Blockchain technology to guarantee your exclusive ownership of ‘digital collectibles’

Remember that prized autograph that you got from your favourite cricketer or that rare photograph that captured a candid pose of a celebrity writer? Those cherished ‘collectibles’ exclusively belonged to you.

In the digital world, it’s quite easy to multiply it, making it viral. You lose your exclusive ownership of such ‘collectibles’ in the digital era.

Here comes Blockchain-backed Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) that let you possess your exclusive digital asset.

“If you sell it goes to the buyer, leaving no copy. There will be only one piece of that rare digital asset at any given point of time,” Pruthvi Rao, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of homegrown Blockchain technology company ZEBI, told Business Line.

Authentic content

The technology helps in identifying the original document and creates a business opportunity to the true owner and further monetise it.

“If the document is forwarded 100 times, it is copied 100 times. So, it is always possible to duplicate or distribute content easily, but never be able to recognise the original document,” he said.

The firm has launched the country’s first technology platform exclusively for the cricketing ecosystem. The NFT enables the sale and collection of digital media, unlike the traditional method of distribution and consumption model that has existed so long.

He said the firm has roped in about 30 personalities from the cricketing world to populate the NFT platform with their exclusive offferings.

“It will open up a whole new world of opportunities for both content creators and collectors to monetise and populate original digital collectibles,” he said.

The five-year-old Blockchain startup is planning to expand the scope of the NFT technology to other areas where authentic content is valued and distributed.

The firm, which so far raised $13 million, has 30 employees. It is in the process of raising Pre-Series-A funds for further growth.

The firm, which has created Blockchain-backed solutions for land records and academic institutes, sees a huge turnaround in the Blockchain industry across the globe after hitting a bad patch last year.

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K V Kurmanath, Senior Deputy Editor,

The Hindu Business Line,

Begumpet,

Hyderabad 500 016, Telangana.

Twitter: @Kurmanath; @businessline