NFT-as-a-Service (NFTaaS) — A New Business Commercialization Model for Brands

The evolution of NFTs has been fast, unpredictable, and meteoric. And yet, there is a discovery every new day and more still to be discovered in the future. In all of its growth, one commonality shines through — business applications. Businesses are struggling to incorporate NFTs and stay relevant in the wave of blockchain, metaverse, and Web 3 dominating the traditional ways.

There have indeed been many strides taken by businesses to adjust. Brands like Adidas, Samsung, Coca-Cola, etc., are already making notable moves, but there is still more to be done and for now, more represents NFT-as-a-service and how it can help brands create a commercialization model.

But first things first, what are NFTs?

What are NFTs?

NFTs or non-fungible tokens are unique blockchain tokens and cannot be exchanged with another similar token. They are digital assets representing real-world objects like music, images, text, videos, property, etc. Anything can be made an NFT, and companies in the fashion industry are investing in creating digital assets that represent their physical counterparts.

Each NFT has unique characteristics that make for difficulty in evaluation and exchange. It is this non-fungibility that makes NFTs different from cryptocurrency tokens. For example, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin can all be exchanged within themselves or with the stablecoin USDT because they aren’t unique, and their values can be quickly evaluated and compared with the values of other cryptocurrencies. The same cannot be said for NFTs because it is near impossible to evaluate and equate one digital collectible, such as Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, to another collectible like Beeple’s 5000 Days.

When NFTs started becoming popular in 2020 and 2021, people went haywire, minting NFTs of anything from images to GIFs. This era was known as the digital collectible era when NFTs were valued for ownership and rarity. But the introduction of utility NFTs designed to offer more value than collection has changed things considerably. For one, utility NFTs have opened the door for more practical use by businesses in the metaverse. Coupled with the evident proof of ownership and distribution, there are many ways that business industries can benefit from NFTs.

How Utility NFTs are used in Important Industries

Utility NFTs are fast gaining relevance in a multitude of industries, such as:

Gaming Industry

NFT use within the gaming industry has given rise to play-to-earn games and the interoperability of assets. Play-to-earn game or GameFi is a decentralized game model that allows players to reap virtual and real-world benefits from their in-game assets. In a play-to-earn game, in-game assets like weapons or upgraded game avatars can be transferred and sold for cryptocurrency or fiat. But what could be the most significant use of NFTs in the gaming industry has to do with the interoperability of game tokens and assets. Players can port their assets from one game world to another quite easily. Some of the big play-to-earn games include Axie’s Infinity and Decentraland Mana.

Social Media

Social media is a strong catalyst for NFT’s meteoric rise in popularity. The open discourse around NFTs and the growing attention it has enjoyed has been boosted by conversations that started and are sustained by social media. But, as helpful as social media has been to NFTs, NFTs can be just as helpful.

Not much has been done yet, but the biggest social media platforms like Meta and Twitter are already making moves to integrate NFTs with their platforms. The CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, believes that the metaverse is the future of social media and social connection. In the future, NFTs will be the identity avatars for users in the metaverse space as they interact with each other.

But for now, NFTs help content creators hold ownership of the intellectual content on social media, but the future is bright for this partnership.

Online Marketplaces

According to Consensys, NFTs coral 10% of the global art sales. This might not seem to be a lot, but it is significant. It means that creatives are choosing to sell their intellectual properties on NFT marketplaces and that NFT marketplaces are growing. Why is this important? It’s essential because online marketplaces are growing to exclude the idea of ‘a middleman.’ But there’s something else still. In a world where forgeries, copies, and doubts of originality exist, the origin and validity of rare art pieces can be confirmed. The top two NFT marketplaces where you can mint and sell your NFT are OpenSea and Rarible.

Big luxury brands like Dior, Adidas, Birkin, etc., can also take advantage of the benefits of NFT marketplaces to highlight and reduce the sale of forgeries by using NFT tokens to represent the physical products. It’ll compound the rarity while also showing indisputable proof of ownership. They can also take it one step further by setting up royalty payments for the resale of their products. Prada has already partnered with LVMH to create Aura, a blockchain platform that gives buyers an NFT token of their product that shows the origin, validity, and manufacturing process.

Real Estate

The real estate industry is one of the key industries to benefit from NFTs. The adoption of NFTs in real estate makes the process of buying and selling a property more straightforward and more efficient and adds benefits that the traditional methods can’t provide. To begin with, using NFTs in real estate takes away the hassling and time-wasting process of ownership transfer. With NFTs, the property transfer is only as quick as the buyer makes a payment. Not only is it swift, but ownership is also ironclad and easily proved. In addition, taking out a mortgage on your property is faster and easier on DeFi than in traditional finance. Like every other industry using NFTs, its role is still in its nascent stages and would likely advance to include more benefits.

Music and Content Creation

Creatives are arguably the first set of people to enjoy the benefits of NFTs, even when they were just digital collectibles. NFTs allowed content creators to hold the rights over their creations and enjoy maximum benefits without going through third parties. Musicians can sell their music as NFTs directly to fans and keep the ownership of their creations and all of the compensation. Now that utility NFTs have even more to offer, creatives can further set up a royalty agreement that makes them eligible for royalties of the sale of their intellectual property. Musicians and artists can also use utility NFTs to organize virtual exhibitions and concerts. Artists can also sell merch and be eligible for all proceeds using NFT tokens. Eminem is one of the artists who has explored NFTs in this manner.

While several industries have already started using NFTs, there is more than NFTs can offer businesses. The next trend on the rise is NFT-as-a-service (NFTaaS). Just like software-as-a-service, SaaS, and blockchain-as-a-service, BaaS, NFT-as-a-service will change the scene for businesses as we transition into Web 3.

What is NFT-as-a-Service (NFTaaS)?

NFT-as-a-service is simply the third-party building and management of cloud-based networks for companies creating NFT applications. Like BaaS, NFTaaS is still a new development even as companies are springing up in the NFT field, and older businesses are slowly adopting NFTs. However, the demand for NFTaaS companies and services hasn’t hit its peak yet and will keep growing as the internet fully transitions from Web 2 to Web 3.

How does NFT as a service work? It follows the same model as BaaS by letting companies use cloud-based networks and services to build and manage their own NFT applications. The parameters for what services NFTaaS covers are not set yet, but there will be a more apparent limit in the coming years with more companies needing these services. One such company offering NFT-as-a-service is Solarr, a decentralized NFT-commerce and NFT-Fi platform.

Now you know what NFT-as-a-service is, what kind of businesses need it, and why?

Why Businesses need NFTs-as-a-Service (NFTaaS)

The cost of setting up an NFT application is a lot, and many companies cannot afford to be self-sufficient. For example, a company offering NFT services may require software that helps make payment more efficient. They don’t need to build their network to get it done when they can get the service from a NFTaaS company offering that in exchange for a monthly subscription fee. Businesses need NFTaaS to avoid operating at a high cost.

Solarr’s NFT-as-a-Service for Brands

Solarr is one of the few NFTaaS companies helping businesses transition to the metaverse by offering a branded NFT strategy for businesses. The services are broken down into five stages -

• Compose
• Design
• Mint
• Launch
• Redeem

Each stage has key deliverables and spans from conception to post-launch maintenance.

Compose

This stage is the planning stage, and the services include:

1. Devising NFT strategy
2. Composing NFT utilities and design
3. Defining NFT offers and benefits
4. Defining royalty rules
5. Defining NFT design strategy
6. Developing pricing strategy

Companies can expect to get the following deliverables from this stage:

• Strategic advisory on brand NFT strategy and NFT utility
• NFT minting and release schedule
• NFT pre-launch and post-lunch plan

Design

The design stage covers all the essential design aspects of an NFT brand, including:

1. Developing NFT design
2. Crossover collaboration with famous designers for crossover NFTs.
3. Developing 2D/3D avatar designs for the metaverse
4. Designing and customizing branded storefront for SOLARR square

The deliverables expected in this stage are:

• NFT graphic design
• NFT avatar design
• NFT 3D model
• Minting-ready final artwork
• Branded Storefront design

Mint

Businesses are eligible for these services under the mint stage.

1. Development of smart contracts
2. Minting NFT with SOLARR’s NFT minting protocol
3. Submitting and pre-scheduling NFT for publication on the branded storefront

The deliverables for the minting stage of the branded NFT strategy journey include:

• Smart contract development
• NFT minted on blockchain
• Pre-schedule NFT for publishing
• Ready-to-sell features on branded storefronts, including payment details

Launch

In the launch stage, SOLARR offers the following services:

1. Development of strategic NFT marketing and PR campaign
2. Promotion and marketing of NFT
3. Community growth
4. Publication and launch of NFT on the branded storefront
5. Hosting an NFT auction sale and launch event

The deliverables under this stage are:

• NFT published on branded storefronts
• Strategic NFT marketing and PR plan
• Community growth and marketing execution
• NFT auction sale

Redeem

This is the last stage of SOLARR’S branded NFT strategy, and the services for the post-launch stage include the following:

1. Providing a smooth user experience for NFT holders to utilize and redeem NFT offers
2. NFT education and operational training for brands store staff
3. Post-launch community maintenance and loyalty-building activities
4. Off-ramping crypto to fiat

The deliverables for this stage include:

• Technical interrogation with brands exiting technology
• Whitelabel NFT waller for your brand
• Staff NFT education and operational training session
• Post-launch community maintenance and loyalty-building activities
• Crypto converted to fiat

Bottom Line

NFTs are evolving and growing very fast, which calls for the adoption of NFT applications, companies, and services. As more businesses strive to add NFTs to their operations and services, companies are springing up to fill the void and offer NFTs-as-a-service. Although NFTaaS is still in its infancy, with no one knowing exactly how much and in what direction it’ll grow, there is still much to be excited about as businesses unfold NFT services for other businesses.

Ready to launch your brand's NFT-storefront strategy? Get in touch with us for a free consultation. Visit solarr.xyz.