The diamond-embedded Bing Dwen Dwen Photo:VCG

A diamond-studded Bing Dwen Dwen, the mascot of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, on Monday showed up at an authorized merchandise store in Zhengzhou, Central China's Henan Province, with crowds of people and journalists swarming in to take a look and shoot photos. Some citizens also immediately lined up to make a reservation for the rare mascot. 

With a height of 16 centimeters, the fancy Bing Dwen Dwen is embedded with about 2,700 artificial diamonds over its body, which has a limited release volume of 2,022 units selling at 2,022 yuan ($317.94) each. The sample on display is the only one in China, and the diamond mascot will be put on sale in three days.

An employee said that the diamond-studded Bing Dwen Dwen is of high ornamental and collection value due to the extremely limited volume of issuance.  

This is not the first time that the Beijing 2022 Olympic organizing committee has issued a limited-edition Bing Dwen Dwen, after the panda-shaped mascot ignited a craze among consumers and became a global phenomenon.  

Previously, the committee released a "golden Bing Dwen Dwen" made out of pure gold, priced at 33,950 yuan, and a Bing Dwen Dwen-embossed gold coin, priced at 120,000 yuan. Both are sold out. 

On Saturday (Beijing time), the first officially licensed non-fungible token (NFT) involving multiple designs of Bing Dwen Dwen also went on sale at NFT trading platform nWayPlay. A total of 500 epic boxes, or mystery boxes, were released at $99 each.

The boxes were sold out within 30 minutes, and there was even a technical breakdown due to huge traffic. According to some investors, the price of the Bing Dwen Dwen NFT jumped more than 10 times to above $1,000 over the weekend.