Fanatics Collectibles, a subsidiary of Fanatics, has announced the launch of Zerocool, the first trading card brand for the world’s most important people, IP and brands across pop culture, art and entertainment. Zerocool’s premium culture-focused products will be available on Zerocool.com, a direct-to-consumer platform that utilizes market-based pricing to ensure fair and transparent access to product for all collectors. 

The brand’s first release is a highly limited, collectible trading card set based on the NFT project of Gary Vaynerchuk, chief executive officer and creator, VeeFriends, which will be sold as a blind Dutch auction. With this style of auction, the market sets the price and almost all buyers pay less than what they were willing to pay. Buyers can place their bids through March 10 at 9 p.m. EST.  

Although the company is keeping future releases confidential for now, Zerocool has signed partnerships with other culture-defining entertainment franchises and creatives and has upcoming collaborations with several production houses and streaming services. 

“Trading cards have historically been centered around sports, yet athletes are a tiny fraction of society,” says Josh Luber, co-founder, chief vision officer, Fanatics Collectibles. “Musicians, designers, artists, entrepreneurs, politicians, philanthropists, educators and more (including the brands, companies, organizations and IP they’ve created) have as much cultural power and importance as the world’s greatest athletes. Trading cards are a historical record, the immortalization of accomplishment and a way to turn one’s support and fandom into investment and partnership. Zerocool was created on the belief that ‘fans’ are fans for life, and that life is more than what happens on the playing field. It’s also what made Fanatics Collectibles the perfect company to birth the brand.” 

Zerocool is also launching the first direct-to-consumer technology platform wholly dedicated to the concept of “market-based pricing” and has productized the blind Dutch auction pricing mechanism to sell trading cards. The only other trading card company to use a blind Dutch auction was Topps in 2019.  

The Zerocool x VeeFriends trading card set brings the VeeFriends NFT collection to physical form through a premium product for collectors and the passionate VeeFriends community. All characters in the collection are the original art from the VeeFriends NFTs, with the color parallel structure mimicking the NFTs parallel structure.  

"Anyone who knows me in any shape or form knows that this is an absolute dream come true,” says Vaynerchuk. “My own intellectual property and my own cards are something that 15-year-old me could have never imagined. So, I am very excited for zerocool, a new super-premium card brand for culture, and I'm incredibly humbled that VeeFriends gets to be the first one.”