South China Morning Post selling historical news archives as NFTs
Hong Kong-based publisher The South China Morning Post has unveiled ‘Artifacts by SCMP,’ a non-fungible token (NFT) collection on the blockchain Flow that will draw resources from its media archives.
‘Artifacts by SCMP’ will feature the first use case of the Artifact standard
The Alibaba-owned media company previously launched its ‘Artifact’ lite paper for recording accounts of history and historical assets on the blockchain as NFTs.
Now the paper has revealed Artifact’s metadata structure will be built on the Flow blockchain created by Dapper Labs, the company behind NBA Top Shot video collectibles.
‘Artifacts by SCMP’ will feature the first use case of the Artifact standard, and conceptually the launch will come in the form of ‘Base Series’ and ‘Thematic Drops,’ released in boxes.
This will include the inaugural ‘1997 Series’ that showcases significant historical events from that year, containing a randomized bundle of Artifacts presented as collectible cards.
The white paper will also outline a proposed governance structure and the development of a dedicated marketplace. It will bring together a global council of cross-disciplinary experts to co-develop Artifact’s metadata structure.
“We are delighted to join the Flow ecosystem and partner with a major global blockchain innovator in Dapper Labs. This partnership is essential for creating world-class NFT experiences of our historical archives,” said Gary Liu, chief executive of SCMP.
“Through our Artifact white paper, we look forward to inspiring other ‘guardians of history’ to share our vision of making history more discoverable, connected and collectible.”
Mickey Maher, senior-vice president for partnerships at Dapper Labs, added SCMP’s innovative approach to transform its ledgers of historical journalism with blockchain technology had the markings of being a game changer.
“We’re proud for SCMP to launch this visionary project that reanimates meaningful historical moments and we’re excited they have chosen Flow to be the foundation of Artifact’s launch protocol,” he said.
The project will be governed by a nonprofit foundation and solicit participation from museums, archives, universities, publishers, art galleries and other institutions. 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.
The Drum previously also sold a one-off copy of a classic magazine cover for charity as part of our Retail Deep Dive coverage into NFTs.
The classic image, created by The Drum’s design team, depicted the world’s shift into understanding a new normal, representing a historic moment for the marketing industry.