In brief
- DC Comics and Palm NFT Studio will release 200,000 Batman-themed NFTs in April.
- The NFTs will come with various benefits, including access to events, merchandise, and metaverse elements.
Last fall’s collaboration between DC and Palm NFT Studio for the DC FanDome streaming event was just the start for the comic book giant’s NFT ambitions. Today, the companies announced that they will release Batman-themed NFTs in April that come with two years of promised benefits.
Launching on April 26, the Bat Cowl Collection will span 200,000 total NFTs, each depicting a 3D rendition of the superhero’s famed mask, or cowl. Each NFT will be unique and draw from Batman’s 83-year comic book legacy, featuring various combinations of colors, styles, and mask shapes. Each NFT will be priced at $300.
An NFT works like a blockchain-backed receipt that proves ownership of a digital item. In this case, the Bat Cowl NFTs will be minted on Palm, an Ethereum sidechain scaling solution that makes transactions faster, cheaper, and more energy efficient than on the Ethereum mainnet.
As with many projects today, the image attached to the NFT is just one part of the overall value proposition. In this case, DC has promised a two-year roadmap of various features, benefits, and utilities that will be provided to holders.
Bat Cowl NFTs holders will have access to a private fan forum on the DC Universe website, along with access to fan events, physical collectibles, exclusive merchandise, and behind-the-scenes content. Furthermore, DC plans to expand the feature set with things like “metaverse integrations” and augmented reality experiences.
Additional details on the metaverse plans were unavailable, according to a Palm NFT Studio representative. The metaverse refers to a more immersive future internet in which users interact with avatars in 3D environments. Ethereum-based, NFT-driven games like Decentraland and The Sandbox are early examples.
Collectors who claimed the free DC FanDome NFTs will be provided early access to purchase the Bat Cowl NFTs. Palm NFT Studio gave out several hundred thousand of the free FanDome NFTs, CEO Dan Heyman told Decrypt in December. DC also plans to “integrate” the Bat Cowl NFTs into “future stories,” per a release.
Palm NFT Studio is a creative studio building on the Palm sidechain, and it has produced other projects on Palm, such as artist Damien Hirst’s NFTs and collectibles based on the film "Space Jam 2: A New Legacy" from DC’s parent company, Warner Bros.
The studio is backed by Ethereum venture studio ConsenSys, which also funds the editorially independent Decrypt. In December, Palm NFT Studio announced a $27 million Series B funding round led by Microsoft’s M12 venture fund, with Warner Bros. and other investors alongside.
Palm NFT Studio isn't the only prominent company building on Palm. Other firms using the Ethereum scaling solution include Fanatics’ Candy Digital, which specializes in sports NFTs and has licenses with Major League Baseball and WWE, as well as NFT startup Nifty’s, which dropped 100,000 NFTs based on The Matrix Resurrections.