Messi, 34, is portrayed as a king, superhero and Greek titan in works entitled “Man from the Future”, “Worth the Weight”, and “The King Piece”, celebrating his career highlights.

Australia-based BossLogic is known for his work with Marvel Studios and Disney.

An NFT is a form of crypto asset which uses blockchain to record the ownership status of digital objects, such as images, videos and text. While anyone can view the item, only the buyer of an NFT has the official status of being its owner.

The market for NFTs has exploded in recent months. In March, Christie’s auction house sold a digital work by the artist Beeple for almost US$70 million (RM295 million).

“Art is like football. Eternal,” Messi said on his Twitter account early this month, announcing the launch.

Works in the “Messiverse” collection will be available for purchase on the Ethernity Chain platform, known for producing original NFT pieces for sportstars.

In a post on Twitter sharing the “Man from the Future” artwork, BossLogic said depicting Messi had been “a huge honour”. The image shows Messi from behind, with the No 30 jersey he will wear at his new club, Qatari-owned Paris St Germain (PSG).