TNB: NFT Transaction Platform Linking Real World and Metaverse
Each special period will give birth to new business concepts, which will reach beyond the limit of people’s imagination. The lasting global pandemic has made “online + all things” more significant than ever. Since Roblox included the concept of Metaverse into the Prospectus, the leading Internet companies are all embracing this “filed of the future”. Zuckerberg says that Facebook will become a Metaverse company within the next five years.
In the world of blockchain, which is parallel to Metaverse in current stage, many practitioners hold the opinion that NFT can be the “intermediary agent” to link the two. Considering that the space and the experience can both be digitalized, do we need to provide unique ownership proof for the virtual people and matters? From this perspective, NFT might be a vital component for the magnificent vision of Metaverse.
At this critical point, the brave and the wise will bet on the future. TNB, which puts emphasis on “time transaction” recently, is planning to launch the Metaverse NFT transaction platform. This has attracted our attention. Specifically speaking, apart from time and professional skills of the stars and the ordinary people, the platform also plans to support the time of digital people in the Metaverse and relevant NFT tools. TNB will develop a series of gifts offered to star digital people of future Metaverse, for example, the first batch of Metaverse NFT — digital roses, for the deceased idol (for example Micheal Jackson), the passed relatives and friends, and the living stars and artists, in which way the emotions expressed by the users can travel through the future time and space.
The initial phase plan launched by TNB to link real world and Metaverse centers on the concepts like fans economy, digital gifts, etc. This is highly relevant with its fundamental businesses: time transaction of ordinary people and stars.
In the era of mobile Internet, “time transaction” has become a path of entrepreneurship. The value of labor results by a person during certain period can be transmitted online or offline. For example, live-commerce, remote teaching, and so on. Time transaction is showing surging demand, while the special transaction of stars and celebrities’ time, the previous form of TNB, has gained satisfactory results, before it chose to go global. Here is the model it follows: contract will be signed with all kinds of celebrities or those artists with growing fame, or professional skills with potential large impact, and the time will be pre-purchased and the public sale will be organized on the platform; users who purchase the time will enjoy the premium after the value increases.
This model, as a matter of fact, is the prototype of the earliest social token and NFT. Recently, TNB has entered the framework of Metaverse and NFT quickly, and it is considered that in the Metaverse, there will be NFT created by digital stars, celebrities, and various professionals using time, for example, online concert, or even the villa in the mind of the fans, etc. All in all, everything can be shown in the Metaverse and will completely go beyond the imagination of all users.
I. NFT Transaction Platform Linking Metaverse, Solving Transaction Pain Points Like “Time, Work, Ability” on the Chain
TNB team reveals to Odaily that, despite of the fame and impact of time transaction back then, because of the overly innovative model, some doubts have been aroused in the supervision level. Therefore, the team has been leveraging blockchain technology to deal with the uncertainties occurred in the transaction in 2016 and established the TNB chain system. Afterwards, considering the compliance and the globalization, TNB chose to go global and strictly followed the supervision requirements, having rigid control over KYC. TNB has gained the investment by a number of big potatoes and renowned organizations in the blockchain industry after the business was successfully implemented.
TNB is short for Time New Bank. Form the perspective of business model, TNB is a NFT platform integrating the certificate issuing, transaction, and governance, for digital time of celebrities and the public. To put it simple, it is a decentralized version of centralized time transaction.
TNB team holds the opinion that, there are many disadvantages in traditional fans economy. For example, the loyal fans who support their idols with the greatest support cannot enjoy the premium after their idols really become popular or famous; the profit distribution between artists and centralized agencies may frequently lead to disputes and lack of trust; the agency company, as the scaled platform, may find it difficult to customize the contents most favored by the fans for relevant celebrities. Therefore, TNB has shifted relevant business onto the chain mainly out of three reasons:
1. Through the smart contract, the agreed profit distribution is written on the chain, which is public, transparent, traceable in a real time manner, unmodifiable, can be executed automatically, and neither party can break the agreement or have wrongdoings;
2. With decentralized operation, the platform only plays the role of intermediary agent, while the celebrities and the users will be matched accurately based on the needs of the two parties, so that the operation efficiency of fans economy will be enhanced, and the operation costs of the platform will be reduced. In the process, the potential economic disputes between the agency and the artists will be weakened and the trust between the artist and TNB will be boosted;
3. Each NFT corresponds to different art works and may even be a small part of it. For example, some idol may make an emoj. specially belonging to one particular fan in one of the films and generate NFT on the chain. Therefore, the customized demand by every single user can be satisfied through special NFT.
Based on industrial insights and understanding towards NFT, TNB has organized some auction events for the time of impactful personnel. In 2018, TNB has auctioned the “dinner time” with Trump and Buffett, in which users could bid for the possibility of joining the dinner and spend time with celebrities. Of course, the starting auction is price is relatively high because two celebrities are worth a lot of money and has great impact. At last, the quota sold was less than 10, with the minimum deal price reaching 100,000 USD. This has basically proved the feasibility of TNB’s business logic. Besides, TNB has signed with the Korean star Kim Jong Kook for his digital time, which has gained attention in Korea’s entertainment circle.
Next, TNB will gradually reach more people and plans to launch more services with low threshold and accessible to all, to expand large market. In the meantime, the time sellers will not be limited to celebrities, but also ordinary people, who can add information about his value in the time, for example, services, experiences, strengths, etc.
TNB team thinks that it is an era where everyone can stand out. What TNB needs to do is to break the boundary between real world and Metaverse. Through NFT and digital certificates, the time value can be evaluated to make dreams come true, and the members of the decentralized autonomous community will be given the right to grade them.
Here is a simple example. A few years ago, the previous TNB has cooperated with quite a lot of artists. Before gaining fame, they were ordinary. But after overnight fame, their worth started to be multiplied, and their appearance fee can be regarded as their time value. The representative figure is the champion of the Rap China, GAI. Now, he can bring the company hundreds of millions of income within one year, but before he became famous, the appearance fee for one night’s singing was only several hundred yuan.
II. Highly Autonomous DAO, Helps Ordinary People to Become Celebrities and Enter Metaverse
In TNB, there are three conditions for ordinary users to publish digital time: first, certain platform tokens TNB need to be pledged; second, after the voting and decision by the community, which is to confirm that it has publicly-certified value; third, the rights and interested embodied in the time have to be independent rights, without any potential infringement of other people’s rights. This is the first step for ordinary people to get into the stage of TNB.
To empower the ordinary users, in the TNB ecology, three roles are set:
Publisher: including the celebrities, stars, and ordinary users that the platform has developed;
Agent: those who have some knowledge about blockchain and all-round business capabilities, who can help the publisher to achieve the maximum value;
Investor: to gain benefits through investing in the publisher that they value or think good.
The roles of agents and investors can be understood as to highlight the value of publishers. As for the ordinary users, they’re the largest base for the development of the platform, which is the root of discovering more value. Therefore, by establishing decentralized DAO organization and defining the mechanism of TNB token long-term value, TNB is attracting people with dream from both spiritual and material aspects.
From the aspect of DAO organization, TNB will firstly consolidate the governance right of DAO. DAO will be completely controlled by the participants, without the interference by the centralized organization. TNB team shares with Odaily that after being launched for a period of time, DAO will optimize and upgrade its intellectual contract. After the operation is smooth, the control contract will be automatically destroyed. Through technological measures, the governance rights will be completed handed over to DAO members.
In the meantime, the deeds of all members will be written on the chain, which technically constitutes the life-long supervision mechanism for the participants. For the behaviors of speculating somebody’s “digital time” out of ill will, the platform does not need to interfere, because the data on the chain is public and transparent, with all situations such as fake ranking and made-up purchase exposed to all. Therefore, people will prefer following the requirements and earn trust with performance and charm. To ensure the order and effect of the ecological community management, TNB has applied the “X.509 standard” digital identity core technology.
Of course, inside the DAO, there will be relevant rules made, and detailed arrangements will be made for the token publishing quantity, acquisition method, application scenario, profit details, fund purposes, and so on. Besides, DAO has a distinctive feature of mutual help: the creator’s individual development demand can be realized through decision-making based on voting, and the reward mechanism will be made to award the users who make contribution to the platform and hold large number of tokens.
More importantly, holding the digital time of the publisher is something like you’re investing in something you like. When the publisher’s worth increases in TNB, they will be given the same treatment as signed celebrities: digital time will be transferred to NFT and the transaction will be done in the platform. The investors will gain the benefits earned through such process of increasing value and the benefits of the users and new or old celebrities will be tied together, which will be formed first on the chain.
As for tokens, TNB totals 6 billion coins, and the number is increasing. Now 1.6 billion has been destroyed and in the future, regular buyback and destruction will be carried out based on market condition to form continuous deflation. In the meantime, as the number of users in the ecology continues to increase, the NFT ecological public chain of TNB, which has been completed 2 years ago, will be launched officially, as the fuel for the public chain ecology. For application scenarios of TNB tokens, there are: procedure fees of the platform, transaction media, pledged mining, and liquidation and settlement, etc. Apart from this, the culture and entertainment ecology of NFT-style can also extend the uses of TNB tokens: for example, rewards for stars, payment for knowledge, etc. While at the same time, TNB will establish its own centralized transaction exchange, which is compatible to mainstream public chains like ETH, BSC, and HECO, etc.
Overall, the decentralized DAO can absorb creators with dreams, while the deflation based TNB with multiple application scenarios can attract funds and traffic. The two are working together from the aspects of concepts and reality to form virtuous circle, which might bring the whole TNB ecology steady source of user base.
As for the NFT work of celebrities, TNB has done a series of innovations. For example, each NFT will be split from time to time based on the will of the holder, and through auction, the value may be added. When one of the holders is affirmative in the potential increase of the value, before the deal, he needs to gain the share from other holders through trading at a premium. This process is called aggregation, which is considered an internal coordination of benefits and profits among the NFT holders before the value increases.
Furthermore, TNB has cooperated with famous artists to launch the product called “time options”. It means that for some art works with super high artistic value and relatively long creation period, the artists can generate NFT on TNB before the creation starts and the users can subscribe in advance. When the work is finished and after the NFT is officially delivered, the holders can still enjoy a certain premium. What’s different compared with other NFT platforms is that “time options” NFT corresponds to the limited edition of top artists, which is rarer and more difficult to get.
TNB team also says that in the later stage, TNB will sign contracts with famous celebrities from different industries and circles, not only public idols, but also models that encourage ordinary people to fight for their dreams. Therefore, TNB may also center on the personal traits of celebrities to make “time options” NFT which is rarer and has more value, so that the loyal fans can have the chance to get to know the unique aspect of the idol.
III. Facilitate NFT to be the Most Significant Application of Blockchain Technology and Achieve Public Growth
Reviewing the 15-year entrepreneurship experience of “time transaction”, TNB team was determined that NFT is the most significant application scenario in Metaverse. From their perspectives, time is based on the fourth dimension of 3D space, and the value of all things can be measured by time, while time is a kind of value. Art works, as a type of non-standard products which are difficult to be scaled, can always reflect its value through the time embodied. When time becomes the measuring unit, many magic changes will be discovered when the value of the work by the ordinary people and the celebrities will be measured on the chain and the public in the society will also find it easier to accept this innovation.
TNB team also tells Odaily that the current goal of the team is to build an NFT platform with hundreds of billions of market value and facilitate NFT to be the most significant application of blockchain technology, so as to give the energy of every individual to the full play in the Metaverse.
As a rare player who focuses on “time transaction” in Metaverse and NFT field, it is unknown whether TNB can realize its vision or not. But what is predictable is that affected by the trend of metaverse and NFT, based on user pain points and innovative methods, it will leave a deep impression in the encrypted world. Apart form this, the exploration by TNB team in the Metaverse is, to some extent, full of romance. The key to match the spiritual sustenance of the young generation Z lies in whether the method and the concepts can reach them right into their mind.
Original essay from Odaily
