Mr. Blue Signs NFT Business Agreement with Korbit... "Targeting 3040 Webtoon NFT Market"

[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Hyowon] Online comic and webtoon specialist company Mr. Blue is making a full-scale entry into the rapidly growing NFT (Non-Fungible Token) market by utilizing its own comic and webtoon copyrights (IP).

O Sejin, CEO of Korbit (left), Jo Seungjin, CEO of Mr. Blue. / Photo by Mr. Blue

Mr. Blue announced on the 22nd that it has signed a business agreement (MOU) with Korea's leading virtual asset exchange, Korbit, to promote the NFT business. Through this agreement, Mr. Blue plans to produce and sell NFTs of its webtoon and comic content IP on Korbit's NFT marketplace, and the content planning and initial minting (issuance) of NFT works will be jointly conducted.

Mr. Blue and Korbit aim to launch in the first quarter of next year, linking users of both companies to introduce NFT works. They plan to create a special exhibition exclusively for Mr. Blue on 'Korbit NFT' and sell merchandise products along with NFT works.

Mr. Blue, which showcases its IP on 23 domestic and international platforms, owns the IP of the four great kings of domestic martial arts comics known as ‘Hwangseong, Yaseolrok, Samadal, Haseungnam’. As of the end of the first half of this year, works produced using its own martial arts IP have exceeded a cumulative total of 1,902 titles (equivalent to 57,275 volumes), and it also has a pool of about 350 webtoon artists. Mr. Blue’s martial arts works account for 80% of the Naver martial arts category.

In addition to martial arts works, Mr. Blue produces and services webtoons in various genres preferred by female readers, such as romance, pure love, and BL. In particular, the female reader killer content ‘Harlequin Romance’, based on Harlequin romance novels, is exclusively distributed domestically by Mr. Blue through a licensing contract with Japan’s SoftBank Creative.

Korbit, Korea’s first virtual asset exchange, is one of the four major exchanges in Korea that allows bank real-name verified account transactions and has been operating its own NFT marketplace, ‘Korbit NFT’, since May. In addition, Korbit collaborated with drama production company Studio Dragon in July to issue ‘Vincenzo NFT’, ‘Mine NFT’, and ‘Hotel Del Luna NFT’.

Sejin Oh, CEO of Korbit, said, “We are pleased to introduce Mr. Blue’s works, which hold the largest number of copyrights in Korea, on the Korbit NFT market,” and added, “We will combine Mr. Blue’s distinctive IP with Korbit’s blockchain technology to present various NFTs that can appeal to readers.”

Seungjin Jo, CEO of Mr. Blue, emphasized, “Korbit is a company that produces and sells differentiated NFT content that targets ‘Deoksim’ (fan enthusiasm) on its own NFT marketplace, making it the optimal partner for Mr. Blue to promote its new NFT business,” and added, “We plan to actively collaborate with Korbit to select Mr. Blue’s first NFT work as soon as possible and onboard it on the NFT marketplace.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.