One of the most common questions that people might ask digital collectors is why they buy artworks that they can’t display? You can’t put a digital figurine on a mantlepiece and while you can broadcast a digital image to a screen, you’re not likely to keep that screen on all the time. The blockchain has made owning collectibles easy. It hasn’t made displaying them easy.
“I want to show off my stuff,” you may say.
VeVe is attempting to have it all — and show it all, for you. The company offers a broad range of digital collectibles licensed from many of the world’s biggest brands. But it also lets collectors build virtual showrooms, and even turn those showrooms into AR galleries.
How the showroom works:
Collectors everywhere, globally, can display their collectibles with pride in a digital realm. What you do is hop on the site and start creating your own space — your own kingdom — your own showroom. You can even take a pic of yourself at your house, your room, your neighborhood — and stand side by side with your creation or your digital asset in the real world (your world).
You create and customize your own virtual showroom — to show the world your digital collectibles. You just scan your surrounding then drag and tap to drop your digital collectible in AR. After that, you can move, rotate and scale your digital collectibles to make the 1:1 size and then take photos.
Upload to the site and bam!, share this experience with other VeVe collectors around the world. Move through your virtual showrooms on your phone (yes you can have more than one. This is FPS game-style — or bring your showrooms to life in Augmented Reality and physically walk through them, all on your phone or tablet.
I think I’m going to showcase myself with Batman. I’ll say, “this is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.” I will personally be “the hero Gotham deserves….” along with Batman, of course.
Batman is all fine and well, but I’ve been thinking about collecting the Harley Quinn Red — but, you know, the black and white is still my fav.
What’s a Secondary Market?
Did you miss the collectable you’ve waited for? Snoozing when it dropped? Well, ya snooze, ya loose. But — if you missed out on that digital collectible when it dropped, or you need one to complete your set, you can browse the secondary market and see if others have listed the collectibles you need for sale.
The company is led by David Yu and Daniel Crothers, with Alfred Kahn in charge of licensing.
Kahn was responsible for bringing Pokemon to the world and has also overseen the release of brands including Yu-Gi-Oh, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Cabbage Patch. The aim of VeVe, says Crothers, is to bring digital collecting to the masses.
“Three years ago, when Crypto Kitties came out, we realized that there’s a huge opportunity in this space to create something for collectors in the real world,” Crothers told The Nifty Show. “It would be a really new and exciting way for people to collect their favorite brands and their favorite products.”
Over the last two years, the company has been trying to secure as many licenses and brands as they can. They now have more than 100 brands on their books, including Batman, Harley Quinn, and Ghostbusters.
How is the asset secured?
Each asset is secured on the blockchain, ensuring authenticity and provenance. But VeVe makes the use of cryptocurrencies to buy and sell the collectibles as seamless as possible. Purchases are made using gems, a familiar currency to gamers, supported by OMI tokens.
Every time a purchase is made on the VeVe app, the company burns an equivalent amount of tokens, lowering the supply and boosting the value of the assets. “Ultimately, it’s a deflationary model,” says Crothers. VeVe also provides a buyback mechanism.
Three levels of collectible.
For collectors, VeVe offers three levels of collectible. The first level, available now, offers static figures similar to those available in real-world stores. A second level, which will launch in the coming months, will animate those figures. Monsters might perform death moves, for example, or Batman might slide across the floor.
The third level though, will add interactivity, turning the assets into digital toys. At the end of the quarter VeVe plans to release a digital DeLorean. Collectors will be able to tap the doors to open them, then drive the car as though it were remote-controlled.
“What we’re moving into is digital toys so what you see now is literally the tip of the iceberg of what’s coming out this year,” says Crothers.
It’s a whole new world for NFTs and digital collectibles — and it might just mean that no one asks any more why digital collectors buy assets they can’t display.
