Breaking Down Hollywood's Bitcoin Obsession by the Numbers
Hollywood is pouring hundreds of millions into Bitcoin and crypto.
It seems like in the last two years, with everyone at home, Hollywood has gotten deep into cryptocurrency. There's news of financing movies with it, deep investing, the sale of NFTs to promote movies, and as movies themselves.
Let's do some digging into the numbers behind what Hollywood is doing. They are staggering. So how is Hollywood using crypto?
Breaking Down Hollywood’s Crypto Buys
Everyone is talking about NFTs this year. We saw Kevin Smith sell his movie as an NFT, indie filmmakers sell NFTs to make their budget, and even Godzilla and King Kong emerge as NFTs to help offset the huge budget. The entertainment industry sees an opportunity in NFTs.
But what do the numbers say?
$1.2 billion in Transactions
This is the total transaction volume for pixel-art NFT collection CryptoPunks. You might have heard their name when they signed a deal with United Talent Agency "for representation across film, TV, video games, publishing, and licensing." UTA is making a huge bet on this catalog.
$100 million in funding
Fox has beefed up their NFT game, and even opened an NFT studio, Blockchain Creative Labs. They're making Dan Harmon's new show called Krapopolis. And that's not the only $100 million Fox dropped. The studio reportedly spent another $100 million on a blockchain platform that will power Blockchain Creative Labs.
26,000 Collectibles
It's not just film and TV. Recording artist Doja Cat put out 26,000 limited-edition collectibles through her debut drop on the NFT platform OneOf.
This was a statement drop, not just in amount, but behind one of Hollywood's favorite causes, the environment. Doja used the Tezos network, which is an environmentally-friendly crypto platform.
86% Gains with TikTok
TikTok announced that it was partnering with Audius (AUDIO), which sells its own token. For those who do not know, Audius is a decentralized music-streaming service. After this partnership came to fruition, the token's worth jumped 86%. That's a massive gian for all the investors. It also legitimized a new music service.
And it gave TikTok more power. TikTok star Addison Rae just signed a five-picture deal with Netflix.
40 Minutes
This is how long it took for every single one of Mila Kunis' 10,420 Stoner Cats NFTs to sell out, earning about $8.4 million.
Stars are seeing a brand-new revenue stream. One that can correlate their popularity with the ability to fund projects. And if you bought Kunis' NFT? You get to watch an animated show about pothead cats starring Kunis, Chris Rock, Seth McFarland, and the Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin.
Where does this leave us?
Hollywood is investing heavily in this stuff, so you should do yourself a favor and read up on it. There's a lot to learn, and the game is changing fast. The crypto space presents an entirely new world order when it comes to financing and distribution. Streaming changed the game, but crypto is changing the way it pays out.
What do you think of all of this? Let us know in the comments.
