Please describe your proposed solution.
Book Token will create a digital book marketplace and exchange where anyone can collect, read and then resell what they buy - just like print books. Harnessing NFTs on Cardano, we are creating a decentralized ecosystem that allows readers to finally own their digital books. When readers consume their books, they will be rewarded in our native token $BOOK, which we are calling knowledge mining (a read-to-earn system).
This ecosystem unlocks new revenue opportunities for authors and publishers to make money in perpetuity on ongoing sales, setting up smart contracts to pay themselves, charities, and other social impact organizations.
<u>The Path Forward</u>
In a very short amount of time, the Book Token team has created what we're calling DEAs - Decentralized Encrypted Assets. This allows for the whole book asset to be stored decentrally, with the NFT metadata giving instructions on how to store both public info and encrypted private IP. In the publishing world, there are a lot of DRM concerns, so protecting IP is a large concern (as it should be).
This allows for a reader to hold an NFT in a wallet, come to the Book Token reader, and read the book without any login once they connect their wallet. I think it is important to note that this is our minimally viable product. The first stage in our roadmap is to fully decentralize the book (asset). The last stage is an autonomous key management dApp and fully decentralized reader.
Starting this in July 2022, people will be able to collect, read, and resell Book NFTs on Cardano!
Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.
The mass market, readers & publishers, don’t understand and are fearful of blockchain technology. However, unlocking the utility of Cardano for this market on an easy-to-use platform can lead to onboarding hundreds of millions of readers and billions of dollars in digital assets.
Building true utility through the power of the Cardano blockchain will onboard massive amounts of new users in the community as readers begin to demand ownership of their digital assets. The following impact is inevitable:
- Digital books become individual and unique assets that add scarcity and inventory control
- Readers own, instead of license, their digital books and can resell them in an open market
- Publishers & Authors receive royalties on all future second-hand sales
- Ability to create collective versions, limited editions, and nearly infinite marketing combinations
- Ability to bundle physical print books with book NFTs
- Ability to partner with brands for bulk distribution
- Increased security and digital rights management
- Publishers & Authors will be able to anonymously market to anyone who holds or has owned, particular titles
- Ability to verify reading with radically change education
For a deeper dive with our CEO, watch this interview on Learn Cardano:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/qbcH_UTHgaQTake a journey on a clickable design prototype:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/AE9w_W1LOXM
What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?
Through our conversations with some of the top publishing houses in the world, we’ve discovered that there is already a growing demand from authors to have access to book NFTs. Our main concern at this moment is development resources to continue to stay on target and hit milestones in a timely manner.
Other than that, we have been moving faster than anticipated with a small team. At this point, we employ 5 different law firms to help us navigate publishing contracts, NFT transactional legalities in the United States and abroad, and tax law for a secondary market that has never existed.