🎉 An XLNT Thesis
Looking forward to an XLNT future for tokenized assets.
Shout out to the team behind XLNT for contributing to these ideas: Anthony, Calvin, Joe, Matt, Mert, Nate, and Paul.
TL;DR: What is XLNT?
XLNT is
- a showcase, marketplace, and creator portal for cryptocollectibles, art, in-game items, and any tokenized asset,
- the canonical location for profile metadata on the decentralized web,
- a framework for managing tokenized assets in dApps, games, decentralized organizations, and more,
- a bunch of fun experiments on tokenization and the combination of digital and physical properties.
Why XLNT is Interesting
One of the best applications of blockchain technologies is “tokenizing” assets; adding the properties of digital security to traditional assets unlocks a lot of value:
- verified ownership,
- atomic transfers,
- ownership history (provenance), and
- provable scarcity.
Think about tokenized securities, tokenized loads, tokenized voting rights, and more.
We wrote about why this trend is interesting in the context of cryptocollectibles, but the same reasons apply to the general case of tokenized assets.
Product Structure
XLNT is two layers, designed with a clear divide. The first layer is the open, standard-compliant, and decentralized layer—the source of truth for the platform. The second is XLNT.co: the interface that provides convenient access to the protocol layer for a variety of users.
A key takeaway is that at no point is there platform lock-in; all trusted, verified state is stored on the backing blockchain, namely Ethereum. Users of XLNT can easily exit the platform by simply using a different service that also supports open standards. To be clear, they were never “on” the platform at all.
XLNT is about the network effects of branding, partnerships, canonicalization, and the sheer utility of the product—it just doesn’t make sense to use anything else. 🎉
The Protocol / Standards Layer
Less of a protocol and more of a collection of standards, backed by Ethereum. We’ll create and leverage standards for non-fungible tokens, marketplace auctions, p2p atomic swaps, claim management, token media presentation, identity, and more. XLNT is invested in shared ecosystem success—partnering and integrating with existing protocols where goals align.
The Application Layer
The application layer is the central platform that serves as the way that 90% of people will interact with the standards layer. This includes a showcase (“explorer”), marketplaces, traditional APIs that leverage optimistic updates, and more.
Short Term
XLNT’s short term plan is designed to create immediate value; what can people start doing on top of the platform immediately?
Creators, Wallet, and Marketplace
Showcase—a universal interface for all tokenized assets, powered by Gnarly. This has the features of a wallet, but is more of a showcase for the things you own, with the ability to manage and organize them.
Auction Marketplace—allow anyone to auction digital tokens to the public, through a variety of methods. Feature high-profile auctions (sourced from the community) once a week to drive growth.
Creator Portal — allow anyone to create non-fungible tokens. This will support use cases like in-game items, cryptocollectibles, and digital art of various scarcity models, allowing artists to immediately start experimenting on top of the platform. An optional integration with a continuous royalty model will ensure artists continue to get paid as the value they create grows.
Community, Partnerships, Artists, and Experiments
Community—Gather the community into a location where people can build ideas and eventually build on top of the platform. This is r/XLNT and the XLNT.chat slack channel (join the conversation!). If the community’s needs grow, we can adopt other platforms.
Artist Partnerships—Work directly with creators to integrate and launch ideas and onboard them into XLNT. Publicize a consistent auction schedule with high-profile partnerships—the Supreme playbook—to generate hype and brand awareness.
Industry Integration — provide a centralized API for all token interactions that provides an unreasonably better user experience. A primary use-case is gaming that takes place on centralized servers but uses XLNT to manage trustless state like in-game items and reward mechanisms. The proposal is this: build all this stuff yourself (and do it wrong) or pay us money for an integration that offers such an absurdly good user experience that it doesn’t make sense to build anything else.
Experiments—moonshots and wild ideas. Anything to push the boundaries of merging the physical world with digital, cryptographic properties, allowing us to iterate on the platform with the perspective of users.
Social—A naming system, integrated into XLNT.co, powered by ENS. Embeddable showcases allow users to bring their XLNT showcase to personal sites and more.
Medium Term
Iterate, Iterate, Iterate—Build on our own platform and dogfood experiences on top of it. Start becoming the Zynga/Blizzard of decentralized gaming. Build and launch products that leverage asset tokenization.
Achievements—Issue achievements to users in response to blockchain events: like donating to a charity, becoming a top-ranking player within a game, and more. Reward open-source contributions with cryptocollectibles. This is a mix of public knowledge grabbed from blockchain events and direct partner integrations.
Full Social—Build a mobile experience to showcase and manage assets. Build a p2p Marketplace for trustlessly trading directly with other users. In the experimentation phase, leverage the mobile app to create incredible experiences.
Profile Metadata Integrations—At this point, XLNT is the canonical location for profile metadata and ownership records on the decentralized web. XLNT doesn’t store anything; the source of truth is still decentralized—XLNT is just the delivery mechanism that makes metadata accessible. This means integrations with Leeroy, Cipher, Toshi, Status, and more. Any app leveraging Ethereum identity can integrate with XLNT to power a user’s profile. Imagine sticker packs of a user’s cryptocollectibles, directly within social applications. Interestingly, XLNT will play a vital role in the web of trust; specific assets can lend credibility to a user (or perhaps take it away).
Large Experiments — Scale the scope of the experimentation phase. Ideas here include crypto-powered capsule toy machines, pop-up shops, art installations, mobile-social experiences, and more.
I want a BIG wall that I can walk up to, put my phone against the wall or enter some key and have my cryptocollectibles (or some subset of them) displayed on the wall. —Paul Fletcher-Hill
Partial Ownership—Provide partial ownership of tokenized assets enabling digital art and digitally secured physical art as a store of value.
Long Term
Obviously we can’t see the future. That’d be pretty excellent. But here’s the long-tail of XLNT:
XLNT is the canonical interface for managing and showcasing ownership of all cryptographically-backed non-fungible assets on any blockchain. You manage your loans, your mortgage, your CryptoKitties, your house, your art, and your collectibles with XLNT. If it can be owned, XLNT can manage and showcase it.
XLNT is the canonical location for profile metadata on the decentralized web. It is the de-facto source of information about a user’s assets, achievements, and social network on the decentralized web.
Decentralized gaming becomes more and more viable—perhaps in application-specific Plasma chains—and XLNT provides the framework for managing assets, both at the protocol and application layer.
Decentralized organizations manage their tokenized assets within Aragon and others, powered by XLNT.
XLNT continues to build on top of its own platform, iterating and experimenting.
Think this is excellent?
- Join XLNT.chat 🚀 to contribute to the discussion! Welcoming artists, developers, and anyone generally interested in art, gaming, collectibles, and tokenization.
Thanks to Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Josh Stark, Andy Tudhope, Chris Hutchinson, Agostina Blanco, and more for reading drafts of this article.
