Explorie the next NFT platform

**For detailed pitch deck visit:**https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YI4Cu4d-bodiMNHoYm033Plby31gNwsI/view?usp=sharing

Abstract

Explorie works like the popular game "pokemon go". Players roam around the world searching for NFT vouchers and collectables. Its mission is to be an NFT platform with real-life utilities. It seeks to encourage exploration and adventure. Users can download the Explorie app and venture outside their doors. Collectable geo-tagged NFTs will be available around the neighbourhood, which players can redeem. These NFTs can be in the form of vouchers from retail businesses such as restaurants, stores and theme parks, collectables such as limited edition digital pets as well as digital art. This serves as a marketing tool for businesses to drive foot traffic, while promoting health and wellness.

1 Background

The term "NFT'' refers to non-fungible tokens, a unit of data stored on a digital ledger, called a blockchain. It certifies a digital asset to be unique and therefore non-interchangeable. NFTs can be used to represent items such as photos, videos, audio, and other types of digital files. Access to any copy of the original file, however, is not restricted to the buyer of the NFT. While copies of these digital items are available for anyone to obtain, NFTs are tracked on blockchains to provide the owner with proof of ownership that is separate from copyright. The NFT market value tripled in 2020, reaching more than $250 million. During the first quarter of 2021, NFT sales exceeded $2 billion. Explorie would utilise NFT to help businesses drive foot traffic.

2 Problem

Businesses often find it difficult to market themselves to drive foot traffic. According to the US bureau of labor statistics [2], traditional businesses find it hard to market themselves to consumers. About 20% of small businesses fail by the end of their first year. By the end of their fifth year, 50% go under; and by the tenth year, that number rises to 80%. Traditional marketing methods have limitations such as high cost and being time-consuming. These problems can be solved with Explorie.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated businesses worldwide. These businesses include restaurants, theme parks as well as shopping malls. Prolonged lockdown and safe-distancing measures drastically decreased the foot traffic and revenue of these businesses, forcing them to shut down or pivot.

3 Why Cardano?

The founding members believe that Cardano is the most viable blockchain available in the market. It is the first blockchain with a research-driven approach. The sheer amount of academic rigour involved in creating Cardano is a guarantee for its integrity. First-generation blockchains such as Bitcoin paved the way for the industry. However, they did not create a functional environment for developing complex smart contract-based financial solutions. Second-generation blockchains such as Ethereum introduced smart contract capabilities. However, they suffer from significant scalability issues, resulting in network congestion and high transaction fees for users. On the other hand, Cardano is a third-generation blockchain that combines the former's properties and has evolved to solve this issue.

Ouroboros consensus mechanism

Ouroboros solves the greatest challenge faced by existing blockchains: the need for more and more energy to achieve consensus. Using Ouroboros, Cardano is able to securely, sustainably, and ethically scale with up to four million times the energy efficiency of bitcoin.

Babel Fees

Named after the Babel Fish from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Cardano blockchain allows users to pay transaction fees using native tokens. Native assets on Cardano work as such: tokens are created and treated natively in the ledger with ADA. Instead of using the traditional UTXO (unspent transaction output) model presented by Bitcoin, Cardano's ledger has adopted the eUTXO (extended unspent transaction output) model which provides the foundations for Plutus. Utilizing this method we can have multiple different tokens (including NFTs) in a single transaction. We would utilise Babel fees after its implementation. Until then, we would stimulate the same process by paying transaction fees for our users.

4 Stakeholders

This part of the whitepaper will outline different stakeholders in the Explorie ecosystem and their respective user journeys.

Retail business

Retail businesses can utilise the Explorie platform as a marketing tool to drive foot traffic. They do this by issuing NFT vouchers. This can be done by setting up a redemption point in or near their stores. All they have to do is to display the QR code generated by the explorie app on tablets or smartphones. Players would be able to redeem NFT vouchers by scanning the QR codes using the explorie app. Each QR code is assigned to one new NFT issued, thus preventing duplication exploits. Alternatively, businesses can also open the Explorie app to scan a player's personalised QR code to issue the NFTs. This reduces the operating costs associated with needing to have a spare tablet or smartphone. Consumers can then spend the NFT effectively "burning" it. On top of NFT vouchers, businesses can also issue NFT collectables as well as art pieces. Compared to traditional marketing tools, Explorie provides several advantages to businesses.

Guaranteed foot traffic/high conversion rate. Since consumers have already made the effort to redeem the NFT vouchers physically, they are highly likely to spend those vouchers on the spot. A scenario is that hungry players would scan the Explorie app for possible food deals, and redeem the NFT voucher that would bring the highest utility/suit the player's taste preferences. They would then use those vouchers on the spot to purchase from businesses. This guarantees foot traffic to the store. Minimally, players would be exposed to the underlying brand and their products. Optimally, players will be converted to customers through sales. Having physically been to the store also reduces consumer resistance. This can be in the form of difficulty navigating to the store or a mismatch between product expectation and reality.

Low cost and effective marketing. Traditional marketing tools such as newspapers, TV and online advertising often are costly. Costing up to thousands of dollars. Their effectiveness is also inconsistent and is determined by several factors. Factors such as Ad quality, product type and Ad timing. The complexity of advertising often requires seasoned marketing managers who understand consumers deeply. They are able to create Ads that ultimately resonate with the underlying targeted consumers. Small businesses often do not have the expertise to achieve effective marketing, resulting in resources wasted without achieving promotional goals. Alternatively, they can hire Ad agencies or marketing consultants at a higher cost. Explorie promotes businesses for free through the browse function. This is where users can search the map for possible NFTs to redeem. In Explorie's pricing model, businesses are charged for minting new NFTs. Since voucher redemption is highly correlated to conversion, businesses essentially are only charged for successful conversions. This reduces the cost wastage associated with traditional marketing.

Time-efficient. Traditional social media marketing through content creation is highly time-consuming yet does not guarantee effectiveness. It is difficult to garner followings on Instagram, Facebook and Youtube. It often requires months or years of effort, carefully curating content to attract followings. Explorie solves that problem by providing an existing pool of users who are ready to venture out and collect NFTs. Thus providing businesses with potential consumers to be converted.

Business value

An average restaurant consumer spends $28.43 per visit in the US. The average profit margin for restaurants is 3-5%, resulting in an average profit of $0.85 to $1.42 per consumer per visit (Reimer, 2021). Consumers also have a chance to be converted to loyal customers who have an average lifetime value of $14,099 in a study done by Starbucks [1].

An average retail store consumer spends $40 per visit in the US. The average profit margin for restaurants is 0.5-7.5%, resulting in an average profit of $0.2 to $2.8 per consumer per visit [4]. Consumers also have a chance to be converted to loyal customers who have an average lifetime value of $22,200 [1]. These benefits are massive compared to the cost of minting NFTs which is just one EXP token per NFT.

Artists

Artists can use Explorie to tokenize both physical as well as digital artworks. They can then give these artworks away or auction them off through the platform. Explorie offers an intuitive user interface. Artists can easily upload an image to the app and it will be minted into an NFT.

Players

Players are users who collect NFTs using the Explorie app. They would first download the Explorie app in the app store, then create an account. Afterwards, a crypto wallet is automatically generated. Players can then venture outside their doors in search of NFTs. They would open the map interface where NFTs are displayed as icons. They can then select the NFTs they wanted and travel to the NFT location for redemption. Upon reaching the redemption point, they can scan the QR code provided to redeem the NFT. Explorie provides several advantages to players compared to traditional promotion platforms.

Transferable vouchers. Traditional E-vouchers are often restricted to the person intended. Oftentimes, these vouchers are left unspent due to neglect, resulting in wastage. The tokenization of vouchers using NFTs allows players to transfer, buy and sell these vouchers. Sometimes players might not want to spend the redeemed vouchers, they can then sell them for monetary profits in the marketplace.

Non-perishability. Traditional physical vouchers are susceptible to damage, making them a hassle to store. Once damaged, these vouchers are often voided as well. NFT vouchers are stored digitally in the player's wallet, making them non-perishable unless the player chooses to delete the app from their smartphones.

Transparent. Using the Cardano blockchain, NFTs minted can be traced and observed by everyone. This gives a level of transparency that is not available otherwise.

Team

Weng haishi (marketing)

Haishi is pursuing a Bachelors in Psych and Marketing. Building a blockchain YouTube channel, and currently a marketing advisor for Ridotto, he has experience in blockchain marketing and IDOs.

Slevin Chua (business strategy)

Pursuing a degree in Law and Finance, Slevin achieved podium finishes in many business case competitions in Southeast Asia. His eyes are set on a career in consulting.

Andrius Bacianskas (backend dev)

Andrius holds a BSc in Computer Science and has over 8 years of industry experience. He previously built ICO platforms as well as Crypto-exchanges with various companies. He is certified in Elastic search development, React development as well as Blockchain development.

Edwin Tuzar (fullstack dev)

Edwin has a MSc in Software Engineering and is certified in the following: AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate, Professional Google Cloud Architect as well as CKA Certified Kubernetes Administrator.

Teo Jia Cheng (frontend dev)

Jia Cheng is a Information Systems undergraduate at SMU, with experience in enterprise software development and management. Currently working at Visa, he works on frontend systems coded on Angular and creates both unit and integration tests.

Jonathan Chow (Backend dev)

Jonathan is a Computer Science undergraduate at SMU, and has 2 years in software development. With experiences ranging from the development of finance platforms to dataflows on Azure Cloud, he is currently interning at DHL working on operational digitalization and private blockchain applications.

Budget requirement

Project expense

Team salary: $1,500 per member for the next 6 months.

Miscellaneous expense: $1,000 per month for legal, product design and advisory services.

Market research: $1,000

Total: $70,000 for the next 6 months to produce working app.

Roadmap/definition of success

Q4 2021

Beta testing of MVP and Marketing campaign to attract businesses.

Q1 2022

Bug bounty program, Release of app and Onboarding of businesses.

Q2 2022

Development for collectable/art NFTs. Development for Peer-to-peer NFT marketplace. 

Q3 2022

Crosschain integration