Interest in LeBron James NFTs is increasing after becoming the NBA’s all-time scoring leader

Dapper Labs reports to Decrypt that LeBron James NFT’s sales have skyrocketed since Sunday, February 5, as the long-awaited moment approached. The platform recorded nearly $234,000 in LeBron NFT sales through its secondary marketplace from Sunday to Friday morning.

James has had an impressive 2,500 individuals NBA top shot sales since May 2022, most by any Los Angeles Lakers player. One even sold for a whopping $13,500, making it his biggest sale ever on Top Shot, according to recent data from DappRadar. LeBron’s impact has been evident in more than just secondary market sales.

On Friday, Dapper Labs released 100,000 packs of NFTs for $9 each. Starting February 23rd, all buyers will receive a free additional package that includes a single NFT, some of which may contain FTs from the record high.

Ninety-nine (99) editions of LeBron’s shot will be minted in NBA Top Shot, of which 25 are reserved for the highest scoring collectors on the platform. These scores are calculated from trading NFTs and completing in-game tasks. The other 24 remaining images will be given to those who purchased the last week’s package.

NBA Top Shot was created in 2020 and has been a major factor in the recent NFT market boom. Still, sales and prices have fallen dramatically since then, with roughly $1.05 billion in market trades made on the Flow blockchain-based platform, according to CryptoSlam.

And the last week alone, CryptoSlam reported that transactions passed one million in the past seven days, representing a 35% increase compared to the previous week.

This renewed enthusiasm around LeBron James NFTs and others may spread to other platforms as well. For example, Rare NBA— an officially licensed NFT fantasy basketball game on Ethereum — is currently holding an auction for a single-issue James trading card, with the highest bid at 5 ETH (about $7,600) and almost four days left in the auction.

Last weekend saw an all-time record for NFT sales when a one-of-a-kind Giannis Antetokounmpo NFT was auctioned for 113.9 ETH (approximately $187,000). This tripled Sorare NBA’s highest price point to date, in Ethereum.

By comparison, the most expensive NBA Top Shot moment, a LeBron James NFT, was purchased off-chain for a staggering $388,000 during the April 2021 market peak.