VeChain, a blockchain platform, has unveiled its collaboration with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to tokenize fighter gloves and monitor their identities through the VeChainThor network.
According to a recent blog entry, VeChain plans to embed UFC fighter gloves with near-field communication (NFC) chips, allowing for the logging of fight statistics and guaranteeing the legitimacy of each set.
Once the matches conclude, these gloves will be contributed and distributed, transforming them into highly coveted collectibles.
Purchasers will be able to confirm the genuineness of these gloves via a smart contract on the VeChainThor network.
VeChain’s Tokenization to Address Fraud Issue
The collaboration aims to tackle the challenge of fraud in the secondary market, where buyers often vie for ownership of gloves worn in specific fights.
Through the utilization of VeChain’s ToolChain system, a solution for supply chain management, the process of tracking and delivering items to their rightful recipients can be optimized.
An initial batch of 12 exclusive gloves will be dispersed to A-list celebrities, including Joe Rogan, with UFC CEO Dana White slated to make a live announcement to unveil the partnership.
The VeChain community has responded with mixed sentiments on the platform’s Reddit board. Some users have expressed excitement for this innovative application, underscoring the potential of transforming real-world asset gloves into non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for each UFC event. Others have embraced the notion of merchandise tracking and proposed integrating QR code scanning during televised events, a move that would further contribute to the consumption of VeThor (VTHO) tokens.
Some members of the community, however, weren’t particularly impressed by the announcement.
Critics pointed out that the transaction fees linked with the gloves might not burn enough VTHO to significantly impact the token’s price.
As of April 12, VeThor’s market capitalization exceeded $283 million, placing it among the top 300 cryptocurrencies globally, according to Coinmarketcap data.
By May 2022, the VeChain Foundation had reported holding $1.2 billion in its treasury.
The partnership between VeChain and UFC commenced in June of the same year with a $100 million sponsorship agreement, cementing their collaborative endeavors within the realm of mixed martial arts promotion.
Tokenized Funds Continue to Gain Popularity
Earlier this year, Moody’s, a prominent investment risk assessment firm, reported a substantial surge in the value of tokenized funds, jumping from $100 million at the start of 2023 to around $800 million. This growth was primarily fueled by the increasing tokenization of U.S. treasuries.
The report underscored the inclusion of various assets on both public and private blockchains. Notable examples include Franklin Templeton’s U.S. Government Money Fund expanding from Stellar to Polygon, Backed Finance introducing a tokenized short-term U.S. treasury bond exchange-traded fund (ETF), and UBS Asset Management launching a tokenized money market fund (MMF) on the Ethereum blockchain.
Moody’s suggests that tokenizing MMFs presents the potential to amalgamate their stability with the technological benefits of stablecoins.
Last month, DigiFT, a fintech company based in Singapore, also disclosed the launch of its US Treasury bill depository receipt (DR) tokens.
