Why Whale Matters

Let me tell you about the only time in history a new crypto innovation was adopted by almost everyone virtually overnight.

Cryptokitties was the most popular breeding game birthed on the ethereum blockchain. In just 2 months of its launch, approximately 180, 000 people signed up on this platform. 10 kitties sold for more than $100, 000.

Bryce Bladon, Co-Founder of CryptoKitties writes:

“Although we wouldn’t have pursued the CryptoKitties project if we didn’t want it to be a success, we did not expect it to catch fire quite like it did….”

What happened during the launch of Cryptokitties was incredible, because it’s was a technology never seen or heard of before. Thousands of people in the crypto space queued up and said, “I want that, and I want it right now. Take my money, give me a kitty.”

Cryptokitty is an outlier in the history of innovative technologies that sprouted from the crypto space because of the speed at which it was adopted. It is perhaps the lone exception to the rule that a new technology must be battle tested and time tested for years before people take it seriously.

You might think it was a success because it made early adopters outrageous returns. But far more innovative crypto breakthroughs took place years before the emergence of cryptokitty.

The gap is the most common story of technology. It was years after Satoshi Nakamoto created Bitcoin that it gained adoption. Same for Ethereum, Ripple, and virtually every other great innovation in crypto space you can think of. It usually takes more time to convince people that your technology has made a huge impact in the world than it does to invent a world-changing technology.

I don’t think we can say why Cryptokitties was adopted quickly. But I’m of the opinion that the main reason why it was successful was because of the value proposition it brought about. For the first time in the world, digital contents can be truly owned by creators, collected by collectors and resold for mind-boggling profits. For the first time, digital contents holds financial value. This was a paradigm shift.

Cryptokitties defined the Non Fungible Token (NFT) standard. At the highest spectrum, NFTs are a new form of crypto-collectible, a sound digital good that is:

• Uniquely identifiable
• Provably scarce
• Programmable
• Publicly accessible by default
• Censorship resistant
• They are distinguishable and you must track the ownership off each one separately.

NFTs represent ownership in different kind of assets. Ranging from physical assets such as lands and artworks to digital assets such as digital metaverses, digital lands, memes, just to name but a few.

NFTs facilitates the tokenization of any arbitrary media and more importantly lets you keep track of that ownership. Through NFTs, information and value can now cohabit.

NFT = [Information + Owner + Creator] = Value

The Problem associated with NFTs

In as much as NFTs heralded a new form of innovation, it is quite difficult for a newbie to correctly collect crypto-collectibles that will accrue in value in years to come. There are currently thousands of NFTs listed in multiple marketplaces. Sifting through each and every marketplace to get the best is difficult and time-consuming. If not impossible.

This opens a new field. Collecting and curation of digital assets. If there is a place where the best, promising and most valuable crypto-collectible can be found, that place will be a goldmine. It will be the first point of call for every one getting into the crypto-collecting business for the first time. It will be the gateway for valuable NFTs.

Is there any platform that have come up with a solution to this?

The answer is yes.

Introducing Whale

Whale is a social currency backed by the most rare, valuable, promising and scarce crypto-collectibles in existence. The core idea behind whale is a vault that holds access to the best-of-the-bests NFTs. You want the rarest crypto-blockchain card, Whale’s vault got you. You need a valuable virtual land that will definitely appreciate in the future, slide into Whale’s vault. This is just a scratch on the surface of the spectrum of crypto-collectibles the vault holds.

Imagine a place in the world where you can get original artworks of world renowned artists. A place where the original artworks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Pablo Picasso are being kept. Now imagine how valuable that place will be.

Let’s pause for a moment. Reflect a little bit on the last paragraph above. You’d see that the value proposition of Whale is great. It will be clear to you that whale is a promising project.

Due to the undeniable fact that there are tonnes of value accrued in the vault, one can assemble financial services on top of these NFTs in a completely trustless manner and at low cost.

Why will the Vault Assets and Whale token accrue value in the long run?

The obvious answer is that people will purchase Whale to gain access to the vault which will lead to the appreciation of Whale price.

But there are a few other overlooked explanations for the value that Whale and the Vault will accrue in the future.

Here are seven.

Creating an Index Fund from the vault’s NFTs

An index fund is a type of fund with a portfolio constructed to match or track components of a financial market index.

We can look back at traditional finance to see how they modelled index funds to algorithmically track a group of assets indexes. Did it work, yes it worked. In fact, most people that are risk-averse will only invest in an index fund rather than staking hard-earned money on a single stock.

We can introduce this concept to the NFTs locked in the vault. The vault is the best use-case since it satisfies the prerequisites for creating an index fund. The assets in it are scarce, valuable, original and holds value.

People with low risk tolerance will rather invest in a group of NFTs than invest in just a single NFT.

An NFT index fund may keep track of a digital land, a mint 1 Gods unchained card, and a valuable artwork by a known artist.

Users that know little about NFTs can hedge their risk by investing in this fund. If the value of the assets backing the fund appreciates, so will the fund appreciate in value.

Borrow an NFT from the Vault

With the rise of creators building on digital lands, there will be an uptick in the demand of virtual lands. People who can’t purchase virtual lands because of the exorbitant fees can still acquire land by borrowing from the vault at a cheaper rate. There are also some in-game items that might be needed to pass a certain stage in a blockchain game. Users can borrow these items from the vault to pass these kind of stages.

The longer the borrow period, the higher the fee paid to the vault. The possibilities here are endless. There can even be a borrow-chain where one need to have borrowed up to a certain level before he/she is given access to borrow a higher tier NFT in the vault.

This increases demand for vault items which in-turn increases demand for Whale token. Vault assets can only be purchased using Whale token.

Course Certificates / University degrees as NFTs

Since the vault possesses very valuable assets, it can expand its reach and become more valuable by holding course certificates. Since the blockchain is immutable, trustworthy and transparent, an employer can request for a certain candidates certificate from the vault. The recruiter must of course pay a certain fee to the vault.

Some people forge university degrees. With the vault, this issue will be curtailed to the bare minimum. Different firms and organizations can request access to the vault for verification of degrees.

Gradually, the value of the vault will appreciate. It will be a single source of truth for verifiable claims.

Job opportunities for Curators

If in the nearest future, the vault holds and accrues much value, curators of the NFTs that goes into the vault will become important personalities. Their advice and suggestions will be well sought for by other projects in the same niche.

The curators will be paid in Whale token for their services which will subsequently lead to an uptick in the demand for Whale token.

Creation of a new synthetic asset

Ever heard of Mint1 Cloth Wearable/Mint1 Shoe Wearable pair? The vault can test out new features by creating a pair from two rare NFTs. People can trade a pair of NFT against another pair of NFT.

This is ingenuous because we can usher in traders into the NFT ecosystem. They need not know much about NFTs, they just trade the pair and profit off it.

Creating of an NFT pair costs a certain amount of Whale token. The upside to Whale is unlimited.

Nfts as collateral for loan

The value of Whale token can skyrocket beyond everyone’s imagination if the NFTs locked in the vault can be used as a collateral for loan. People will be more inclined to purchase NFTs locked in the vault that an NFt in any marketplace due to the fact that they can be offered as a collateral.

Artists can lend NFT to the vault

Artists that still want to own rights to their artworks can lend to the vault and gain interest. The interest will come from the borrowers that will borrow the NFTs locked in the vault. Artists will have to pay a fee in Whale to unlock lending access of the vault.

With more and more artists lending to the vault, the higher the fee generated by the vault which will subsequently boost the price of Whale token.

Final Thoughts:

The possibilities of what can be achieved with Whale are endless. The list above is far from being exhaustive.

As Jacob Horne writes:

Anything that has value will eventually be captured (or revealed) by blockchains. We’ll realize that there was value in places we didn’t know existed. We’ll discover just how valuable some digital behaviors are to society.

If you think you’ve seen it all with Whale, know that we are just getting started.