NFTs: From Digital Art to a Foundational Layer of Technology. Explore Web3 in one NFT market place
The NFT industry has evolved from digital art to a foundational technology layer, integrating with DeFi, digital identity, payments, and more. XOXNO Network, a leading NFT marketplace on MultiversX, offers creators an efficient platform to launch and manage NFT collections. It enhances NFT utility through staking pools, a user-friendly interface, and significant market presence. With future plans for a native mobile wallet, integrated ticketing platform, and sovereign chain, XOXNO aims to bridge Web2 and Web3, providing seamless experiences and fueling community engagement. This positions XOXNO for sustained growth and broad adoption in the NFT industry.
NFTs are often perceived merely as an industry, but there is an entire infrastructure layer around NFTs. Beyond digital art implications such as collectibles and artworks, NFTs have escalated into something much more complex. They now encompass DeFi, digital identity, and payments, allowing for the creation of a digital passport-like Data NFT. Metaverse collectibles, gaming items, and more are also part of this expansion. For the first time in human history, we have a technology that enables true ownership of unique digital goods. This innovation deeply embodies the concepts of uniqueness, identity, and ownership of assets, which is increasingly important in a rapidly digitizing society where understanding true ownership of bits spread across the cloud is challenging. Interestingly, despite its profound impact, NFTs currently appear somewhat like a toy, similar to many early-stage technologies. The industry's outlook is exceedingly optimistic, with the global NFT market potentially reaching $211 billion by 2030, surpassing the current size of the video gaming market and the market capitalization of numerous Fortune 500 companies.
In short, for the first time in human history, we have technology that allows us to create provably unique digital assets maintained without a centralized intermediary or authority other than the blockchain itself. Deeds, certifications, and art can all be reinvented in a way that wasn't possible before because we couldn't represent uniqueness.
The NFT industry has grown from simple digital art and collectibles to a cultural phenomenon with numerous specific use cases. NFTs are now integrated into infrastructure projects, leveraging metadata fields for technical applications like interoperability solutions. XOXNO Network has firmly established itself as a leading NFT marketplace and NFT launchpad on MultiversX. It provides a secure platform where creators can easily launch unlimited NFT collections without extra costs if they opt for independent launches. This feature allows easy access to the NFT market, allowing more creators to participate. To further enhance the utility of NFT collections, XOXNO Network offers creators the ability to set up staking pools for just 35 EGLD per collection. This allows each registered collection to create unlimited pools with various features, enhancing engagement and providing additional value to NFT holders. This staking mechanism not only incentivizes holding NFTs but also adds a layer of functionality and interaction within the ecosystem.
XOXNO's platform is designed to be user-friendly and efficient, providing a seamless experience for both creators and collectors. The ease of launching and managing collections makes it a preferred choice for established artists and new creators entering the NFT space and the platform infrastructure supports the needs of the NFT market, positioning it as a key player in the industry's growth. Since its debut in 2022, XOXNO has served 45,000 monthly active users, and 125,000 unique users, and has raised over $30 million for NFT launches. It is one of the most used dApps, responsible for 90% of global NFT trading volume on MultiversX. But XOXNO Network extends beyond NFT trading and will tackle a few specific areas of everyday activities, upgrade them with blockchain, and propose a frictionless process to non-crypto users with a familiar experience that has minimal early blockers. XOXNO Network is shifting away from the Web2 model where profits are centralized. Instead, it introduces a revenue-sharing system for token holders, along with other mechanisms to boost and maintain liquidity. This approach ensures the long-term sustainability of the business model across the ecosystem. As a result, stakeholders become true shareholders, actively participating in and benefiting from the project's success, making them integral to its growth and viability.
There are several promising prospects for XOXNO Network that align well with the future potential of the NFT industry:
- Native Mobile Wallet: Provides a Web2-like experience within Web3 by eliminating gas fees and private keys, prioritizing email/phone number log-ins, and adding options to buy/mint NFTs with a credit card. Features will also include in-app chat, P2P swaps, and guardian passkeys, with optimal adaptation for web browsers, encompassing current marketplace and launchpad modules.
- Integrated Ticketing Platform: Offers a ticket distribution interface to easily create and manage event detail pages and sell NFT access passes. Blockchain properties transform tickets into liquid assets with dynamic pre- and post-event experiences and a universal smart badge innovation.
- MultiversX LST Market Boost: Introduces an innovative option for unlocking liquidity without lock-ups for EGLD staked collateral. Like other products and modules, fees accumulated are burned and redistributed as real yield rewards to the community.
- Loan Protocol: Utilizes NFTs to offer a new solution for collateral and debt, represented on-chain directly with tokens for transparency, real-time tracking, distinct ownership, and transferability.
- Sovereign Chain: An early adoption example of emerging technology suitable for mature hubs with a large product suite. XOXNO Network aims to gain sovereignty to enable customization across its stack, including using its native token for gas and staking processes for enhanced utility.
Working on a superApp like XOXNO is a brave but potentially fruitful challenge. We've seen how it has positioned itself in the market space, creating an NFT marketplace that stands as one of the top ones in the industry. Now, they're expanding their reach with new modules in different verticals. The focus will shift towards new verticals: NFT marketplace, NFT ticketing, and DeFi. All of these will be integrated within a mobile app, a wallet, and a new chain. A necessary architecture working in synergy to fulfill a vast and ambitious roadmap. A new chain will be created thanks to the new sovereign chains SDK, aiming to establish the perfect infrastructure for the new modules being developed. xChain will serve as a dedicated blockchain for NFTs within the MultiversX ecosystem, designed to cater to diverse stakeholder needs with three distinct categories:
- Integration with Ticketing Platform: xChain enables efficient management of ticketing platforms, facilitating seamless transactions and reducing operational costs. This capability supports the handling of large-scale events and festivals, ensuring rapid scalability and an enhanced user experience.
- Real-Time NFT Tracking for Games: Game studios benefit from xChain's real-time NFT tracking capabilities, simplifying the integration of NFTs into game narratives and visual aesthetics. This feature empowers developers to focus on enhancing gameplay without the complexities of managing blockchain infrastructure.
- Support for Web2 and Web3 Developers: xChain will provide a secure environment for developers to deploy their dApps, bridging the gap between web2 and web3 technologies. It offers the possibility to leverage existing infrastructure for social wallets and blockchain tracking provided by the XOXNO Network, optimizing cost-effectiveness and scalability.
To interact with the chain and access the different modules and products, XOXNO will offer a versatile mobile application and a robust non-custodial wallet, bridging the gap between the user-friendly interfaces of web2 and the advanced functionalities and composability of web3. The XOXNO mobile app will prioritize UX, simplifying terms for non-crypto users while leveraging MultiversX's advanced technology. A global badge system is being developed for the ticketing module, allowing users to access events simply by opening the app, eliminating the need for PDFs, specific QR codes, or searching within the app. Everything is abstracted and automated to provide users an experience matching or surpassing what they are accustomed to in web2.
The mobile app will be feature-rich, including:
- In-app chat with P2P swap capabilities
- Mobile and desktop non-custodial wallet for accessing different platforms simply and safely, with all the features MultiversX users are familiar with, such as guardians and inherently secure experiences.
- NFT ticketing platform for purchasing and trading tickets and registering for events
- Fiat on-ramps to facilitate onboarding for non-crypto users
- Simplified terminology to eliminate tech barriers created by crypto-native terms for non-crypto users
All of these features and modules are being built upon the MultiversX infrastructure, addressing common issues in the blockchain sector. XOXNO's xChain and products will inherit MultiversX properties, providing a next-generation crypto experience.
- Fast, Cheap, and Scalable Infrastructure: Full sharding allows for over 100k TPS while preserving decentralization and ensuring consistently low transaction fees, with transactions as fast as 1 second and instant finality.
- Native Assets: Granting users real ownership over their assets, enhancing security and simplifying asset management.
- Top-Notch UX: Features like meta-transactions and paymaster transactions enable dApps to pay fees for users and allow payment with any token. Herotags facilitate asset transfers between users without requiring knowledge of complex blockchain addresses.
- On-Chain 2FA Guardian Feature: Adds an extra layer of security, allowing users to feel secure while owning their assets.
XOXNO is striving to achieve a self-sustaining ecosystem through the scaling of their business and the introduction of the $XOXNO token. This involves generating sufficient revenue to cover its operating expenses, reinvest in growth, and withstand market fluctuations.
XOXNO provides infrastructure & products for a market that is still in its formative stages.
All of XOXNO products find themselves between Inception & Shakeout stages.
The NFT market is in the most advanced stage - the Shakeout. We’re seeing increased regulation from governments, market correction that forces speculative / less sustainable products to exit, and consolidation from market leaders that focus on innovation & differentiation: unique features, better user experience, more secure platforms (e.g. global market leader MagicEden constant innovation in features & expansion to new chains).
We can position the rest of the XOXNO products/modules in the following stages:
- Liquid Staking (DeFi): Growth stage.
- Ticketing: Late Inception stage.
- Borrowing & Lending (DeFi): Growth stage.
- Sovereign Chain: Inception stage.
The classification is based on general indicators applied to the global market (not specifically to the MultiversX ecosystem). It is evident that the blockchain market is here to stay and is on a trajectory towards global adoption. Most web3 companies have started to focus on user-friendly products, as opposed to satisfying only the needs of early adopters/power users.
XOXNO has similarly identified its market and developed products & features aimed at a global audience.
Currently, the XOXNO business model relies on collecting fees from its diverse range of products and services, like transaction fees from its marketplace, ticketing, DeFI, NFT Staking for Creators, and more. In the future, XOXNO can introduce subscriptions or one-time payments for premium features or enterprise solutions.
At the core of the XOXNO ecosystem, there’s the XOXNO Accumulator (a smart contract module) that collects all the fees and converts them to $XOXNO token. From the accumulator, 60% of the fees are sent to the XOXNO treasury while 40% of the fees are used for the token’s economy (30% burn, 70% liquid staking program).
Until now, the XOXNO marketplace has operated with 1% fees and it has generated over 8,000 $EGLD since launch. The NFT Staking program for creators has generated over 3,500 $EGLD, and the registration of creators has brought over 1,000 $EGLD.
Besides these numbers that can be easily calculated from publicly available data, XOXNO could have benefited from custom integrations of NFT collections or different types of marketing deals and partnerships.
With the transition to XOXNO Network and the unveiling of new modules, XOXNO stands to expand its revenue streams in markets that are way bigger:
- DeFi market: 5x bigger than the NFT market
- Ticketing market: 4.5x bigger than the NFT market
Instead of playing the game of 'If they capture 1% of the market, they'll generate billions in revenue', we can focus on making informed projections. Assuming XOXNO is able to deliver the same quality of product that it managed to deliver in the NFT sector & capture a similar market share, we can see a revenue increase by 10x that will flow through the $XOXNO token.
However, this projection is still superficial due to the difference in markets, fee structures, and so on. For example, the ticketing industry operates on fees between 5-7% (higher than NFTs), while the DeFi industry has 0-1% and it relies on a token-based economy (lower or equal to NFTs). Even so, this simple projection can help us comprehend part of the potential XOXNO has.
What’s important to note here is that all revenue generated by XOXNO products will be exchanged for $XOXNO tokens, making it a center-piece with multiple utilities in their ecosystem.
XOXNO has nurtured a strong community around their existing business, and it has done so by listening to customer feedback and aligning their products with the needs of the market.
An example comes to mind that showcases their community-orientated approach: since its launch, XOXNO has not changed their 1% service fee, even after taking & maintaining a substantial lead against its competitors.
XOXNO Network has operated a successful marketplace, while they’ve battle-tested all of their systems.
Their smart contracts & infrastructure have handled the launch of thousands of collections, +30 million USD volume, and tens of thousands of active users. It has been the most used dApp on the MultiversX ecosystem, handling all tasks successfully.
There have been cases of minor bugs, but they’ve always been quickly patched. Based on public data, no “game-breaking” bugs or issues have ever been reported.
One key aspect that set XOXNO apart was their ability to innovate & adapt. They’ve created unique features that couldn’t be found on other marketplaces (even global MPs), like wallet-2-wallet chat, aggregation of other marketplaces, liquid sell, payments with FIAT & Binance, and NFT Staking.
Their development team proved knowledgeable enough to deploy complicated modules very fast. We can expect a similar focus on the upcoming products (DeFi, Ticketing), especially given the fact that most of them are already built.
Talent acquisition is a challenging task for innovative companies. They must find talented individuals capable of handling multiple tasks with ease. Fortunately for XOXNO, this starts from the top. Mihai Eremia, the founder, is a full stack developer with an in-depth understanding of most protocols. Through perseverance and consistency, he has always managed to tackle the most difficult technical challenges. Alongside Mihai Androne, a senior cloud engineer from Microsoft, they have developed and maintained a powerful infrastructure that has overcome all technical obstacles.
On the operations, marketing, and business fronts, Ulyana Sivolobova and Adam Noaf have consistently delivered high-quality results, while Boris Pohland has excelled in managing user interface and experience. Other collaborators have made significant contributions to both existing and upcoming products.
As XOXNO scales its business into a network of products requiring more resources, the question arises whether they can continue to acquire similarly talented individuals. Based on their experience, the answer appears to be a clear yes.
In general, remarkable individuals have the capacity to objectively evaluate new hires and determine if they are a good fit for the company. XOXNO has proven beyond doubt that it can build amazing products with limited resources. Unlike similar leading NFT marketplaces on other blockchains that have teams of over 25 developers and millions of dollars in funding, XOXNO has created a robust and secure infrastructure with just a fraction of those resources.
XOXNO has established a strong market presence and brand identity through consistent campaigns, strategic partnerships, and a unique brand name.
The brand name has faced criticism for being difficult to spell or remember. A common misspelling, "SOCKS NO," has sparked numerous memes, which the team has cleverly leveraged by distributing free merchandise at events featuring socks or t-shirts with a socks emoticon. This approach has arguably made the name more recognizable.
Despite the criticisms, the correct spelling, X-O-X-NO, and the uniqueness of the name have contributed to their notoriety. A simple Google search for “xoxno” yields results exclusively related to their company and products.
However, given their user-oriented products like Ticketing, XOXNO should anticipate a challenging journey to become a household name. It’s also worth noting that “XOXNO” is now “XOXNO Network,” allowing them to function as a parent company and release different products under various names.
Building a strong community is challenging and often underestimated by many companies. XOXNO, however, has excelled in this area by establishing itself as a community-driven product. They maintain close relationships with their users and partners through active engagement on social channels like Telegram, Discord, and Twitter. For instance, new features are frequently previewed on these platforms, and user feedback is directly incorporated, leading to product improvements before they are officially launched.
Additionally, the upcoming token launch has enabled them to create a rewarding airdrop for their active community: 3.5% of the $XOXNO supply is dedicated to community airdrops. The first part of this airdrop is available for users who consistently use the platform to claim at TGE, while the rest is reserved for upcoming community-building initiatives. One million tokens will be unlocked at strategic stages to support the launch of different modules, incentivizing user interactions with new products.
The relationship with their community has also been strengthened through meaningful partnerships with upcoming projects, offering perks like whitelist spots, NFTs, tokens, and custom integrations of requested features.
The token launch has also allowed them to introduce a custom fee structure for their community:
- NFTs listed in $XOXNO token will have the smallest fees: 0.9%
- NFT creators who mint in $XOXNO token will pay only 1% fees
- Active traders using the liquid staking protocol will benefit from a tier-based system that can lower fees to as low as 0.5%
To drive user engagement further, a more gamified experience for users would be beneficial. Similar marketplaces have succeeded with task-based systems that keep users active. While XOXNO currently lacks such a module, it could be easily developed later. Adding simple tasks like “daily login,” “fastest buy,” and “most active trader,” and rewarding them with $XOXNO tokens or XP could incentivize users to engage more. A leaderboard for these tasks could further enhance this effort.
Beneath the ambitious whitepaper and roadmap presented by XOXNO Network, several factors emerge as potential catalysts in driving enterprise adoption. Driving enterprise adoption is no small feat, as the target audience is typically unfamiliar with Web3 terminology and relatively unconcerned about token pricing and its related dynamics. To achieve a high success rate of conversion towards non-Web3 enterprises, the following aspects must be fulfilled:
- The Right Language: Conveying value, establishing understanding, and deriving benefits require a different language than what is commonly used in Web3.
- Seamless Onboarding: The process should easily integrate into existing traditional systems, minimizing friction.
- Simple Fee Structure: Bridge typically complex Web3 tokenization fee structures with a simplified, fiat-based fee structure.
NFT ticketing has long been considered an ideal use-case in the Web3/blockchain space. However, its lack of adoption to date is puzzling. One significant oversight is the approach and implementation needed to drive mainstream adoption in Web3 NFT ticketing. While a self-custody NFT ticket may seem "cool," it’s essential to understand that simplicity is key. Web2 users prefer straightforward solutions, and what appeals to the Web3 audience can be a barrier to Web2 adoption. XOXNO's opportunity lies in enabling a ticketing system integration that is seamless, even for a Web2 enterprise with limited Web3 knowledge, and usable by a typical user without any Web3 knowledge.
The tokenization of debt positions is an intriguing concept, likely to be piloted on a smaller scale within the DeFi/retail world before larger enterprise volumes are considered. The outlined use-case applicability to assets such as tokenized real estate presents an interesting proposition. However, regulatory and compliance hurdles must be overcome before this becomes a reality for enterprises. XOXNO Network’s innovative approach shows promise, but many intricacies need to be resolved and piloted before a successful enterprise adoption.
Fractionalisable NFTs offer intriguing use-cases for enterprises looking to tokenize various real-world assets. For instance, owning a fraction of real estate is a compelling proposition not easily enabled by existing technologies. However, the same regulatory compliance challenges as tokenizing debt positions apply. While this presents a unique opportunity, stringent regulations must be in place to ensure compliance. Despite these challenges, fractionalisable NFTs remain a viable use-case for the retail audience and offer potential for enterprises.
The concept of third-party enterprises utilizing the XOXNO Network Sovereign Chain is an innovative approach, leveraging functions already built by XOXNO and channeling them into prospect clients. However, the whitepaper lacks detailed definitions of services and functionality packaging for enterprises. To gain traction, xChain must be clearly defined and integrated as part of an NFT-as-a-Service (NaaS) package, simplifying enterprise adoption and integration by offloading the technical workload to Web3 specialists.
Various aspects of the XOXNO Network whitepaper are relevant and applicable to enterprises. For successful enterprise adoption, XOXNO Network must speak the enterprise language and remove typical Web3 barriers, ensuring seamless processes and integrations. Additionally, the fee model must be easily understood by a non-Web3 audience, as typical Web3 fee models are complex and often unpredictable due to cryptocurrency volatility.
XOXNO Network has a significant opportunity to serve both the Web3 audience and onboard applicable Web2 enterprises. Achieving success in serving both audiences will enable XOXNO Network to become a sustainable and scalable solution provider within the MultiversX ecosystem and beyond.
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