The Future of Timeless and Blockchain
Following DeFi Summer, NFTs exploded onto the scene at the beginning of 2021. Year to date there has been almost $3 Billion in NFT sales. The idea of art that lives on-chain forever, with verifiable uniqueness proved to be a kickass use-case for NFTs. But there remains massive untapped potential that blockchain applications unlock for Timeless in the future:
- Alternative to Price
- Non-Transferable Fungible Tokens
- Crypto Login
- NFTs and the Experience Economy
NFTs as an Alternative Mechanism to Price
Increasing price is an economic tool meant to curb excess demand, however it is also an information tool that identifies motivated customers. The latter is also used to make the assumption that those most willing to pay for your product are most likely to possess the other qualities you desire in a customer.
Will this person be a repeat customer?
Will they ruin the experience for everyone else?
Will they refer us to their friends?
NFTs, and other blockchain applications, could serve as a mechanism to decrease uncertainty in transactions and reward loyal customers. This could be a business allowing VIPs to jump their queue or rewarding brand ambassadorship by customers who refer their product.
This is already becoming a reality. As Gary Vaynerchuk and his VCR group recently announced the launch of their New York City restaurant in 2022, in which members will own rights to a table in the form of Transferable NFTs.
Non-Transferable Fungible Tokens
Balaji Srinivasan, of a16z and former Coinbase CTO, highlights the idea of Non-Transferable Fungible tokens, a token that many people can hold, but can’t be traded. These would be useful as on-chain credentials:
In a future freelance economy, a company might assign micro-tasks and require proof-of-skill in order to pick up that work. Through previous experience, maybe you’ve solved certain problems in a curriculum or in open source projects. You would then have an NTF in your wallet showcasing that you possess that specific skill. With this crypto credential, you could immediately pick up any task with that prerequisite.
This could also have interesting applications for events or communities that care about exclusivity or want to prevent ticket resale. Instead of sharing your membership card to a country club, or your streaming account info to all your friends, these NTFs would ensure only the intended individuals gain access.
Aragon, a DAO platform, already enables users to create DAOs that utilize this NTF token design to represent membership or reputation.
Crypto Login
Crypto login shows promise as the next crypto use-case that causes widespread adoption. As Vitalik Buterin, creator of Ethereum, discussed in his EthCC presentation, crypto login dispenses with the burden of KYC rules and centralized corporations having control of your data. Protocols could verify that your address is in good standing by crawling your transaction history. When Timeless integrates with your crypto wallet, apps that you interact with via calendar event could automatically verify that your transaction history is in good standing and provide you preferential treatment or special access to their product.
NFTs and the Experience Economy
Existing ticketing players are stateless — they sell access to an event, and never interact with you again. We all have some ticket stub that we’ve kept for years, they’re meaningful, and there is so much more unrealized potential here. A ticket is completely undifferentiated, two attendees might have identical tickets at the same price, but they likely had two very different experiences. Did your team win or lose? Did the parlay you bet the house on hit? Did you run into an old friend on the concert grounds? Did you make a new friend at the after party? What else did you experience outside of the event?
Tickets that traditional event services offer are a commodity. But tickets aren’t commodities. They’re memories. Moments in time that are valuable to everyone who participated. They’re art.
Timeless turns tickets into what they should be: unique, well-designed NFTs that retain value, both before and after an event. The customizability of a personal NFT, and its permanence already 10x it’s value over your old ticket stub, and there is even more potential to unlock. Provable ownership and the deliberate nature of minting or buying into NFTs allows true fans to connect with each other.
Timeless is embracing the benefits from the ever-growing frontier of blockchain applications. We will become the focal point for a community of event organizers and attendees who interact with the ticketing protocol.
