Redefining Blockchain Technology through Cinematic Storytelling
Another co-founder of the SELF proposal, JC, or otherwise known as Dr. Ko, is the first Taiwanese graduate of Singularity University in the United States. For the uninitiated, Singularity University is a school founded by Google and NASA geared towards finding the smartest minds, thus being deemed the “world’s smartest university.” Currently, JC is a professor of Interactive Design at Taipei Tech and holds a Ph.D in Computer Science at the National Taipei University. He had been a postdoctoral researcher at the prestigious Keio University in Japan, and has been with the SELF team for more than half a year now, joining in by industry-based cooperation. As a co-founder of the project and a senior KOL in the blockchain industry, what expectations does he have for SELF CHAIN?
Two major challenges in the blockchain industry
“The many features of blockchain give technology the potential to change the world,” JC firmly states, “How should we view blockchain? Easy. It’s uncannily similar to the advent of the Internet in 1994, but this time, this technology is born with money. What that means is, blockchain, at its core, carries the essence of financial, economic, and social transactions, which can bring about tremendous changes for all industries.” From his initial exposure to Bitcoin and to mining in 2013, JC bought his first Bitcoin in 2014, and successively carried out innovative research on blockchain and VR technology.
As JC more deeply understood such technology, he saw two major challenges blockchain currently faces: “First, there are still not enough people who understand blockchain (as counterfeit cryptocurrency continues to proliferate), and most people learn of blockchain through media outlets, where reports often tie the nascent technology with Bitcoin and fraudulent activities. The second problem is that existing cryptocurrencies dominating the market have basically no practical applications in real life; there are over a thousand cryptocurrencies that can be traded on exchanges around the world, and really only Bitcoin can be used in the real world (Japan’s BIC Camera, Peach Aviation accept Bitcoin as a method of payment). Such a lack in practicality is proven by the lack of installed crypto wallets. Many coins only circulate through the secondary market and fluctuate heavily.” So how can a movie solve these challenges?
A talented storyteller and director can redefine the way blockchain is perceived
In tackling these two major challenges, what is more fitting than a movie? “Movies are the most popular form of entertainment among the masses, and has the power to gather all generations of the population. The idea is that with this movie The Last Thieves, it will trigger the general public’s interest and curiosity of blockchain.” JC smiles and continues, “I heard that those who have read Jack’s script have all asked ‘how do I buy SELF?’ The most important thing is for the younger generation to understand the actual use of blockchain, what we’ve been seeing are people standing on the sidelines, waiting and speculating, hesitant to participate. But, blockchain is honestly very similar to the internet, if you’ve never been on it you won’t really feel it’s magic.” For JC, a talented storyteller and director is most integral at this time for expressing a passion in blockchain, for dedicating time and money to making a fascinating blockchain-themed film to redefine its image, and for investing in the development of the industry to allow the masses to accept and use it.
“Jack doesn’t need blockchain. It is blockchain that needs Jack!”
“At Singularity University, I learned that disruptive innovations must come from the margins of the existing industries, not from the center. Just as blockchain technology is currently bringing about qualitative changes and impacts on the existing financial industry, these kind of overhauling shifts do not happen overnight, but rather slowly erodes from outer layers and eventually reaches its core. If the entertainment industry also experiences this disruptive innovation, one of them has to be blockchain technology!” JC exclaims.
“Vault” Design: Maintaining SELF’s Value
To make it so that people can use SELF to watch movies is an easy thing to say, but far from an easy feat to accomplish. “We want to ensure that SELF has a stable value in at least one scenario, but we also don’t want to limit its potential growth in exchanges and other spaces. Thus, we came up with the ‘Stable Vault’ Design.” What this means is that SELF users, at times when the market price goes up, may go to a restaurant and use very few SELF to eat a big, grand meal; and during times when the market collapses and the price of SELF drops, there is a figurative vault specifically designed for users to take shelter in. No matter how much SELF’s price fluctuates — whether it be 10 times more or less its original value — in the market or exchange, we want to make sure that in the shelter of the theater, “the value of SELF will not become zero, nor will it fluctuate.”
Bitcoin payment frequently meets the issue of price fluctuations. Buying one thing today or tomorrow, or even the day after, would require different amounts of Bitcoin each day simply because its value fluctuates too much too quickly. And because Bitcoin does not have any gold reserve or guaranteed insurance to fall back on, there is the constant fear of the value crashing at any time. This is a far cry from our general experience with consumption, which just further diminishes the willingness of using blockchain as a new means of consuming. “As long as you go to the theaters, 100 SELF can be exchanged for a movie ticket.” This is a promise and a feature designed by the SELF team to ensure the stability of the digital asset for a specific site of consumption. Without this feature, the price of a movie ticket will constantly vary, resulting in an inconsistent consumer experience.
The First Unification of Three Different Technologies
“We really want SELF to be ‘usable,’ so we found three smart contract developers to join our team.This often infuriates the rest of the industry, because people who understand smart contract are scarce but highly valuable resources (JC laughs). However, there is really no option for us. Because we want to integrate the use of SELF with daily consumption, to do so, we must develop a Dapp (decentralized application) and combine it with precisely designed smart contracts. It is quite a challenge,” JC says with a smile.
The SELF architecture will include three different technologies at the same time:
I) The first step of issuing the SELF digital asset utilizes ERC20. ERC20-compliant assets, in the users’ wallets, will vary only in quantity, but the value of each token will be the same. They can thus be used to redeem for movie tickets and various other applications without completely replacing movie or concert tickets, as these tickets contain necessary information such as dates and seat numbers.
II) The protocol to ensure that each of these ticket vouchers is the ERC721 “Non-Fungible Token” design, making each wholly unique from another.
III) Lastly, during the crowdsale round, a SELFER character card will be released designed with ERC860 technology, which evolves the character card’s appearance and level based on the user’s consumption pattern.
It may seem like a lot to digest all at once, but that’s endemic to this very subject. Blockchain needs to be understood by the general public and needs actual applications, and SELF TOKEN proposes a solution to both these challenges that JC notes in the form of an immersive entertainment ecosystem. While this portion has examined why blockchain needs a massive undertaking like the SELF proposal, Part 2 of JC’s member profile will take a deep dive into why this ecosystem — and the world — needs blockchain.
To learn more about SELF, please visit：https://selftoken.co
