The Integration of NFT Technology and the Mystery Box Economy: The Future of a New Generation of Collectibles

Pop Mart, as a leading company in the trendy toy industry, achieved great success by listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. This company, through the "mystery box" model, realized explosive growth in revenue and net profit within just three years. The "surprise" and "sense of achievement" brought by the mystery boxes have become its winning formula.

However, the mystery box model was not created by Pop Mart. As early as 1996, Pokémon began issuing TCG cards, sparking a craze for collecting. In addition to physical cards, box opening and card drawing mechanics in video games have also been very popular. In 2018, the application Crypto Kitties on Ethereum suddenly became popular, bringing the NFT( non-fungible token) technology into the public eye.

Despite the commercial success of Pop Mart, there are still some issues with the physical mystery box model. First, it is difficult to guarantee scarcity, as merchants may influence the value of a particular figure by issuing more. Second, physical mystery boxes lack liquidity, making them hard to trade and preserve. In contrast, NFT technology can address these issues. NFTs have uniqueness and indivisibility, which can ensure the scarcity of assets and permanent preservation.

NFT can bring higher liquidity and financial attributes to collectibles. Virtual items in traditional games are often subject to strict trading restrictions, while NFT assets can circulate freely. Some projects even combine NFT with DeFi, allowing users to participate in mining, governance, and dividends by holding NFTs.

However, for NFTs to truly explode, they still rely on the support of quality IP. The success of Pop Mart is largely attributed to its IP management capabilities. In the NFT field, some projects have already begun to collaborate with well-known IPs, such as the GoPepe series cards featuring the American comic character Pepe the Frog, issued on the WAX chain based on EOSIO.

Despite the promising outlook, the development of NFTs still faces some challenges. The high Gas fees and low efficiency of the Ethereum network affect user experience, while other public chains struggle with a lack of user base. In addition, the infrastructure for NFTs is still incomplete, as most wallets do not support the display of NFT assets, and there is a large amount of pirated IP in the market. At the same time, NFT exchanges are poorly managed and lack unified industry standards.

Overall, the combination of NFT technology and the mystery box economy is expected to give rise to a new generation of digital collectibles. However, to realize this vision, further improvement of the infrastructure, development of rich application scenarios, and attraction of more quality IPs are needed. As these issues are gradually resolved, NFTs are expected to become an important component of the digital economy.