China social media star Bart Baker to drop 8 NFTs with DeFine Art

NFT mania is reaching Asia as one of the region's most popular social media influencers is set to tokenize a series of videos.

Bart Baker, arguably the most famous American social media influencer in China, is releasing a series of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, in collaboration with DeFine Art.

Baker, who has around 24 million followers across multiple Chinese social media platforms, will auction eight unique NFTs as part of the collaboration. One of the NFTs, called "The Bart Baker Experience," will allow the winner of the auction to make a video with Baker that will be circulated on social media and minted into an NFT. The other seven auctions will be for Baker’s most popular videos minted in NFT format.

Commenting on his collaboration with DeFine Art and the growth of NFTs, Baker said:

“NFTs are gaining massive adoption in western markets, but have not yet gained meaningful traction in Asia. With this NFT drop in partnership with DeFine Art, not only do I want to change that, but also do it in an innovative way by launching the first video in NFT form.”

DeFine commented:

“The partnership with prominent Asia influencer Bart Baker could be the early signal of an Asia NFT boom that has emerged in the West.”

Baker rose to fame on YouTube by creating parodies of famous pop songs. Despite having more than 10 million followers, Baker abandoned YouTube three years ago after the platform reportedly removed him from the Google Preferred program, which impacted his earnings and view rates. Since then, he has been churning out content for Chinese social media platforms like Kwai and Douyin.

DeFine Art markets itself as Asia’s first decentralized NFT platform, with a focus on digital art, music, videos, gaming and collectibles. The platform officially launched earlier this month with several high-profile creators, including Baker and South Korean artist and animator Mari Kim.

DeFine is working to establish an NFT ecosystem in Asia at a time of heightened interest in digital art and collectibles. The platform aims to mirror OpenSea, a leading NFT marketplace that recently received $23 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz and other prominent investors. 

As Cointelegraph previously reported, the NFT market quadrupled in size in 2020 and appears to be growing significantly this year as well. That growth is exemplified by the recent auction of “Everydays: The First 5000 Days,” a digital artwork that raised $69.3 million on Christie’s earlier this month.