Blockchain lacks a good story.
This is the consensus of many people in the blockchain industry in recent years. From Bitcoin’s “anti-inflation” in the past, to Ethereum’s “everything on the chain”, and to the story of “DAPP” in the public chain era, the blockchain industry seems to be missing New ones can attract people to enter the market and make people pay more attention to the blockchain story.
In 2020, coinciding with the halving of Bitcoin and the "four-year cycle" bull-bear transition, a new story began to emerge.
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What are NFTs?
What are NFTs?
NFT (Non-Fungible Token) defines an inseparable and unique interface specification for token interaction and circulation in the ecosystem.
On the blockchain, digital cryptocurrencies are divided into two categories: native coins and tokens. The former, such as Bitcoin, Qtum, etc., have their own main chain and use transactions on the chain to maintain ledger data; the latter, such as BOT, INK, etc., are attached to the existing blockchain and use smart contracts to record the ledger. Tokens can be divided into two types: homogeneous and non-homogeneous.
Homogeneous tokens, FT (Fungible Token), with ERC20 and QRC20 as the basic standards, are interchangeable tokens that can be split almost infinitely. Non-homogeneous tokens, or NFTs, are unique and indivisible tokens, such as encrypted cats, tokenized digital tickets, etc.
To put it simply, for example, Bitcoin can become 0.1 or 0.01, which is FT.
And NFT cannot be dismantled.
For example, encrypted cats, in 2018, encrypted cats became popular in the blockchain field. Developers used NFT to create a unique identity for each cat. Each cat is an independent individual. These cats can use At the same time, it is also scarce and upgradable. The number of cats is limited, and the attribute values of cats (such as life, value, auction price, etc.) can all increase.
But no matter how it changes, a cat is a cat and cannot become 0.1 cats. This is NFT.
The characteristics of FT allow it to be used to represent various fungible things in the real world, such as currency, points, stocks, etc. These things need to be divisible and then exchanged between users. The key innovation of NFT is to provide a way to mark the ownership of native digital assets (that is, assets that exist in the digital world or originate in the digital world), and this ownership can exist outside the centralized service or centralized library .
In the vernacular, there are some things that are indivisible, such as a ticket and an identity certificate, and NFT can be used as an on-chain proof of ownership of these indivisible items.
For example, if I have an NFT of a European Cup ticket, it means that I have the ownership of a European Cup ticket.
Ownership of NFT does not prevent others from inspecting it or reading it, NFT does not capture information and hide it, but captures information and then discovers the relationship and value of that information with all other information on the chain.
At the same time, due to its non-homogeneous and indivisible characteristics, NFT can anchor the concept of commodities in the real world, such as tokenized tickets, a bottle of precious red wine, uniquely designed jewelry, and so on. NFT enables us to tokenize anything of value and trace the ownership of that information, thus realizing the intersection of information and value.
From the perspective of assets, the blockchain has issued enough "money", but there are not enough "commodities" on the blockchain. NFT should be said to be more in line with the reality than erc20 tokens. Erc20 tokens are only It can be used for hype/payment. After the central bank's digital currency is born, it will become more difficult, and it will be difficult to tokenize a specific commodity or service. NFT is different, it can specifically represent each kind of rights and interests, and at the same time endow liquidity to commodity rights and interests.
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Tickets - the first stop for NFT
So far, NFT has not empowered, or changed, our real economy very much.
At the beginning of 2020, more than 20,000 tickets for the European Cup were sold in the form of NFT. In view of the influence of the event itself, we can think that: finally, after the Internet brought electronic tickets, the blockchain brought NFT tickets to the ticketing market.
The 20,000 European Cup tickets issued on the blockchain were jointly launched by Shankai, the exclusive sales agent of UEFA in Asia, and AlphaWallet, a cryptocurrency wallet. Shankai Sports is responsible for providing tickets and funding development, and AlphaWallet will provide related technologies . These tokenized tickets can be used through TokenScript-compliant Ethereum wallets, such as AlphaWallet, and Shankai Sports will also launch a customized Ethereum wallet to provide a better user experience.
This is a relatively standard cooperation between NFT and the real industry.
Why do tickets use NFT?
On the one hand, due to the maturation and improvement of blockchain technology itself, many real industries have begun to try to see if blockchain can really promote industrial development.
(On this point, in fact, many entrepreneurs have a consensus that the emergence of a new field may not necessarily be applicable to the old industry, but you must not understand it, otherwise it may appear and you will be eliminated)
On the other hand, NFT tickets do have their special value.
For example, in the past, we traded a European Cup ticket. After the two parties negotiated the price online or offline, the transaction was usually conducted through the platform. Then the buyer verified the authenticity of the ticket on the official website, and the seller went to Verify the account, and the transaction is considered successful only after verification.
There are a few more cumbersome places in this process. First of all, transactions. Online transactions are convenient, but receiving fake tickets, or directly blocking the other party after paying the money, are very likely events, even if relying on Platform, both sides will inevitably have a lot of wrangling behavior. Although offline transactions are safer, they are indeed too cumbersome.
Then, NFT will play a role.
Let's look at two difficulties in the transaction process. The first is the convenience of transactions. NFT can be traded directly on the chain. The seller can set the price or set up an auction, and the transaction can be carried out directly on the chain. The second is the issue of authenticity. An NFT directly represents a ticket, which cannot be forged, tampered with, or counterfeited. There is no issue of authenticity.
This is where it is convenient for buyers and sellers.
For the issuer of the ticket, the cost of verification is saved.
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Where will NFT be used
In fact, in addition to tickets, NFT can be applied in a very wide range. It can even be said that anything that requires proof of ownership and transactions can be solved with NFT in the end.
At this stage, the two most widely used areas of NFT in the blockchain world are the transactions of collectibles and game equipment.
The commonality between the two is that the product is unique, and an NFT corresponds to an independent product. Secondly, the transaction frequency of this product is quite high, and the transaction is not easy. NFT can solve this problem very well.
Let's use a game as an example:
Everyone is familiar with game equipment. Taking the equipment in the phenomenon-level game Fantasy Westward Journey as an example, a high-quality weapon can be quoted as high as tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of RMB, but such a large transaction is quite difficult in the game. At this moment, we can put an NFT on the equipment and conduct on-chain transactions outside the game.
Moreover, this kind of NFT game equipment transaction can realize "cross-game" transactions in the game industry. For example, I have a magic costume from Fantasy Westward Journey, and he has a legendary costume. We can completely conduct NFT transactions. If There is a price difference between the equipment, and then the price difference can be complemented on the chain.
This model is actually to unify the in-game value of all games and realize the integration of game economy.
At present, on the NFT trading market OpenSea, hundreds of NFTs of different games are already open for trading.
In addition to games, collectibles are also a highlight of NFT.
In recent years, blockchain and art have continuously collided to create new sparks, and a new type of niche circle - encrypted art circle has emerged as the times require. With the help of the characteristics of blockchain/NFT, encrypted art has begun to grow wantonly in the encrypted world, and has also begun to exert influence in the field of traditional art. Some time ago, the encrypted art platform AsyncArt held an encrypted art auction, and an NFT corresponding to a painting on the chain sold for a high price of 160,000.
The industry is also starting to produce some of its own artists.
For example, Josie, who used to be a practitioner in the financial industry, has now started a creative career in encrypted art. Most of her works are based on beauty + blockchain elements, and she sells NFTs on her website at a price of around $200.
In addition to games and art collections, it is in the field of intellectual property. NFT can represent a patent, a video, or other intellectual property rights, helping each unique thing to register for copyright, help it identify patents, and conduct patent transactions.
In addition, in the fields of real estate, financial products, and ticketing, NFT has its unique role and significance.
According to the data of DappReview's "2019 NFT Annual Report", the market value of NFT and the data of trading players in 2020 have both increased on a large scale. According to DappReview, the total market value of NFT has risen from US$180 million in 2018 to US$210 million in 2019, and is expected to grow to US$315 million in 2020.
In addition, taking the leading NFT trading platform opensea as an example (others include rarebits, emoon, etc.), since its establishment in January 2018, it has had a total transaction volume of 14 million US dollars, which is about 70,000 eth. The platform mainly relies on a 2.5% handling fee for each transaction, and currently has a monthly income of more than 2 million US dollars.
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NFT, new story
Relying on the unique and non-tamperable characteristics endowed by the blockchain itself, NFT can actually achieve empowerment in many of our real economy and Internet industries.
For example, rewards for community operations and the previous points mechanism can be replaced by NFTs. For example, rewarding users with a refrigerator, but users already have refrigerators, so the rewards are of little significance to them. They need to be sold on Xianyu again, but The transportation of large-scale commodities is difficult. At this time, if we issue incentives in the form of NFT, users can easily trade and transfer on the chain, which can greatly improve user experience.
For another example, in our marketing activities, as in the past, we will send out something similar to "moon cake coupons" and "coffee coupons". The coupons can be exchanged for real objects at a certain percentage, which can be used as gifts or for personal use. However, the distribution mechanism and anti-counterfeiting mechanism similar to lottery tickets cause it to be used only on some small items, such as automobiles, home appliances, computers, mobile phones and other valuables, and it is impossible to use a similar "coupon" system, which leads to great inconvenience in marketing. However, NFT has solved the problem of distribution mechanism and anti-counterfeiting mechanism very well, and promoted the diversification of merchants' marketing plans.
For another example, the anti-counterfeiting mechanism of the product itself, the legal validity of the contract, the identification of personal identity certificates, NFTs are actually very useful in all areas of our lives.
As we often mentioned, everyone has an identity certification on the blockchain. This identity certification is like a file. Your resume, education level, date of birth, and work experience will all be added to this NFT. , or even say that this NFT is your life certification.
This is the NFT reconstructed blockchain world we imagined, and it is also the new story of blockchain 2020.
