The NFT market may have recently plummeted 90 percent, but Fox is "hodling" on to its plan.

When it comes to NFT investing, Fox apparently has diamond hands.

The network is staking its new NFT business unit, Blockchain Creative Labs, with a $100 million creative fund, Fox announced Tuesday.

The move comes on the heels of a recent market crash in the NFT space, with transaction volume plummeting 90 percent in April. Since the crash came in tandem with a roughly 40 percent drop in Bitcoin prices (which, in turn, dragged down the entire crypto market), it was unclear whether the crash reflected a loss of interest in NFTs in particular or was mirroring the volatility of the crypto market in general, or a bit of both. According to CNBC, overall NFT sales went from a seven-day peak of $176 million in May to $8.7 million on June 15.
Yet many remain extremely bullish on the technology’s long-term prospects — including Fox.

Fox is partnering with Bento Box Entertainment on the project and has now named Bento Box co-founder and CEO Scott Greenberg as CEO of the new company. Blockchain Creative Labs will build, launch, manage and sell NFT content and experiences, and fungible tokens, as well as digital goods and assets.

BCL’s first focus will be creating NFTs for Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon’s upcoming Ancient Greece-set animated series Krapopolis from “day one” and “right up through premiere night in 2022.” Krapopolis is billed as “the first animated series to be curated entirely on the blockchain” with “NFTs of one-of-a-kind character and background art and GIFs, as well as tokens that provide exclusive social experiences to engage and reward superfans.”

Fox’s current animated series (including crown jewel meme king The Simpsons, pictured above) are not yet on board with Fox’s NFT project, but sources say the company is, quite naturally, open to working with them. A series like Bob’s Burgers is more likely to get on board quickly, as Bento Box produces that series along with some other Fox content.

“The emergence of blockchain technology has given birth to a new marketplace that is a natural extension of Bento Box’s talents; one that allows the team to support, elevate and reward innovators and artists in new and creatively exciting ways,” said Charlie Collier, CEO of Fox Entertainment. “Our new company, Blockchain Creative Labs, also under Scott and Bento Box, will help shape and grow the fast-evolving world of creatively led digital goods and tokens.”

An NFT is a digital asset that represents art, music, videos and other real-world items. They’re typically bought and sold with cryptocurrency. Each is considered one-of-a-kind even if it can be copied (for instance: The “disaster girl” meme has been reproduced countless times online, but the woman in the photo recently auctioned off an NFT of her meme for $500,000).

The appeal of NFTs is that the owner holds what might be considered a definitive digital “official” version of an item that can then increase in value and be traded with others – like electronic baseball cards. Some are skeptical about NFTs, however, noting that they have no intrinsic value, do not exist in any physical form and only have value if many others in the future agree they have value.