We take a look at what “Flowty” is in the Flow universe.
Since you’ve no doubt been listening to the Go With The Flow podcast, aka the best podcast in the Flow ecosystem, you’ve probably already heard me or a guest mention Flowty (aka https://www.flowty.io/). But, maybe you don’t really know What The F*** it is. So let’s dive into it today.
Defining Flowty
Flowty is a platform that builds tools and services for NFT collectors, investors, traders, creators and builders on the Flow blockchain. Flowty offers peer-to-peer (P2P) services like a Secondary Marketplace, NFT Loans & NFT Rentals. In the words of one of their founders:
Flowty’s mission is to promote an open, permissionless and interoperable ecosystem that offers Flow Blockchain collectors, creators, traders and investors flexible and intuitive features to accomplish their goals.
What That Actually Means
Basically, for most folks, it means a place for using your Flow NFTs in dynamic ways that — at the moment — can only be done on Flowty. Be it listing them for sale on the Marketplace, or renting them out via Flowtys rental service, it unlocks more ways to utilize NFTs on Flow. But Flowty isn’t just the only rental and loan service on Flow — the Flowty Rental Service might just be the most exciting NFT rental platform in the Web3 space, period.
The rental process is fairly simple. What it means is that you can “rent out” your NFTs to another collector, for a fee. That fee basically being what you can “earn” from the process. When somebody rents an NFT, they put up a “Refundable Deposit” at the time of rental. If they don’t return the NFT they rented out in time, you receive the deposit — which you choose when making a rental listing — instead of getting back your NFT. Meaning it can help prevent bad actors from taking advantage.
To help show how this process works, and as a guide for doing it yourself if you want to, this video from community member ActuallyJebBush is a great resource:
This feature is just one of many on Flowty. For example, they also have the loan system for NFTs, which works a bit like a pawn shop. Meaning that users can get access to liquidity without needing to sell, and even generate passive income using their knowledge of the collections and NFTs they hold. Honestly, Flowtys tools are a game changer, providing so much more to do with your NFTs in a Marketplace, rather than just buying or selling them. In their own words:
“In addition to buying and selling, Flowty users can rent NFTs, which is particularly helpful when it comes to NBA Top Shot challenges and the Flowy Loans feature enables users to access liquidity without having to sell NFTs that they want to keep.”
When It’s Used
At the moment, Flowtys mainly used by avid Dapper Sports collectors. This is driven by a few factors. The first is that it’s the only place that allows users to rent or loan out Dapper Sports Moments, which as covered above is just a great tool in general. Second, Flowty supports Dapper Wallet, Blocto, Lilico, & more options. Meaning they can accept a range of payments — be it Flow, USDC, or Dapper Balance.
Third, it’s also a platform built by a team of avid Dapper Sports collectors. The co-founders, MBL and Arsonic, are both big collectors in the Top Shot community. So when you hear that Flowty is a platform “built for collectors, by collectors”, it truly is the case.
Providing a different Marketplace, accepting a range of ways to pay, understanding the needs of the user base and beingthe only place where you can rent out your Dapper Sports Moments, it’s a natural fit for NBA Top Shot or NFL ALL DAY collectors. But with the addition of projects like Doodles 2.0, Flovatar, and Hoodlums, I suspect we’ll see this change quite a bit as Flowty continues to grow and build.
Where To Learn More
If you haven’t heard of Flowty and want to learn more, the best step is to dive right into the website — https://www.flowty.io/. You can browse the Marketplace, check out some of the rentals up for grabs, or connect your wallet and get stuck in.
For keeping up-to-date with Flowty, their Twitter — @Flowty — is a must follow. You can also read up on the Flowty blogs to get more detailed breakdowns of their latest updates. My personal favourite blog is the “Why We Built On Flow” piece. There’s also a great Spotlight article on Flow.com about Flowty that introduces the team and gives a summary overview of the platform.
With that being said, you are now hopefully more up to speed on What The F*** Is Flowty. And if not, well, it’s not that hard to understand. So go dive in and play around.
I’ll be posting a different What The F*** Article every Wednesday, covering different terms you might have heard around the Flow Ecosystem. So I’ll see you in the next article!