Sony Commemorates 25 Years of Aibo with Soulbound NFT Collection

Tech giant Sony is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its Aibo companion robot dog by launching an officially licensed soulbound NFT collection called “Entertainment Robot Aibo” on the Soneium blockchain.

The collection is unique in that it cannot be traded or transferred due to its soulbound nature. Users can mint the NFTs for free on OpenSea’s marketplace, only incurring a small gas fee to initiate the transaction.

In the official Discord community, the Soneium team expressed that Aibo’s reemergence as a soulbound token on the Ethereum layer-2 chain—developed alongside Startale Group—captures the essence of the original robot dog.

> “Aibo was never just a product—it was a companion,” they stated. “These non-transferable assets reflect the unique bond between Aibo and its owner.”

To date, over 9.8 million Aibo NFTs have been minted; however, there are only around 38,000 unique owners according to OpenSea’s data, mainly because individual wallets can mint up to 1,000 NFTs. The minting period will conclude on March 24.

A representative for Soneium did not respond immediately to Decrypt’s inquiry.

Aibo first made its debut in 1999 at a price of $2,500, offering an “intelligent and trainable robot companion” that could bark, walk, wag its tail, and play with a ball. Since then, various models with numerous upgrades and features have been released, with the most recent model appearing in 2018.

No details were provided regarding potential future benefits for “Entertainment Robot Aibo” token holders.

Sony Block Solutions Labs launched Soneium’s mainnet in January, which has now processed over 50 million transactions since going live and previously supported a series of music NFT launches.

Edited by Andrew Hayward