SCMP ties up with NBA Top Shot maker for NFT foray

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) has unveiled an NFT collection drawing from its 118-year archives, called Artifacts by SCMP. The publisher has also released a whitepaper today describing the Artifact NFT metadata standard, which it says can be used for "tokenising history". 

The initial NFT offering will include both a "Base Series" and a series of thematic releases. The inaugural 1997 Series showcases significant historical events from that year, and contains a randomised bundle of Artifacts presented as collectible cards.

Artifact uses the Flow blockchain originally created by Dapper Labs, the company behind NBA Top Shot video collectibles.

SCMP's whitepaper previews the visual design and rarity levels of the new NFT collection, which will be the first use case of the Artifact standard. SCMP describes Artifact as a metadata standard and smart contract for historical NFTs. While existing NFT standards offer the mechanism to ensure immutability and decentralised ownership of historical assets on the blockchain, SCMP stated in its whitepaper that it believes a rich metadata standard (which includes data for the underlying asset from its moment of creation to its moment of conversion) will give historic NFTs the comprehensive context and origin needed to establish significance and value.

“This partnership is essential for creating world-class NFT experiences of our historical archives," said Gary Liu, SCMP’s CEO. "Through our Artifact whitepaper, we look forward to inspiring other ‘guardians of history’ to share our vision of making history more discoverable, connected and collectable.” 

The Artifact whitepaper outlines a proposed governance structure and the development of a dedicated marketplace. A global council of cross-disciplinary experts will co-develop Artifact's metadata structure, according to the paper.

The project will be governed by a non-profit foundation and seek participation from museums, archives, universities, publishers, art galleries, and other institutions, SCMP stated in a release. A marketplace will be developed specifically for the minting, sale and trade of Artifacts to serve the global community of historical NFT issuers and collectors.