Today Candy Digital and Palm NFT Studio announced they would merge, with the combined firm led by Candy CEO Scott Lawin and retaining the Candy brand. Candy is one of the leading non-fungible token (NFT) sports rights holders, including for Major League Baseball (MLB), NASCAR, and WWE. It also has an alliance with Netflix.

Palm is best known for its DC Comics collectible offering, as well as its relationship with DC owner Warner Bros. Discovery.

The two companies already had strong ties beyond Candy minting their NFTs on the Palm network, an Ethereum-compatible sidechain.

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Meanwhile, ConsenSys had a financial interest in both companies.

Candy was originally a three-way venture between sports e-commerce giant Fanatics, Galaxy Digital, and Gary Vaynerchuk. After raising $100 million led by Softbank in 2021, Candy had another funding round this January. The investment involved the purchase of most of Fanatic’s 60% stake in Candy. The round was led by ConsenSys Mesh and Galaxy, with 10T Holdings also involved.

Joe Lubin, the founder of ConsenSys, is a co-founder of Palm. He was also a college roommate of Galaxy Digital founder Michael Novogratz.

Therefore, this is a classic consolidation from the perspective of ConsenSys.

At one point, the two companies competed for the same rights to NFT: Premier League football. Despite Candy having a sporting pedigree, ConsenSys won the rights. However, he reportedly attempted to renegotiate after the 2022 cryptocurrency crash, with the Premier League handing the contract to Sorare.

“Over the past two years, Candy Digital and Palm NFT Studio have pioneered groundbreaking digital experiences and created groundbreaking creative tools, connecting fans with some of the world’s most captivating content,” said Lawin. “Together, we will accelerate our mission to define a new category of brand experience that focuses on co-creation, rewarding loyalty and connecting communities.”

Today’s announcement shared some numbers. Candy has minted 2 million collectibles with nearly 500,000 trades on the secondary market. The DC (Comics) NFT universe has 675,000 accounts and 230,000 market transactions.