Mattel Hits the Brakes on Hot Wheels Virtual Garage NFTs
By: decrypt|2025/05/05 18:30:02
0
Share
NFTs Mattel Hits the Brakes on Hot Wheels Virtual Garage NFTs Marketplace access, community support, and redemptions for the NFT collection will continue through at least 2025. In brief Mattel has halted its Hot Wheels NFT drops, ending new releases “for the foreseeable future.” Marketplace and community features will stay online through at least 2025. The company said that it’s exploring future features, including NFT transfers and long-term strategy. Decrypt’s Art, Fashion, and Entertainment Hub. Mattel has hit pause on its flagship Hot Wheels Virtual Garage NFT program, announcing there will be no further releases of new NFT series or feature drops “for the foreseeable future,” as the toy giant reconsiders the long-term future of its digital collectibles. “As we evaluate the changing world of virtual collectibles, we’ve determined the time has come to end our Series and Feature Drops in 2025 and onward,” Mattel said in an official update posted to its website . The decision puts an end, at least temporarily, to the Hot Wheels Virtual Garage project that launched in November 2021—one of the earliest branded NFT projects to emerge from a major toy manufacturer. Mattel partnered with the Worldwide Asset eXchange ( WAX ) for its initial mint, offering collectors digital collectibles and redeemable die-cast cars. Ten series were released in total, and the final drop went live in December 2024. Mattel assured fans that “all existing and outstanding redemptions... will be fulfilled as promised,” including models like the Lamborghini Huracán LP 610-4 and the classic TV series Batmobile. The toy giant said that while users currently can’t transfer their NFTs to external wallets or marketplaces, “we are exploring future options... and will share updates with the community.” No revival of the program is planned at this time, but Mattel maintains that a long-term strategy is in development. NFT holders can continue to buy, sell, and trade on the Mattel Digital Collectibles Marketplace, and the “My Collection” portal and official Discord community will stay online through at least 2025. Customer support will also continue to operate during this period, the website reads. Brands rethink NFT efforts The toy manufacturer’s decision lands as legacy brands across industries reckon with the collapse of early NFT hype and the legal fallout that has followed. Just two weeks ago, Nike was hit with a $5 million proposed class action lawsuit over its abrupt shutdown of RTFKT , the digital fashion startup it acquired in 2021. Plaintiffs alleged that Nike hyped RTFKT’s Ethereum -based NFTs, such as CloneX and Dunk Ghost Edition, only to quietly pull support in a “soft rug pull,” leaving investors with illiquid assets. The complaint claims Nike reportedly promoted unregistered securities and violated consumer protection laws. Mattel’s Web3 foray Mattel expanded its Web3 footprint well beyond Hot Wheels in recent years. In 2023, it partnered with women-led crypto brand Boss Beauties to launch Barbie NFTs celebrating the doll’s 250 career personas, from astronauts to CEOs, designed to “empower women and collectors to explore Web3.” The company also partnered with luxury fashion house Balmain in 2022 to launch a Barbie and Ken NFT collection, described as a “unique digital and physical art collection.” Around that time, Mattel launched its own NFT marketplace on the Flow blockchain, enabling peer-to-peer trading in crypto and hinting at plans to tokenize more of its iconic brands. Daily Debrief Newsletter
You may also like

Lily Liu, the chair of the Solana Foundation, shouted "Don't waste time on crypto," is the crypto industry really dead?
The interest of the younger generation is shifting from cryptocurrency to the field of artificial intelligence, which coincides with the current phenomenon in the cryptocurrency industry.

The little deer live by the water and grass
Mining companies have never been the most devout believers in Bitcoin. Under the pressures of halving compressing profits, financial reports showing revenue growth without profit increase, and coin prices falling below mining costs, the industry is collectively de-risking.

The world belongs to Chinese people who speak English
The world is vast, and only playing half of it is truly a loss.

Why Stop at 126K? Michael Saylor Breaks Down BTC Stagnation and Retail Absence Truth
Bitcoin is digital capital, and I will spend a thousand hours explaining it to you. Eventually, you will understand, but you will still have to endure a 45% crash.

Virtuals Protocol's inaugural Titan project: ROBO aims to give a wallet to a robot
This is a key step in Virtuals expanding the Agent Economy into the Embodied AI and Robotics field.

Stablecoin Latest Report: Actual Distribution and Circulation Much More Notable Than Supply
The Truth about Stablecoin Circulation Speed, Concentration, and Structure After Doubling the Supply

Paradigm's New Arithmetic: When Crypto Can't Hold 12.7 Billion, AI Becomes the Answer
It took Paradigm three years to emerge from the ruins of FTX.

Wintermute Founder: In the Lost Cryptocurrency Market, What Can We Still Do?
This is more like a manifesto, discussing "the very reason we are here."

$1.3 Billion Debt: BitDeer Faces Tough Battle
Wu Jihan is waiting for AI's money to catch up with the speed of debt.

Anthropic's IPO Gamble: At the Most Unlikely Moment, It Chose to Say No
In the AI Era, what is the most valuable thing?

Paradigm's Math Problem: $12.7 Billion, Too Big for a Single Crypto Fund
Emerging from the ruins of FTX, Paradigm took three years

Ethereum Unveils Scaling Roadmap, What's Different This Time?
Short-term improvements to execution efficiency through the Gas mechanism optimization and block validation parallelization, and long-term scalability through ZK-EVM and blobs data architecture.

Anthropic Ban Wave, OpenAI $100 Billion Funding Controversy: What Is the Overseas Crypto Community Talking About Today?
What Have Foreigners Been Most Interested in Over the Last 24 Hours?

Morning News | OpenAI receives $110 billion investment; Solana launches Solana Payments; M0, MoonPay, and PayPal jointly launch PYUSDx
Overview of Important Market Events on February 27

Bloomberg: A Romanian Presidential Election Intervened by Crypto Traders
The puzzle of the Romanian elections under digital manipulation.

Founders Fund, Pantera, and Franklin Templeton join Sentient's "Arena" to stress test enterprise-level AI agents
Sentient is gathering builders and supporters from around the world (including Founders Fund, Pantera, Franklin Templeton, alphaXiv, Fireworks, OpenRouter, etc.) to jointly address the reasoning capability gap in enterprise AI.

Why Retail Is Shifting From Crypto to Equities: Will They Return?
Retail traders are exiting the crypto market and gravitating towards equities. Bitcoin saw a notable reduction in spot…

Canton Crypto Network vs. XRP: Understanding DTCC’s Strategic Approach to Infrastructure and Liquidity
Key Takeaways Canton Network and XRP serve distinct roles in blockchain technology: Canton for asset tokenization and atomic…
Lily Liu, the chair of the Solana Foundation, shouted "Don't waste time on crypto," is the crypto industry really dead?
The interest of the younger generation is shifting from cryptocurrency to the field of artificial intelligence, which coincides with the current phenomenon in the cryptocurrency industry.
The little deer live by the water and grass
Mining companies have never been the most devout believers in Bitcoin. Under the pressures of halving compressing profits, financial reports showing revenue growth without profit increase, and coin prices falling below mining costs, the industry is collectively de-risking.
The world belongs to Chinese people who speak English
The world is vast, and only playing half of it is truly a loss.
Why Stop at 126K? Michael Saylor Breaks Down BTC Stagnation and Retail Absence Truth
Bitcoin is digital capital, and I will spend a thousand hours explaining it to you. Eventually, you will understand, but you will still have to endure a 45% crash.
Virtuals Protocol's inaugural Titan project: ROBO aims to give a wallet to a robot
This is a key step in Virtuals expanding the Agent Economy into the Embodied AI and Robotics field.
Stablecoin Latest Report: Actual Distribution and Circulation Much More Notable Than Supply
The Truth about Stablecoin Circulation Speed, Concentration, and Structure After Doubling the Supply