For all the hype surrounding NFTs, its current concept in practice has acquired a bad rep. It’s not hard to see why, when the space is well known for one-percenters throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars into cartoon monkeys and memes.

It leaves us ordinary folk wondering, what are NFTs good for anyway? Isn’t it all but speculative value– a growing bubble waiting to burst?

The sceptic in me always believed that NFTs sold nothing but empty hype, or maybe the elusive idea of ownership at best. As a social scientist, I think NFTs perpetuate existing inequalities and elitism.

NFTs seemed to be a concept reserved only for the rich who could afford the most exclusive digital assets and the educated and tech-enabled who had the resources to create them.

Yet, I was always open to understanding the potential of NFT technology and what it could one day offer to the world. NFT stands for a non-fungible token and can be understood as a unique, non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a blockchain.

The holder of an NFT thus has indisputable proof of ownership over the digital asset, and this has the potential to unlock a myriad of undiscovered ways in which we can interact with technology, institutions, and each other. One startup is working to explore this potential and completely transform how we can engage with NFTs forever.

So-col, short for social collectibles, is a Singapore-based startup on a mission to make NFTs useful for everyone by harnessing its technology to transform the creator economy. It aims to build an all-in-one decentralised alternative to platforms like Twitch, Patreon, and Discord, powered by blockchain and NFT technology behind the scenes.

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This means creators get to truly own their content with drastically lowered platform fees (one of the perks of blockchain’s decentralisation– cutting out the middleman), and they don’t even need to be tech-savvy or well versed in NFTs to use the platform. The technology serves as a silent enabler in the background.

Everyday users of the platform can support their favourite content creators by purchasing their digital creations quickly with cash or credit card. More experienced crypto users can also purchase items with their crypto wallets.

Those who have tried using blockchain apps before will know how complicated it is: setting up a new identity in the form of a crypto wallet, buying cryptocurrencies to pay for transaction fees, installing crypto wallet extensions, and the list goes on.

So-Col leverages cutting edge technology within the blockchain space to remove all of these barriers for first time users, allowing them to bridge their existing social accounts from platforms like Instagram and TikTok over to the blockchain.

Currently, only people with resources for both tech and design can create NFTs. So-CoL hopes to make NFTs accessible to all by allowing content creators to mint NFTs for close to $0 (current NFT minting on the Ethereum blockchain usually costs over US$100/mint), as well as fans and users, to purchase basic social collectibles for as low as $10.

These basic collectibles serve as passes that allow users and fans to engage directly with the content creator, based on guidelines set by creators themselves.

Apart from basic social collectibles, it will also enable content creators to create a range of premium collectibles similar to the much-hyped IreneDAO. Contrary to popular belief and the slew of fake news, the creators of IreneDAO and Irene herself did not personally earn from the millions of dollars the passes have raked in in barely a week.

The passes are part of a DAO, a decentralised autonomous organisation. A DAO can be understood as an entity represented by rules encoded in a computer programme that is transparent and fully controlled by the DAO members rather than any central management.

When people purchase NFTs that are part of a DAO, the DAO receives all the money to be managed by the passholders as a whole. Think of it as an organisation holding a collective pool of money that can only be spent based on the community’s majority vote.

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The content creator often influences how communities vote. For example, Irene expressed her interest in supporting women’s charities and women-led projects, and the community is currently working on proposals to spend the money as such.

The creators of IreneDAO did not make any money from the sales as they gave the passes out for free as part of their proof of concept and value.

However, content creators will earn from the primary sale of their premium collectibles on the SO-COL platform.

All royalties from secondary sales go directly to the DAO, managed by members who own the pass.

Amidst the sea of technical terms, So-Col attempts to bring the lofty, elusive concept of NFTs back down to earth. The startup does so by harnessing its technology to make sense to the everyday consumer of digital content on the internet, as well as providing a steady source of income for content creators who know nothing about blockchain.

The platform will allow creators to enforce a subscription-based model on their members, completely controlling all fees. In terms of monetisation, the startup earns 2.5 per cent from each transaction made on the platform.

Such startups are creating a use case for NFTs beyond its current purpose as a hype piece, a speculative investment, a status symbol. Its platform will provide a tangible way for creators and users at all tech levels to come together like never before to inspire movements and build community. T

heir work offers a glimpse of what the future of NFTs and the creator economy could look like and presents the first-ever use case for NFTs that I have been convinced by– one where the rest of us 99 per cent will not get left behind.

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Image credit: gesrey