NFTs, smart contracts and blockchain are relatively new technologies that are confusing to most people, creating barriers to entry for business applications and end users. How can we enable businesses and individuals to quickly, easily, and inexpensively utilize blockchain to license digital products?
Jengascoin was built from the ground up based on the philosophy that in order to promote real-world adoption of blockchain technology to enhance business processes and user experience, accessible and intuitive developer friendly interfaces must be designed in order to deliver new utility and to unlock the potential applications of decentralized ledger technology to businesses without requiring each business to independently employ blockchain engineers and develop these solutions on their own.
Jengascoin features a robust Rest API interface which enables developers to interact with the blockchain without requiring them to possess a deep understanding of the underlying blockchain technology. The API functionality is robust and is also useful to developers who do possess a deep understanding of blockchain to be able to complete complex transactions and to build unique solutions on top of the Jengascoin blockchain.
Upon the completion of community testing and feedback relating to the current test-net version of Jengascoin, the main-net Jengascoin codebase will be released on Github as an MIT licensed open source project. Test-net API documentation is available here, and users may mine the test-net chain or contact us by sending an email to gayle@jengas.com to receive some test-net JNGA (cryptocurrency generated by the Jengascoin blockchain) in order to transact on the Jengascoin blockchain.
Current NFT marketplaces are centralized and in many ways, the potential utility and use cases of NFTs are unexplored and under-utilized. OpenSea (for example) is a series of 3rd party smart contracts which broker transactions on the OpenSea platform (and require you to TRUST them). How can we DECENTRALIZE the marketplace into a BROKER-LESS, TRUSTLESS, chain-governed function of the blockchain? How can we deliver utility through the use of NFTs?
In simplest terms, an NFT (non-fungible token) is a digital representation of a single entity. For instance, Adobe Photoshop is a single item, a software program. Although there are many historic versions of Photoshop, each version represents a single, indivisible entity. Although Adobe Photoshop is being utilized as an example, there is currently no relationship between Jengascoin and Adobe.
In earlier times, each version of Photoshop would arrive on a disk or CDROM, or as a software download.
To license Photoshop 2022 on the Jengascoin blockchain, Adobe would mint (create) the NFT ‘Photoshop 2022’, which would represent the individual software program on the blockchain.
However, even if one is in possession of a copy of the Photoshop 2022 software, a license key is still required to operate the software. How can blockchain offer an easy-to-implement method to manage and license software (music, movies, books, artwork, etc)?
The Jengascoin blockchain adds utility to NFTs by enabling NFT tokenization. In terms of the Photoshop 2022 example, after the Photoshop 2022 NFT is created, Jengascoin enables Photoshop 2022 tokens to be created. Each Photoshop 2022 token represents a single, indivisible, verifiable license to the software Photoshop 2022.
Expanding on the method by which a licensed product can be represented on the blockchain as an NFT, it is important to explain some of the customizable parameters that are available to developers during NFT creation:
- Resale: Will licenses be allowed to be resold at some point in time? (more on this later)
- Exclusivity Expiry: If licenses may be resold in the future, exclusivity expiry defines a period of time in which resale transactions are not allowed, protecting the ability of the license creator to exclusively sell the license tokens.
- Expiration: In some cases, a temporary license is necessary, for instance a subscription, rental, or trial period. When the expiration parameter is set, the license will no longer authenticate as valid once it has expired. License tokens with expiration are not eligible for resale.
- Max Supply: The license creator can use this parameter to set how many NFT tokens will be created when the NFT is minted.
- Inflatable: In some cases, a license creator will want to add additional NFT tokens to their NFT at a later time. For instance, a small software developer may want to initially create 100 licenses to their software, but would like to have the ability to add additional license tokens in the future if their software is successful. Conversely, an NFT creator may wish to create 1/1 or a locked number of NFT tokens that cannot be added to in the future. Inflatable can allow or disallow future increase in supply of NFT tokens.
- Royalties: If license resale is enabled, one or more royalty addresses and percentages can be set by the license creator, which are automatically deducted from resale transactions and distributed automatically by the blockchain. When royalties are enabled on an NFT, 3rd party wallet-to-wallet transfers of the NFT token are disabled, and the token can only be transferred to a different wallet through the on-chain marketplace protocol, protecting the ability of the license creator to receive royalty payouts upon each and every transfer of the license token.
The broker-less, chain-governed marketplace protocols provide functionality that is unique to the Jengascoin blockchain. Because the marketplace transactions are brokered by the blockchain itself, there are no 3rd party brokers involved in the license resale process, NFT creator parameters are enforced universally, and a fair market price for resale licenses is established due to the decentralized end-to-end nature of the entire process.
For instance, using the Photoshop 2022 example: Let’s assume that Adobe has allowed for resale of Photoshop 2022 license tokens, has royalties of 25% set to address 1 and royalties of 10% set to address 2, and that the exclusivity period has now expired for this asset. User A holds an NFT token for Photoshop 2022 in their wallet and wishes to sell it to a 3rd party. Let’s also assume that all users are utilizing a Jengascoin Wallet App which compiles and displays information from the Jengascoin API within the user interface. User A can check the open bid and ask orders currently on-chain and can set the price for their ask order (the price they are willing to sell their license for) and create their marketplace ask order. The Jengascoin Blockchain holds the NFT token in escrow and then automatically matches bid/ask orders, transferring the NFT token to the buyer’s wallet upon completing the transaction. As part of the marketplace transaction, the Jengascoin blockchain distributes the royalties set by the NFT creator to the specified addresses, and transfers the remainder of the purchase price to the seller’s wallet.