Australian Open Apparently Abandons NFT Project

The Australian Open, the annual tennis match run by Tennis Australia, has seemingly ended its non-fungible token (NFT) initiative.

Launched in 2022, on the peak of the NFT craze, the undertaking featured 6,776 AO Artwork Ball NFTs. Every NFT represented a 19cm x 19cm part of one of many match’s tennis courts, with metadata that up to date in real-time to replicate match occasions, such because the successful shot touchdown on the particular courtroom space.

When the minting started, every NFT ball was priced at 0.067 ETH, round $278. By 2023, the worth had risen to roughly 0.23 ETH, or about $446.

Nonetheless, the worth has considerably decreased since then. Present information from OpenSea exhibits that the ground worth for the Australian Open NFT Balls assortment is now solely 0.0079 ETH, roughly $25.

Tennis Australia continued to interact with NFT holders and fulfilled guarantees made for early 2024, however the undertaking seems to have been largely forgotten this yr.

Whereas the devoted web site for the Artball NFTs and the Discord server are nonetheless energetic, the newest publish on the X (Twitter) profile dates again to March 2024.

Although the undertaking’s closure may appear stunning, it’s a part of a broader pattern. Many corporations have deserted the NFT area as market curiosity has waned and regulatory uncertainty has elevated.

As an illustration, in September 2023, Lacoste quietly ended its UNDW3 NFT undertaking, shutting down associated platforms with out rationalization, which raised issues amongst its neighborhood. 

Equally, Nike’s RTFKT, an NFT studio, is about to wind down its operations this month. Immutable and Kraken have additionally determined to shut their NFT marketplaces in favor of different ventures.

Regulatory pressures have performed a job in these strikes. The US Securities and Change Fee (SEC) has been energetic in cracking down on NFT initiatives in 2023 and 2024. 

The SEC issued Wells notices to initiatives similar to CyberKongz, OpenSea, and Immutable. The company additionally fined Impression Idea, a Los Angeles-based media firm, $6.1 million in 2023 for providing unregistered NFT securities. In September 2023, the SEC additionally imposed a $1 million superb on the Stoner Cats NFT undertaking for related violations.