Buy a bike, g… | The motorcycle brand launches with NFTs

January 27, 2022

If you’ve been keeping an eye on the news online over the past few months, you’ll have seen a lot of talk about the ‘metaverse’, NFTs and the shift to digital spaces. A British motorcycle startup is hoping to jump on the trend – Neo, with the One motorcycle.

It’s a very Matrix name for this electric motorcycle, and with wildly optimistic numbers floating around the website – a top speed of 120 mph, 120 lb-ft of torque, a quick 30-minute charge time and a 200 mile range – there’s something a little more interesting (for some) going on.

The world of NFTs. If you’re not sure what an NFT is, don’t worry because you’re in the majority. To give a quick overview, an NFT is a ‘non-fungible token’, a form of data stored on a digital ledger certifying that a digital asset is unique and can therefore be owned by ‘the original’.

Kind of like how there’s only one Mona Lisa, but tons of photos and prints. There is an owner of the Mona Lisa, but everyone can always “access it”. Confuses? Yeah. The NFT market is thought to be worth around $40 billion, so there’s a lot of money here.

And that’s what Neo is trying to exploit. Promising a digital collectible (which they’ll print for you, if you wish) alongside the physical 1 in 250, Neo is also looking to create a Discord community and various “levels” to “join the movement.”

To the untrained eye, it looks like a bubble waiting to burst, and lots of glitz and glamor to re-hash an existing concept – homeowners clubs do exist, and once upon a time you’d get things for being part of them . Maybe access to a Facebook group, access to events (outings and meetings), maybe even a badge.

This is what is often mentioned as the purpose of NFTs, namely that they can serve as a “membership token” to gain access to exclusive clubs and groups. A way to give value to something that might otherwise be worth as much as the Pokémon cards of my childhood in the back of the drawer.

Neo motorcycle brand hopes to enter the NFT market

On their dedicated NFT page, Neo has created a ‘Race Director – Holographic 1 of 1’ level, a ‘Crew Chief – Rainbow 1 of 5’ level, and on… you have to admire the idea, and it might just be something more established manufacturers are considering in the future.

After all, it’s a way to pique the interest of a modern crowd, it doesn’t cost Neo much to create all of this, and if all goes well, they could make an NFT worth millions. That’s right, some NFT coins sell for over $5 million, the highest recorded NFT coin was sold for $91.8 million (a coin called “The Merge”).

Maybe we should do a Visordown NFT, Discord chat and investment opportunities…jokingly. Half fun.