Rock star Ozzy Osbourne will launch an NFT collection called 'CryptoBatz,' a nod to when he infamously bit the head off a bat in 1982

• Rocker Ozzy Osbourne is getting into the NFT market with his collection of "Cryptobatz".
• The NFTs are a nod to when he infamously bit off the head of a bat at a concert in Iowa.
• The former Black Sabbath singer's 9,666 NFTs are slated to go on sale in January.

Ozzy Osbourne is taking inspiration from a legendary concert he held nearly 40 years ago as he jumps into the multibillion dollar market for non-fungible tokens.

The "Prince of Darkness" and former lead singer of English heavy metal band Black Sabbath will launch "Cryptobatz," a collection of 9,666 unique bats in the form of NFTs.

The collection will go on sale in mid-January. The news was first reported by Rolling Stone UK late Monday.

"Every cryptobat trait has been creatively directed by Ozzy Osbourne. Unlike some of Ozzy's previous bat friends, these ones live safely in the metaverse and are not edible… yet," said the announcement on the Cryptobatz website.

"Cryptobatz" is a reference to Osbourne biting the head off a live bat during a solo concert in Des Moines, Iowa. January 20, 2022, will mark 40 years since the infamous incident took place at Veterans Memorial Auditorium.

The 73-year-old Osbourne created the collection with a new NFT studio called Sutter Systems. They say it will have a never-before-seen feature that will allow a Cryptobatz to "bite" and mutate with another NFT from an owner's digital wallet, creating a mutant bat that shares the digital DNA of both tokens.

"I've been trying to get in on the NFT action for a while so when I asked Sharon for a Bored Ape for Christmas after several failed attempts of buying my own, and she said no, so I decided to create my own," Osbourne told Rolling Stone UK, referring to his wife, Sharon, and the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection of NFTs that launched this year.

NFTs -- or digital representations of artwork, audio and other collectible items -- enjoyed a booming market this year, helped by demand for so-called Bored Apes.

Total NFT trading volume reached $23 billion in 2021, ushering in the best year yet for the market, according to crypto analysis platform DappRadar.