Zed NFTs available for Preakness Stakes

The merging of virtual horse racing and actual horses racing has fully come, as blockchain-based platform Zed will be offering NFTs around the 146th running of the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, May 15.

If you’re unfamiliar with Zed, we’ll be honest it’s a bit complicated. But the basics are you buy NFTs that simulate actual race horses. You can then enter those horses against other in virtual horse races, which are simulated 10,000 times. One of those 10,000 simulations is randomly selected, and a win-place-show is paid out just like it would be at a real-life track.

You can also breed your horses, and you’ll eventually acquire a virtual stable. It’s a complete, immersive experience based on the Ethereum blockchain, and here’s a video that gets more into detail.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Preakness Stakes, it’s the second jewel of the Triple Crown of horse racing, and filled with doped horses this year because one guy threatened to go to court.

Anyone that bids on the 17 NFTs available also gets unlockable content that can be used on zed.net as well.

The Preakness is excited to partner with Zed Run on this historic NFT offering. Every NFT available for auction in the collection will unlock exclusive offerings within Zed Run including a Preakness race-coat-skin within the game and Genesis Z10 digital racehorses. This offering is exclusive to purchasers of The Preakness NFT and will never be created again.

So you get both a collectible NFT and a horse racing NFT for your bid. A bargain!

The NFTs will be 1-of-1’s, which usually means there’s an auction involved. The Woodlawn Trophy, awarded to the winner of the race annually, is the first NFT up for bid. It’s already at 2.5 ETH (which is $8,976.48 right now), and with three days left to bid is likely going up from there.

Here’s another one of Secretariat winning the second of his legendary three legs of the Triple Crown in 1973. It’s only at 0.3 ETH ($1077.18) for now, and maybe it’s just me but I’d rather have the greatest horse of all-time than the trophy? Plenty of time for those that are sandbagging to up the ante here as well.

Are NFTs going to remain a thing? Who knows. But you can get a piece of the action from Pimlico this year right to your digital wallet to your digital wallet if you choose.