You are able to earn a return through the potential increased value of the cards you buy. You have the ability to buy any card you want in the marketplace in hopes of future appreciation. Although not always true, the value of a card typically rises or falls with the performance of the specific player. You are also able to buy packs and hope to luckily draw a high valued card.

NBA Top Shot is revolutionizing the collectible world, but still brings the nostalgic touch of opening packs. They generate most of their revenue through the packs that they sell. There is also a 5% card transaction fee as well as a flat fee for purchases made using cryptocurrency.

NBA Top Shot was established in 2019 and has already seen more than 70 million dollars in sales. Unlike forms of cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, which are readily exchangeable, each NBA Top Shot collectible is a non-fungible token (NFT), which means the value isn’t in the token, it’s what comes with it. NFT’s can only have one owner and they cannot be copied. Top Shot collectibles are minted according to a set of rules encoded onto the Flow blockchain in something called a "smart contract," and can only be created within the limitations enforced by that smart contract. All collectibles are licensed by the NBA and NBPA and once created are able to live forever on the Flow network.