It was at this moment that I felt confident towards the general population and the real validity of NFT’s, or Non-Fungible Tokens.
You see, when I started with Blockchain technology and my friend told me…you can ‘own’ this car, it’s a Bronze ‘mint #20 of 22′, I thought….’LOL– OK buddy’.
I didn’t understand digital ownership and I figured if a game developer created one car, they could create a million in a few moments. I didn’t understand blockchain and I didn’t understand the underlying technology required to make true ownership happen.
I was my own hurdle to Crypto
My best friend is a mechanic. A man’s man. He doesn’t own a computer and asking him to look something up on his phone is like pulling teeth. But he can fix and build anything.
Mike is a collector. He is restoring his 1962 Galaxie, not only because he loves the car, but because there was low production run and this makes the car more sought out.
Simple economics happening, the laws of supply and demand.
Mike plays games from time to time on his xBox or PS4. We even hooked up the Nintendo in the garage. I wouldn’t call him a ‘gamer’, but perhaps a ‘player of video games’.
Mike is your average hard-working late 20’s American man. He represents the future, and when crypto becomes mainstream, Mike won’t care about the technology, but he’ll boast on the fact that he owns a Bronze car from 22 Series Racing. Because there are only 22 of them…ever.
True Ownership Is Like Owning your Physical Car
I’ve talked about the technology behind a Non-Fungible Token. It’s this NFT blockchain technology that allows for a decentralized network validating ownership of these tokens.
But rather than talking about NFTs, tokens, blockchain and cryptocurrency, Mike knows one thing. This #31 Race License is mine. It was the 31st created. There will never be another #31. He just ‘gets’ this.
It was my knowledge, and ignorance, that created a hurdle for me to understand true ownership. Not for him. There is no need to, regardless of digitizing asset ownership, understands and he applied human psychology to the application…and wanted in.
Blockchain Gaming Platform
The Pavillion Hub is a marketplace for gaming entertainment. Created by GOATi, Pavillion is a way to connect video game publishers with blockchain platforms.
Designed and built by game developers for game developers. GOATi is a development team with over 50 years combined games experience across major intellectual properties of the likes of ‘Star Wars’, ‘Transformers’, ‘Test Drive’, ‘Far Cry’, ‘Darksiders 2’, ‘LA Noire’ & ‘The Darkness II’, to name a few.
Phanstasma is a blockchain for next-generation content distribution that is fast, secure and decentralized. The governance token is SOUL and the energy token is KCAL, which allows interoperability with other blockchains while maintaining a decentralized governance system.
Mike Doesn’t Care About Technology
While Pavillion has some fascinating technology with its integrations to the crypto world, the real benefits were thought of first during its creation, accessibility.
Pavillion is easy to use, integrated into Steam, built for eSports, mints NFTs instantly and is a full marketplace, and is fully accessible with over 25 fiat currencies and 34 cryptocurrencies.
These are massive benefits for Mike. He can use PayPal, purchase a race license, start playing and once hooked, purchase, trade & sell NFTs in the marketplace. While this all happens on an incredible blockchain, it’s seamless. He doesn’t need to know about smart contracts and ERC-20 tokens. He just knows he can give his US dollars, play a game and have a way to spend in-game. That’s all he wants, and Pavillion delivers.
The Early Adopters
I have another friend who has a very, very nice garage of cars and parts for the game. In fact, because of the transparency of blockchain, his collection is rather public. Head over to the Phantasma Chain Chat and you’ll find discussions about the largest NFT hodlers for the game 22 Racing Series. A couple of the guys, _22_ and powerclenzer hold over 870 unique pre-season cars. There were only 2088 pre-season cars ever minted, or will ever be minted.
When this game launches real-time multi-player competitive play, the flood gates to gamers will be open. There is an ever-growing, highly passionate, tightly knit army of SOULdiers ready to help get the exposure. There is a well-connected, highly experienced extremely talented development team passionately continue to build at GOATi. There are brilliant minds at Phantasma nearing a major milestone in their development, not to mention the current functioning solutions. Throw this into the mix of the current economy and state of the world, this could be just the beginning, the early adopters’ phase of the product life cycle.
These times remind me of the dot-com era. When that bubble burst, Facebook and YouTube didn’t exist. Google was barely noticeable and very private. Crypto had a similar bubble burst 2-3 years ago. It feels like today is 2004 when Zuckerberg was building Facebook, with his, uhm, friends. Which by the way, those ‘friends’, are the founders of the exchange where I buy my BTC – Gemini.
I say the ‘Facebooks’ of crypto are being built right now. We’re in the best time ever for Blockchain technology. I’m seeing new celebrities talking about and buying into crypto every single day on twitter.
Blockchain and Algorithms Are The Same
I remember in 2005 when I started as an SEO expert and suggesting to business owners of transportation firms they should invest money into ‘getting their website found on Google’. I had a few say ‘I don’t need a website’ and many others give me the ‘deer in the headlights look’. It wasn’t until 2007 when Apple launched its first ‘smartphone’ where adoption to social media and regular internet use became mainstream. Then selling SEO was a cash cow. I even built an army of students and I sold a bunch of education programs teaching SEO on the Internet.
Only a decade later and the idea of using a phone book is insane. But do you know how the Google algorithm works? Probably not, nor do you probably care.
Guess what, I’m now jumping off that bandwagon and on to the next. Blockchain. Algorithms are now mainstream and the opportunities are much smaller.
We’re essentially living in 2004 and the Facebooks of the world are being built. One day soon we’ll all be using blockchain and no one will even care how it works, they just have to trust it.
Think of the algorithms you now use, whether it’s the ads you’re shown, your Facebook feed, your search results, Netflix shows, or your GPS. These algorithms are personalized now and manage most of the content you consume every day. Understand blockchain, and you’ll begin to understand how this technology will be a part of our everyday life, from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep.
Be Like Mike
I don’t have to explain to Mike what blockchain is. He got it so much quicker than I ever did. When I first explained 22RS to him, and I said “You are the real, only owner of this car. It is mint #31 and there will never, ever be another #31”.
He got it. He didn’t question the technology, or how that can be done. It took my clouded ignorant mind weeks to grasps how this can be done. Mike didn’t care. He just knew he could be the owner of something unique – and that is how value is created.
The price of goods or services in an economy is defined by the amount someone is willing to pay for those goods or services. In simplistic terms, when more people want something with limited supply, the price increases. The seller wants to maximize profit. We all know this, supply and demand.
Couple trust in with blockchain with an economy fitted for supply and demand and we enter mass adoption.
Be like Mike and find your place in understanding blockchain because whether you know it, like it or not, blockchain will be a part of your life. Right now, a Blockchain Gaming Hub like Pavillion is leading the way in the smaller world of gaming.
How and where will it be integrated still has a lot of discussion and debate. But I think digital content consumption is a safe bet for early sectors. Before you know it, a real estate agent will be explaining how it’ll help a buyer purchase one of the oldest investments, real estate.