The vision behind nTitle — by CEO Peter van Grinsven
I’m excited to talk to you about my vision, which pushed me to start nTitle.
nTitle will have a dramatic impact on the gaming industry. My company is building a powerful platform on top of the Ethereum peer-to-peer blockchain, where independent game developers maintain control over their digital rights and receive a much fairer return for their efforts and gamers are empowered to freely buy and sell games without the conventional restrictions imposed by existing centralized licensing models.
The name nTitle says it all. We work hard to earn a living, and consequently we’re entitled to reap the benefits of ownership of the goods we buy. Somewhere along the way that simple idea got lost. Think about what happens when you buy an ebook on Amazon. You can read it, but you don’t really own it. The same applies if you buy a game on Steam. You can play for as long as you want, but if you try to re-sell, gift, rent or even lend it, you can’t. Monopolistic companies in the digital space restrict you from doing so.
So when did this change happen and why is ownership even important?
Ownership is fundamental to economic development and participation. This can be argued through the experience we’ve had with the advent of internet technologies and the promise that blockchain technologies hold.
Let’s start with the internet. What has the internet brought us in general? The Internet has brought democratization of information, communication and knowledge. The Internet reduced the cost of communication and coordination. This resulted in massive outsourcing of parts of the value chain and that has had consequences for billions of people.
This graph shows that, starting in 1995, the share of global wealth of the G7 countries was in a steep decline. It actually went from 67% to 41% in just 20 years. This meant that billions of other people had the chance to escape poverty and participate in the world economy, mainly through outsourcing of production and/or skill. It’s not that the rich countries got poorer, it’s simply that other countries also had a chance to become part of the world economy. This underscores how technology can make a real difference in people’s lives.
So now we’re in the era of the blockchain. What does it promise us? I guess you could say that the advent of blockchain technologies are an evolution on internet technologies; the next layer. The blockchain promises to bring proof of ownership. The blockchain makes it possible to prove and change ownership without the need of a “middleman”. As long as these “middlemen” hold proof of ownership in a centralised database, they basically are able to set the rules of the market. And when they do, it often means that your interests are not as important as theirs or that of their shareholders.
There’s no need to remind everyone how irresponsible the banks were when they lent huge amounts of money to people, knowing all too well that these people were in a high risk category, packaging and selling them off like Triple A investments. No one can forget that this almost plunged the world economy into turmoil and many portfolios into the abyss.
Through the blockchain the cost of proof of ownership is going down. The blockchain allows you to hold a new asset class called cryptocurrency, which means that intermediaries have less of a chance to influence its value. Through the blockchain you can invest your money directly into new companies, right at the start, in the form of initial coin offerings. Through the blockchain you can now be the owner of digital assets to do with as you please. These assets operate according to the immutable rules defined in the smart contract. No changing of the rules is possible. Code is law.
Lowering the cost of proof of ownership, will lead to massive participation of people in the world economy. People become masters of their own destiny. If you worked for it, you own it and you no longer rely on a third party. World income will increase substantially, making everyone better off, as happened with internet technologies before.
And that is where nTitle comes in. We take ownership out of the centralised databases and put them on the blockchain, uniquely assigning them to rightful owners and guarantee them through cryptography. Now assets are liquid and tradeable again. This is why you should care about nTitle. We give back ownership and empower people to become an active participant in the economy, making everyone better off.
Peter van Grinsven
CEO nTitle
Want to learn more about nTitle? Go to www.ntitle.network.
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