BTS' parent company is making NFTs, and fans are furious

BTS' parent company HYBE has announced it's branching out into NFTs, using the blockchain to mint pictures of K-pop boys. Fans are livid.

The South Korean entertainment company shared its crypto ambitions during a live streamed briefing on its future plans on Thursday, with chairman Bang Si-Hyuk revealing HYBE has partnered with fintech company Dunamu. HYBE is the parent company to Big Hit Music, which is BTS' entertainment company.

"HYBE and Dunamu plan to develop an NFT business under a new joint venture, which will allow the artist IP-based content and products that HYBE has showcased to date to become digital assets for fans," said Bang in the English-subtitled announcement.

To illustrate the point, Bang used the example of photocards, which are essentially K-pop trading cards bearing photos of idols. Under this new partnership, HYBE may release digital photocards of groups such as BTS, TXT, and Enhypen.

"We are working with Dunamu to create a way to expand the fan experience more diversely and securely, such as digitally authenticating the uniqueness of these photo cards and making them permanent, but also allowing them to be collected, exchanged, and displayed in a global fan community platform like WEVERSE," said Bang.

Bang also noted that the digital nature of NFTs would open the door to digital photocards that have moving images or audio. It basically sounds like K-pop gifs and fancams on the blockchain.

"I believe that the fandom culture and industry itself are maturing to the level where HYBE's artist IP-based content and products that the HYBE showcases are now at a sufficient stage to be transformed into digital assets through these technologies," said Dunamu chairman Song Chi-Hyung.

Unfortunately for HYBE, this looks like a rare occasion where K-pop fans emphatically don't want more pics of their ult. Many BTS fans took to Twitter to condemn the company's pivot to crypto, calling it hypocritical and disrespectful particularly in light of BTS' history of environmental advocacy.

It's an understandable outcry considering cryptocurrency has a reputation for being environmentally catastrophic, and NFTs are arguably pointless to boot. Many NFTs are part of the Ethereum blockchain, for instance, which currently operates on a proof-of-work model and uses energy for each transaction. It's worth noting that Ethereum is in the process of switching to the more environmentally-friendly proof-of-stake model, with the aim of making the jump in 2022, and some other proof-of-stake blockchains like Solana are also being used for NFTs. HYBE hasn't hasn't specified which blockchain it will be using, and we don't know when exactly their NFTs will be launched.

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BTS' Army of fans seem to have decided the K-pop group wouldn't want anything to do with NFTs, and are condemning HYBE's venture in support of the company's artists. Yet even aside from BTS' assumed opinions, as reasonable as they may be, many fans have also expressed their own personal and justifiable misgivings concerning NFTs.

Maybe the reaction will make HYBE rethink its crypto plans, and come up with a different way of getting more coveted K-pop selcas to the masses.

Mashable has reached out to HYBE for comment and will update this piece if we receive a response.

Related video: A beginner's guide to NFTs, the crypto potentially worth millions