Antique Tokenization for Fairness

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

We will tokenize antiques, issue them on Cardano and launch a tokenization service for antique owners. We believe it will be a “catalyst” to transform the industry into something more free and fair.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

I am a person in the antique industry. I have been repairing and selling antiques in Japan for many years. Currently, I operate an antique shop and develop the Web. I was also active in Second Life in the past. Prior to that, I was in a Linux and web development company.

[GENERAL] Requested funds in USD.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

With the current blockchain technology alone, it is difficult to connect data with physical objects. There is still no stable mechanism to connect things and data and guarantee their integrity. Even if you combine physical antiques with the information that antiques have, it is still possible to replace the real thing with the fake one.

So what can we do about this? Instead of trying to deal with this problem head-on right now, I would like to take a different approach to connecting antiques and blockchain.

First, I will publish NFT-ized information about antiques on Cardano's NFT marketplace, Fibo. As a start, we will NFT-ize ukiyo-e, the Japanese traditional paintings. This is to prove that antiques have value as NFTs. By creating NFT works directly linked to antiques, we will give them new value.

For the time being, we will focus on French, Finnish, and Japanese antiques.

And we will make it widely known that when it comes to antique NFT, Fibo is the one.

I think this will also be a shot in the arm for Fibo, which is still in its beta version.

Without being too emotional by the price of an NFT that goes up and down, we offer the fun and joy of owning an NFT born from a physical antique. Enjoyment is an important benefit to the Cardano community. This is another extension of the value of antiques in my opinion.

Issuing tokens to antique owners is the next step. Token holders will initially be connected with each other via Discord. The tokens will also be given a type of information such as a category. Token holders will be able to rate each 8other's antiques.

Tokens will also be issued to those who share the historical background of the antique. This mechanism will be very useful in the future when exhibitions are held in the Metaverse.

The NFTs we issue will be converted into money. It will be used to fund future operations and to prove that antique NFTs will create new value.

As part of my marketing efforts, I will promote antique NFTs based on these experiences. This will be a new profitable mechanism for antique fans.

The interest is Cardano, the antique owner; we do not yet have a solution to the problem of NFT from images on Pinterest without permission. We are currently working on it.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

We will convert antiques to NFT and distribute them on Fibo. As a result, Fibo will be an NFT marketplace where NFTs tied to or derived from physical antiques will be widely available.

Fibo will be a new marketplace that creates new value for antiques.

Issuing tokens for the owners of physical antiques is the next stage.

It creates an entry point to a new platform for antique buying and selling.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

There are 3 major risks I can think of.

Risk(1) if an antique becomes an NFT work, how do you describe its value?

Risk(2) how will you prove that the NFT piece is associated with a physical antique?

Risk(3) how will you identify the target audience for issuing the tokens?

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Risk(1)

if antiques were to be made into NFT works, how would they express their value?

How to mitigate;

Popular works in the current NFT market do not place value on connecting with physical objects. Under this situation or in the NFT market environment, it is quite uncertain whether NFT that connects with antiques can be made to have value.

Risk(2)

How do you prove that NFT works are connected to physical antiques?

How to mitigate;

If NFTs derived from physical antiques can be given value, how can we prove that actual antiques exist and that they are connected to physical antiques?　Currently, there may be no other way than to display information about the antique as text data. There is a great possibility that it may be seen as having little impact.

However, as Optical Science evolves and becomes more widely used, this problem may be solved at once.

Risk(3)

How will the target audience for issuing tokens be identified?

How to mitigate;

How will we, who are not eBay, figure out who owns valuable antiques?

It is unclear how we will figure out the target audience for issuing the tokens.

Initially, we are planning to experiment through our own e-commerce service.

We will then experiment with accumulating only information on antique items from eBay's API to see if it has any effect.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Phase 1

I will convert Ukiyo-e into NFT and submit it to Fibo.

I will first prove that it is a real Ukiyo-e NFT on a website I will prepare.

I expect that the gas price of Fibo is low.

Period of time

3-6 months

I am aiming for about 3 months, depending on the finished product of FIbo.

I will need to do some marketing at the same time I list my products on Fibo.

I am still doing e-commerce web marketing, so I will even use TikTok to spread awareness of the project. Marketing activities also require a blog, starting with content about the NFTing process. We will be creating content for about 6 months.

It will be blog posts in Japanese and English.

Use of TikTok, YouTube.

Phase 2

We will NFT-ize a kettle made by a sword smith. This is a confirmation of how much value NFT has for a material that is meaningful to own a physical object.

Duration

3~6 months

Work will continue on Ukiyo-e. Web marketing will continue to use what is used in Ukiyo-e.

Phase 3

Token issuance test

We will set up the Solidity development environment from phase 1. The main developer is a friend of mine. He is a specialist in Ruby and Python.　I can write JavaScript, but I am very interested in Solidity. I can find a Haskell developer if needed.

Duration

2nd year

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

We are applying for $40,000 and the details are below.

$5,000 is for gas for the antique NFT issuance. However, Fibo(beta) says there is no gas fee, so you may not have to worry about that.

The antique is our own item, so the purchase cost is zero.

$15,000 is the cost of commissioning an artist to produce the NFTs for publication.

We are thinking to produce 20 - 100 NFTs.

$5,000 is for travel expenses.

I would like to include Finnish or French antiques that I know well, as Japanese antiques alone are not interesting. $5,000 will be used for travel to the area. The $5,000 will be used for travel expenses to the destination, and to establish a partnership with a local antique dealer.

$5,000 will be used to experiment with issuing tokens.

To be honest, it is not entirely clear, but it will be used to pay an engineer friend of mine to work on the project.

We would like to create a development environment, but we are limited to Solidity at best.

If Haskell is required, it may not be enough to cover the labor cost.

However, the Japanese yen is cheap, so I may be able to make it work.

Japanese engineers generally earn $3,000 to $6,000 per month.

The remaining $10,000 is for marketing.

We can produce the content in-house, but it will be used for video creation or advertising costs.

NFTing your antiques in Cardano.

We will communicate the new value of your antiques in Cardano.

The marketing tools I will use are blogs, TikTok, and YouTube.

We use these tools daily to market myself and my clients.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Project leader: Nobuhito Anjin Miura

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anjin-miura-4041001b/

Kondo Hiro

Engineer of Python / Ruby

Hida Isao

https://www.linkedin.com/in/isao-hida-6399649/

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

Yes, we will.

Reason (1) because I have high hopes for Cardano's NFT Fibo.

Reason (2) the OpenSea gas price issue is clearly not an ecosystem.

Reason (3) Cardano's base technology is promising.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

1) Publicize the work process on the blog

2) Publish progress on the blog

3) Posting on Twitter

4) Convert antiques to NFT and actually issue the tokens on Fib

5) Publication of learning history and environment creation history for the token issuance proces

6) Web marketing, such as advertising costs, blog PV, TikTok insights, etc

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

1) to be the first to publish antique NFTs on Cardano's NFT marketplace, Fib

2) to have NFTs of Ukiyo-e appear in value and have buyer

3) to set up a development environment for Cardan

If I cannot hire an engineer due to cost, I will create the environment on a virtual machine called KVEM. However, the problem is that Maintis used here is a client of our nemesis Ethererum. I will also blog about how to handle this.

The blog URL for this is; cryptoukiyo-e.com.

I will first feel very successful if I can publish one of the first Ukiyo-e NFTs on Fibo.

I am excited now.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This is an entirely new project.