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- Trey Mancini says he will release NFTs during Monday's Home Run Derby for cancer.
- The tokens were made with Ben Armstrong, a TikTok influencer and will be available on Ureeqa.
- He has joined Katy Perry, Jay Z, Ja Rule, Rob Gronkowski and Lindsay Lohan in the NFT craze.
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Baltimore Orioles slugger Trey Mancinis is the latest sports star to release their own digital collectible tokens. The first baseman's non-fungible tokens will be up for sale on Monday to raise money for his cancer charity since he beat the disease earlier this year.
The NFTs will go up for sale on the Ureeqa platform. The professional baseball player has partnered with Ben Armstrong, a TikTok influencer, who announced the sale in a tweet on Friday.
"This drop is extremely important to me," Mancini said in a statement quoted by Coindesk. "Not only is it my first experience with NFTs, but the cause is near and dear to my heart."
NFTs are essentially digital collectibles that represent real-life assets such as artwork, music, videos or even virtual land or animals. Each is unique and is verifiable and cannot be exchanged for another, unlike a cryptocurrency.
Mancinis has joined the plethora of celebrities who are using NFTs to raise money such as artist and producer Jay Z, rapper Ja Rule, entrepreneur Rob Gronkowski, actor Lindsay Lonhan and singer Katy Perry. What separates Mancini from the rest is the fact that his money will go to charity.
"All proceeds go to his foundation working to support cancer research and those who face serious illness and hardship," Amstrong wrote on Twitter.
Mancini's career began in 2016 and was interrupted when he was diagnosed with colon cancer last year. This year, he beat the disease and has dedicated his charity, the Trey Mancini Foundation, to raise funds to fight colon cancer.