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Vroom, vroom coming soon to the Cryptoyverse: NASCAR, OnChain Studios announce partnership

Nancy Dahlberg
Nancy Dahlberg
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By Nancy Dahlberg

First, there were the Masters of the Universe, then some of your favorite Star Wars characters. Then Mickey, Minnie and more joined the fun. What else could an innovative metaverse of fun offer fans of all ages? Well, race cars, of course. But not just any race cars.

OnChain Studios announced today a multi-year partnership with NASCAR to create a line of playable, collectible digital toys to be sold and featured by Cryptoys, OnChain’s digital toy company that combines toys, gaming and entertainment to delight fans of all ages.

The wildly popular NASCAR will be the first sports franchise in the Cryptoyverse, offering both collectors and fans the ability to collect, trade and play with digital toy race cars. OnChain Studios has already forged partnerships with Mattel and Disney, and it’s all part of the way that the homegrown venture-backed startup, co-founded in 2018 by Will Weinraub, Emilio Cueto, Alfonso Martinez, Freddy Oropeza and Jhonathan Torres, is reimagining the future of play.

“It’s a very exciting moment for us because it expands our offerings into vehicles and provides another thrilling avenue for collectors and gamers to experience all that Cryptoys has to offer,” explained CEO Weinraub, speaking from San Francisco while attending GDC, the Game Developers Conference. “We’ll be doing a lot of cool things with the NASCAR team to build awesome racing experiences for their fans.”

Weinraub said he connected with the NASCAR team through mutual connections and investors. “We were able to sit down with them and we were both on the same page on where the future of fandom is going. We’ll be providing fans with unique, fun, new experiences for interacting with their favorite drivers and sport.”

A NASCAR executive said the collaboration reinforces how the brand is tapping into emerging technology to reach new and existing fans in the spaces and places where they prefer to participate.

“Cryptoys builds amazing digital toys, has a passionate community and offers another high-quality experience for fans to engage with NASCAR. Will has assembled an incredible team, and we are excited to help bring their vision for the future of play to life,”  said Mitch Rasmussen, NASCAR director, Web3, in a statement.

It is too early to release details on the NASCAR launch, Weinraub said, but stay tuned. In the meantime, there are more Cryptoys developments coming soon from this 60-person team.

“We’re about to release our mobile app for iOS and Android and a number of our first few games and experiences,” Weinraub said. “That will all be hitting over the next few months, including an AR experience inside the mobile app so you can see your Cryptoys in augmented reality and be able to interact with them in whole new ways.”

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Nancy Dahlberg
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