GCIMobile Streams leaps as it inks major Latin American NFT partnership
(), a mobile content and data intelligence company, saw its shares leap on news of a commercial partnership with Bitso, a $2.2bn Latin American financial services provider specialising in cryptocurrency, as the exclusive provider of sporting NFTs.
Under the deal, MOS has granted Bitso the right to promote all of its NFT products, as well as jointly developing new NFT collections, in exchange for a small revenue share on all NFT products it sells across its channels. Founded in 2014, Bitso has grown rapidly to become Mexico’s largest crypto financial services provider, hitting 1m in customers across its network in 2020 of which 92% are Mexican. Since then, it’s officially launched operations in Argentina and Brazil, and grown its customer base to 7m.
Over the past year, Mobile streams has signed a number of multi-year contracts to be the exclusive global producer and provider of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) for several prominent Mexican football teams, including the Mexican national team as well as league teams the Pumas, Atlante, and Necaxa and leading Mexican LPGA golfer Gaby Lopez.
As an example, MOS is targeting revenues of $8.8m from its 5-year tie up with Necaxa – one of Mexico’s most popular top-flight teams - from the sale price from NFTs as well as royalties generated each time the NFT products are traded. The royalties are typically 5-10% of the sale price.
NFTs are digital data stored in a blockchain, a form of distributed ledger, which MOS is using to produce what is in effect ‘digital merchandise’ such as one-of-a-kind sports trading cards – think Panini stickers for the digital age, which partner clubs believe will increase fan engagement and participation with the club, potentially unlocking further value.
The global NFT market is expected to reach US$122bn by 2028, with more than US$17bn in sales in 2021 and US$35bn expected to be generated this year. The fastest growing sector within this space is sports NFTs, and sports-mad Mexico is expected to be a huge market which MOS is well positioned to capture.
Its first NFT "drop" for Pumas football club sold out in minutes. 4,300 cards, utilising 5 players, were sold from US$5 upwards, with total sales from the drop in excess of $50k, while 5% of any future resale value through its embedded NFT royalty.
Last year, MOS raised £1.2m to develop its sports NFT business, and at its half-year results in March said it was beginning to generate “meaningful” NFT revenues.
Mark Epstein, CEO of Mobile Streams, commented: “We are delighted to announce this commercial partnership with Bitso. We are proud to be working with the largest Crypto exchange in Mexcio. We feel their market reach and tech combined with our sporting NFT licences and products makes a very powerful combination. Bitso has an incredibly talented team of people and it’s a pleasure to be working with them.”
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