By Christiana Sciaudone
Investing.com -- Funko (NASDAQ:FNKO) -- the maker of those giant-headed pop culture doll-like creatures -- is already a master of creating artificial value for collectibles by selling limited editions of plastic figurines. It's only natural that the company moves into the NFT market.
Chief Executive Officer Brian Mariotti told Toy News International that the company intends to jump into the non-fungible token market "in a very different way." Shares are up some 9% in anticipation.
"We have the ability to disrupt this space in a way that nobody else is doing right now," Mariotti said. "We can tie digital NFTs to our fan base and link entities with physical products."
NFTs are the current hot trend in the market for people swimming in cash and looking for creative new ways to invest. A non-fungible token takes "digital art," a very loose term, and turns it into a "one-of-a-kind" item. In case you're wondering about the real world impact of owning nothing but bragging rights, earlier this month artist Beeple sold a digital piece for $69.3 million. And on Monday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet as an NFT for about $2.9 million in ether cryptocurrency.
Funko intends to tie a super rare digital NFT to a super rare real physical product, Mariotti said. "That's disruptive, that's new, it's different, it's only what Funko can do."