Under Armour’s First NFT Release Sells Out in a Minute

Three months ago, NBA mega star Steph Curry was new to cryptocurrency and went to Twitter to ask for advice. Now, the basketball player has partnered with Under Armour for his second NFT drop. The NFT allows holders to use them in the metaverse. Under Armour has its own metaverse wearable sneakers before Nike and Adidas. Even though the collection sold out, there's still a way to purchase the Under Armour and Steph Curry collectibles.

At first, it seemed like Under Armour was falling behind in the metaverse space. Adidas released its metaverse NFT collection. Earlier in December, Nike announced its acquisition of virtual shoe company RTFKT Studios.

Built on the Polygon blockchain, the NFT collection is comprised of 2,974 collectibles that are digital replicas of Curry’s signature UA shoe, the Curry Flow 9. The Curry Flow 9 is the shoe that the star player wore when he broke the record for the most three-point shots made in NBA history. The previous record of 2,973 was held by NBA legend Ray Allen. Curry broke the record on Dec. 14 and reached 2,974. The 2,974 collectibles represent the record that Curry broke.

Out of the total number of Curry Flow 9 NFTs, there are five different versions—The Lab, Warp, Flow, Broken History, and Unanimous. The Lab version consists of 1,389 collectibles, the Warp has 788, the Flow has 470, the Broken History has 297, and the Unanimous has 30. The lower the number of assets in each version, the rarer the NFT. When someone purchased a Curry Flow 9 collectible, the version they received was chosen at random.

Under Armour describes the NFT release as the first wearable and cross-platform sneaker NFT. Holders of the NFT also receive metaverse shoes that can be worn in the top metaverse platforms including Decentraland, The Sandbox, Gala Games, and Rumble Kong League.

There are in-game app features for wearing the shoes on the mentioned platforms. Holders will be notified of what future capability the assets will have. When wearing the shoes in a Gala Games metaverse, users earn in-game rewards when playing. Luna Market, the development team behind the NFT release, says that it’s still working on the shoes for the Rumble Kong metaverse, but it’s expected to be complete by early January 2022.

The NFT drop faced some delays due to the designated website having significant traffic throughout the day, but it eventually did drop at 8:30 p.m. ET on Dec. 21. Literally within the first minute, all of the collectibles sold out.

Luna Market even issued a notice apologizing to some people who had their transactions go through, but by the time their transaction was completed, the collection was already sold out. People had to use a credit card to purchase an NFT and then it was sent to their MetaMask wallet. Each collectible was priced at $333.

Even though the initial drop sold out, Luna Market has allowed the digital collectibles to be purchased on OpenSea. However, the resale price will be higher than the NFTs' original price.