Esports Brand 100 Thieves Gives Out 300K Polygon NFTs—But Won’t Call Them NFTs

The esports organization and lifestyle brand 100 Thieves entered the NFT space yesterday by giving away over 300,000 free Polygon NFTs in the span of just 24 hours.

But interestingly, none of the official social media posts mention the term “NFT.”

NFTs are blockchain-based tokens that signify ownership over a digital or physical collectible, typically images, GIFs, videos, music, or even event tickets. In this case, each 100 Thieves NFT is a 360-degree animated view of a diamond chain.

100 Thieves announced its “LCS Championship Chain” on Wednesday without mentioning the word “NFT,” “blockchain,” “Polygon,” or just about anything crypto-related at all.

The only hint that this chain is an NFT is that 100 Thieves states that acquiring a virtual chain has the “same carbon impact as sending 2 emails.”

The NFT is modeled after a real diamond chain. 100 Thieves’ co-founder and CEO Nadeshot gave out the physical necklaces to his “League of Legends” team for winning the 2021 LCS Championship. 

It’s a bit strange that Nadeshot has yet to call these NFTs, especially given the fact that his Twitter and Instagram profile picture is of a CryptoPunk NFT he owns. And Nadeshot has been buying NFTs for his own personal collection since at least August 2021, when he tweeted out that he owned two Crypto Punks and one Chromie Squiggle.

Nadeshot also said “wgmi,” the NFT community rallying cry that means “we are going to make it,” when tweeting out that the chain collectible has been claimed more than 300,000 times so far.

But the likely reason Nadeshot and 100 Thieves aren’t using the term “NFT” is clear: NFTs have received enormous backlash in the gaming community. The game makers behind titles like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 and Worms both announced in-game NFTs and then canceled those plans shortly after vocal backlash from fans on social media.

So far, the response to the 100 Thieves Polygon NFTs appears to be mostly positive on Twitter and Instagram.