Animoca Brands, a Hong Kong-based blockchain gaming unicorn, announced today that it has teamed up with Cube Entertainment, a major K-pop entertainment agency, to form a joint venture dedicated to building a music metaverse and issuing non-fungible tokens (NFTs), joining a slew of K-pop labels to make forays into the NFT and metaverse space.
Fast facts
- The joint venture will work to roll out NFTs featuring digital sources including albums, portraits and avatars from Cube’s artists, according to a company statement released today.
- Cube currently manages a handful of well-known K-pop artists and bands, including Jo Kwon, BTOB, PENTAGON, CLC and (G)I-DLE.
- “K-pop is taking the world by storm, and here at Animoca Brands we can’t wait to work with Cube Entertainment and its roster of K-pop artists as we continue our efforts to make the open metaverse a reality,” Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands — which last month closed a capital raise for US$65 million at a pre-money valuation of US$2.2 billion — said in the company statement.
- Ahn Woo Hyung, CEO of Cube, said: “We anticipate this will be an important beginning for leading the global digital culture market and advancing the digital content industry.”
- It’s not just Cube that’s looking to join the global race into NFTs. Hybe, the agency of global K-pop sensation BTS, earlier this month said it was joining hands with Dunamu, a blockchain company that operates crypto exchange Upbit, to digitalize BTS goods into NFTs and more.
- Back in July, JYP — a top K-pop entertainment agency that manages popular idol acts including TWICE and 2PM — partnered with Dunamu to build an NFT platform using JYP’s content.
- SM Entertainment, another major K-pop agency that manages groups EXO and SHINee, also said this month that it plans to create future content under its SM Culture Universe metaverse in NFTs — according to its founder Lee Soo-man at Solana’s Breakpoint 2021 conference.
Read more: NFTs and the music industry: K-pop’s new token economy