Fox is trying to build a Masked Singer NFT community

Some TV studio was going to be the first to tie a big NFT project to a major show, and it turns out to be Fox — the company is launching the MaskVerse, an NFT collection / game / thing that ties into The Masked Singer. Fox has shown interest in doing NFT tie-ins before, but this one leans on a community aspect that we’ve seen other NFT projects use (sometimes to great success, other times to disaster). Fox also seems like it wants this project to become more of A Thing than the collectibles released by other TV shows.

The company says that the first NFT for the show, which will be free and grant “special access” to the MaskVerse’s Discord, will launch on Wednesday (along with, of course, an episode of The Masked Singer). After that, people can buy packs of NFTs to build collections, and come November, Fox will be adding a game where players can vote on what will happen to contestants of the game show. The prize for guessing right will be the opportunity to buy even rarer NFT packs.

Fox says that people will be able to trade or sell their NFTs halfway through The Masked Singer’s season so that they can build complete collections. Getting a full collection of “Common Masks” will let you get access to even more exclusive digital items, according to the MaskVerse FAQ, as well as the possibility of real-life prizes (and, presumably, some extra clout in the Discord). The NFTs will at first only be purchasable using credit cards or PayPal, but Fox says support for cryptocurrencies is coming “soon.” If you’re interested in the nitty-gritty of the blockchain tech the company is using to do all this, the FAQ goes pretty in-depth.

Fox has shown a lot of interest in doing show-based NFTs before, even announcing that it’s created a company called Blockchain Creative Labs to make that happen. It already announced Krapopolis, a show created by Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon that will be “curated entirely on the Blockchain.” Instead of focusing on releasing content and related merch on the blockchain, it seems like the MaskVerse is Fox trying to tap into a show with a pre-existing fanbase to get people excited about NFT trading, NBA Top Shot-style.

That’s not a surprising move with recent hype around NFT communities like the Bored Ape Yacht Club or Pudgy Penguins, but it will be interesting to see whether it’s successful — will the potential perks be interesting enough to get The Masked Singer’s mainstream audience invested in an NFT game? Will the promise of NFTs get crypto people into the show? It’s hard to tell if either is likely, but given that Fox’s FAQ says the blockchain has an open event log, it should be relatively easy to tell how many people are interested.