properties. Dapper Labs CEO cited characters like Buzzy Lightyear, Darth Vader from “Star Wars”, Woody from “Toy Story”, and Disney Princesses as some of the inspirations that will be in the collection.
The announcement did not mention Disney’s Marvel comic book IP as being part of the collection. Dapper Labs’ CEO Gharegozlou clarified that Marvel won’t be coming to the platform “at launch” which leaves the possibility that it come at a later date.
The Disney Pinnacle NFT marketplace was developed from the ground up and has been designed for mobile. Dapper Labs’ Top Shot, on the other hand, was first launched on the web before a native mobile app was added later on. Although Disney Pinnacle is similar in some aspects to Dapper’s other NFT collections, the blockchain company says the feel will be better suited for smartphones and it will have enhancements suited to its familiar format.
Dapper Labs’ boss says the platform is “an updated economy design” and thus, has a better balance between accessibility for the everyday fan, and the “super limited-edition assets” suited for the higher-end collectors. It also provides access to the whole Disney universe, all available to fans “under one roof.”
Disney Pinnacle has already opened a waitlist. The blockchain company says it will gradually onboard users onto the platform for the beta testing experience before the final full launch. The company hasn’t established a timeline for the public rollout of the NFT platform.
Dapper Labs had major mainstream success with its NBA Top Shot NFT platform in the early heady days of the NFT boom in 2021. Earlier, the blockchain company also launched the successful CryptoKitties Ethereum NFT project and developed the Flow blockchain to manage broader-scale applications such as games and collectibles platforms. Flow blockchain has been undergoing a gradual decentralization.
The announcement of Disney Pinnacle came at a time when the NFT market has been showing signs of recovery. Much of the NFT fortunes were lost following a major market crash in 2022 and the market lost much of its steam over the past year or so. According to Gharegozlou, the new generation of apps and platforms developed around digital ownership will have a better feel and look than the first generation of NFTs that were launched to the masses.
He describes Dapper Labs’ first batch of products as arriving at a time when the NFT industry was still in its “dial-up” stage, in terms of the range of products as well as in how portable and interoperable these products were. Over the coming years, he predicts that products are going to get a lot better.
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