NFTs in a nutshell NFT & ticketing: a match made in heaven? Introducing GET Protocol The benefits of GET NFT tickets GET protocol as the ticketing standard The $GET token
They are everywhere. From Eminem and Snoop Dogg to Paris Hilton and Justin Bieber. What they all have in common is that they’re involved with NFTs. In their case: NFT jpegs/digital art.
Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton discuss their love for NFTs. Courtesy of the Tonight Show.
An NFT stands for a “Non-Fungible Token.” A non-fungible token is unique and is as such stored on the blockchain. These tokens are mutually not interchangeable, meaning that all tokens are different from one another. Unlike for example Bitcoin (= fungible) where it doesn’t matter which of the 18,9 million Bitcoins you own. As they’re all the same and therefore interchangeable.
So in practice a unique token, representing something, can be transferred to someone else. Digital art NFTs are the current hype: artists mint NFTs and link their art to those unique tokens. Their art is then traded on marketplaces such as Opensea and Rarible.
Two examples of popular NFT digital art are Punks and Bored Apes.
CryptoPunk #4156 (Forgive the “right click, save as”)
The Crypto Punk above for example was sold for over 10 million $ last year. While the price floor (=lowest price) of a Bored Ape is 100 ETH (300.000$) at the time of writing.
Having tokens that have their uniqueness guaranteed through blockchain opens many possibilities. NFT art is just scratching the surface. NFTs will do much more than that!
NFT ticketing has many entrepreneurs envisioning a future where every ticket is an NFT. Here are just some of the many examples:
finance.yahoo.com
A statement from FTX founder & billionaire founder Samuel Bankman-Fried
So why is it gaining so much traction lately? Let’s first dive into some of the current flaws in the ticket industry.
Before trying to solve anything, there has to be a problem. The current ticket industry has plenty:
It’s above all an industry plagued by dishonest participants and one where no one trusts another. Below are just a few of the many examples:
bigthink.com
So the main problems that need to be solved are: scalping, the lack of transparency, traceability and proof of authenticity.
It’s in essence an industry waiting to be disrupted through blockchain. But before we dive into that I want to make clear that a ticket merely being an NFT isn’t the ultimate solution to those problems.
But combined with other tools, it doesn’t only solve them but adds benefits that were not possible before.
GET Protocol is a perfect showcase as it has achieved all of that. That’s why I’ll be focusing on their solution in this blog.
GET Protocol is a project that saw the light of the day back in 2017.
As a way of introduction: a clip of the early days, where their CEO (Maarten Bloemers) appeared on a popular Dutch talk show. Together with some Dutch artists he explained the problems in the industry and how he plans disrupt it:
GET protocol featured on DWDD in March 2018
In the meantime a lot has changed. Every GET ticket is an NFT and at the time of writing over 1,25 million on-chain tickets have been processed through it. The proof of concept is certainly there:
https://explorer.get-protocol.io/
GET protocol featured on Bankless in January 2022
To make this work, the users must enjoy all the benefits of blockchain/NFT ticketing without experiencing any difficulties. There needs to be 0 friction. And this is the case. You buy your ticket with fiat money and check-out like you have always done. Everything else happens in the background.
You don’t need an Ethereum wallet or any knowledge about blockchain/crypto whatsoever to buy a ticket.
Let’s put this to the test with a random event powered by GET Protocol. I decide to buy a ticket of a Max Cooper show, that’s on sale with GET integrator GUTS tickets:
https://guts.events/yrwilh-max-cooper/lezoiu
Unfortunately for me the “First Release” is sold out. So if I want a ticket, I’ll have to get one from the secondary market. I do this simply by clicking on “Check Ticket Market”.
In this case the event organizer has possibly decided that you can’t sell your tickets for profit as they’re being sold by “Katey” for the original price. There’s no way for me to find out who Katey is or to buy the ticket elsewhere than this app. Keep in mind that I also need the ticket transferred through the app to gain the dynamic QR-code on my phone. This grants me access to the event. Scalping is thus impossible.
I decide to buy this ticket from the secondary market:
The available payment methods depend on the event organizer (others have Google Pay, PayPal, debit cards, bank wire… available. Even crypto is possible)
I check-out, pay and the ticket lands in my wallet of the ticketing provider’s app (in this case GUTS). Katey automatically gets the money deposited in her bank account. This is a simple process that doesn’t take longer than a few minutes.
In the background, at the very moment of purchase, an NFT gets minted that represents this ticket. If I wish, I can track the history of my ticket (important for authenticity, transparency and accountability) on the explorer:
https://explorer.get-protocol.io/ticket/598097
We can find the event we bought tickets for on the Polygon network:
https://polygonscan.com/tx/0x79b2032c6a63be6d6f3b80c09732021f3c2428513abd9890e73411b4e98f8b91
Claiming a ticket as an NFT is an “after the event” possbillity. It isn’t mandatory and only influences the “after the show” experience. I’ll get back to this and the benefits later.
Claiming is done by either copy/pasting your wallet address in the app or scanning the QR-code of it.
The ticket NFT can then be held as a collectibe in your wallet or traded. Here’s an example of a collector’s fridge:
The ticket I purchased from Katey will only be claimable as an NFT after the event has passed (more on that and the importance of it later).
But here is an example of another GET fueled NFT ticket tradeable on OpenSea:
https://opensea.io/assets/matic/0x2055244a719229d669488e389388f2d653a452f4/605584
GET Protocol fueled tickets revolutionize ticketing as know it. They provide all kind of benefits to everyone involved. Below are just some of them:
For the non-Dutch speaking: he’s saying that not one of his tickets has been resold for a bigger price on the black market since he’s selling his tickets with GUTS.
The above is enforced by the following tools:
To summarize:
After you’ve bought the digital ticket (there’s no physical/PDF version of it), it is instantly linked to your phone and sim card. With a dynamic QR-code (proof of right of entrance) that changes every 5–10 seconds. This means that making a screenshot of the QR-code and sending it to someone else is fruitless. The holder of the screenshot will not have a right of entry as it will not match the scanner at the entrance.
The NFT ticket itself can only be claimed and released into your wallet after the ticket for the event has been scanned. This makes sense as otherwise you could just send it to a potential buyer and operate as a scalper.
You can test this out in the “demo event”:
If you go to “ticketmarket” you can see the tickets being offered in the secondary market. Feel free to buy a test ticket, it won’t cost you any (real) money.
The introduction of NFT tickets above all offers a lasting connection between the artist and the fans. But they’re not the only benefits:
GET-powered NFT tickets create a lasting connection between artists and fans, make sure that the money ends up in the right pockets and offer tools that are only limited by one’s imagination.
coincodecap.com
It’s important to know that GET Protocol isn’t a ticketing company. GET Protocol itself doesn’t sell any tickets. It’s a backend tech that can be adopted/integrated by ticketing companies (existing or new). At the time of writing 9 ticketing companies across the globe are using it as their ticketing infrastructure (more on them below). And many more are on their way.
The goal is to become the ticketing standard. Just like WordPress can be used by anyone with limited knowledge/resources to build a website, GET can be used by anyone who wants to be a ticketeer. And even by an established ticketing company that wants to tap into the benefits of NFT tickets.
Horizontal growth is achieved by offering clients two products: the White label and the Digital Twin.
When a ticketing company decides to adopt the White Label product they essentially get everything a ticketing company needs to start selling tickets: the backend, a mobile app, a website, … This product is aimed at anyone who wants to start a new ticketing company or existing ticketing companies that want to overhaul and upgrade their existing/legacy tech.
The Digital Twin on the other hand is a product that is offered and used by existing ticketing companies who wish to keep their existing infrastructure, but at the same time tap into the benefits of NFT tickets.
At the time of writing 9 officially announced ticketing companies use the protocol for all their tickets.
The rate at which new ticketing companies are being integrated has increased a lot in recent months. I expect a snowball effect as a consensus is finally forming that NFT ticketing is the future.
It’s also important to note that while lately certain competitors are entering the space, none of them are even close to what GET has achieved in terms of product, innovation, adoption and scalability. GET has been around since 2017, battle-tested in over a million tickets and thousands of events.
GUTS was the first ticketing company to integrate GET Protocol as a White Labeler. It was simultaneously created by the GET Protocol founders to showcase the tech.
This makes sense as the chances of adoption in the industry, without a proven track record, would have been slim to nil. Meanwhile GUTS has grown to become one of the biggest ticketing companies in The Netherlands.
decrypt.co
getTicket is a ticketing company based in South Korea. Right after the birth of getTicket, the pandemic hit and we haven’t seen much from them. But with links to K-Pop they’re certainly worth keeping an eye on.
Wicket is a ticketing company based in Italy. Despite the virus restrictions Wicket has already done many events in the wine industry. They for example ticketed the digital version of the Milano Wine festival in 2020:
They have also been seen creating events for the Giro D’Italia.
A Germany-based ticketing company that sells GET fueled tickets with a focus on the sports industry. Comparable to getTicket they were created just before the pandemic hit so we haven’t seen many tickets sold from them yet.
Flockey is a new ticketing company that has been established in the Netherlands. They have a special monitoring system during covid19, worked with the Dutch government for test events and have ticketed the 2021 Eurovision Song Festival.
Djebber is a ticketing company from The Netherlands with a roster of comedy heavy hitters such as Jochem Myjer, Ronald Goedemondt, Jasper Van Der Veen, Henry Van Loon & more.
DeFy Tickets was the first integrator based in the USA.
YTP is the first Digital Twin integrator. Based in The Netherlands, active since 2012 and with a track record of selling over 2 million tickets a year. They’re owned by cm.com (who sell multiple million tickets a year themselves, including Formula 1 events).
Bart Peute, CEO of Yourticketprovider:
‘Thanks to this unique integration with the GET Protocol we will help organisers to enter, explore and monetize the many opportunities of this new online space using NFTs, for example a more secure secondary market, pre-funding events and selling digital merchandise. Also to a visitor a ticket is much more than a barcode and we now support the full visitor journey and experience offline and online.’
XTIXS is active on several continents and serves a global audience of event clients. They have several standout festivals in their resume such as Exit 2.0, Cancun Music Week, Caprices, Secret Solstice and many more. Additionally, they also do tickets in sports: Mexican football club “Club Tijuana Xoloitzcuintles de Caliente” (or “Xolox”) is for example one of their clients.
eTicketaBlanca is a Colombian ticketing company that facilitates events across the country, from sport to theatre and beyond. They will be the second Digital Twin integrator.
Based in the USA and judging from the things we’ve read about them: they mean business!
We don’t know much about them yet, besides that they have been creating a lot of (test) events, using GET Protocol, that can be tracked on the blockchain.
A ticketing company created by Radix Sports Ltd on top of GET Protocol.
Certainly many more are on their way. The team has several times communicated that they’re swamped with requests from potential integrators all over the globe (averaging over 3 requests a day!).
GET is being used in many different industries. Below are just some of the examples:
If adoption is the confirmation of a usecase then GET Protocol has plenty.
You can track the locations of all events on this community made website that scans and takes the data from the blockchain: http://dashboard.get-community.com/map
As the goal of GET Protocol is to be fully decentralized (ran by GET holders through a DAO governance) and where payments are done on-chain, it has its own token. $GET has no “mint function” so no more $GET can ever be created. The 2 main functionalities of the token are “gas as fuel” and a “governance token”.
Every ticketing company that wishes to use the protocol to issue tickets, create events,… must spend (and thus buy from exchanges) $GET . This is called a “top-up”. As every ticket they issue requires $GET to act as fuel, this $GET is after usage transferred to the DAO treasury (more on that later).
The usage can be tracked on-chain here:
https://thegraph.com/hosted-service/subgraph/getprotocol/get-protocol-subgraph
On 31/01/22 for example 8411 tickets were minted, which required 586,20 $GET
For a deeper dive into the tokenomics I recommend this blog:
docs.get-protocol.io
The goal of the team behind GET Protocol is for it to become the ticketing standard. With this goal in mind the road is set for a fully decentralized protocol.
A DAO structure will be set up, which will govern the protocol. This process will be guided carefully by the foundation itself to ensure a smooth and effective transition. Below is a more in-depth explanation from the team on the process of setting it up:
For those unfamiliar with the concept of a DAO or Decentralized Autonomous Organization, it is essentially an organisation created by a group of people that share a common goal and is enforced not through a chain of command or leadership, but instead through a set of rules that have been encoded as a computer program.
Thanks to the rise in smart contracts, this process has not only become a feasible possibility, it’s actually a successful reality. A great example of this is MakerDAO, which at the end of 2017 launched their DAI stablecoin and corresponding DAO through smart contracts. It’s arguably become one of the most successful projects, locking up $6.4 billion in its smart contracts at the time of writing. The community who hold Maker tokens are able to make governance decisions such as the annual borrowing fee, collateral needed and other DAI decisions. As can be seen through this example, these smart contracts are created with the goals of being open and transparent and thanks to running on a blockchain, decentralized.
DAO’s are formed in roughly four steps:
A set of rules are designed and created around a shared goal, that will be coded into the DAO smart contract. This process involves heavy auditing to ensure that no security flaws are found.
Before a DAO gets deployed, it is important for there to be a token structure in place, in which the community can become stakeholders and the DAO itself has a holding of tokens for organizational use and rewarding community activity. The community can use their tokens obtained in this stage to make governance decisions over the direction in which the DAO operates once the DAO is deployed.
Once the core smart contract with all the rules has been audited and published and token funding has been completed, the DAO can be deployed so that it becomes fully autonomous. Since all rules, financial transactions and governance decisions are recorded on the blockchain, this means that the DAO can achieve full transparency, immutability and incorruptibility.
In order for decisions to be made, proposals must be submitted and consensus is reached by having community stakeholders vote on the proposals that they wish to see implemented. The amount of votes a stakeholder has (or their voting weight) is often linked to the amount of tokens that they hold, with the percentage requirement needed for a proposal passing, coded into the DAO smart contract.
If this is the end goal, why is the foundation needed in the first place?
Essentially, centralisation during the first years speeds up the process of adoption astronomically. As we are currently seeing take place.
During the beginning phase of the GET Protocol’s creation, It has been important for us at the foundation to be very hands-on in ensuring that we focus on onboarding ticketeers and entrepreneurs who share the same vision as we do, to provide the best possible ticketing experience for everyone in the ticketing chain.
Since inception we have seen the number of requests from companies and people who wish to implement the protocol skyrocket. We enact a level of vetting for all interested ticketeers, so that the first pioneering companies to implement the protocol, are those that we fully believe will be successful in sharing the mission of the protocol and upholding standards true to our own.
However, as we have mentioned from the start, the end goal of the GET Protocol is to be a decentralised system providing open source tooling for anybody, be it artists, venues, promoters and aspiring ticketeers to build their own ticketing company using the protocol. It should be as easy to create a ticketing company as creating a website with wordpress for example. To get to this point however requires time, battle testing of all of our systems and a guiding hand to ensure that the protocol reaches levels of adoption.
$GET tokens will essentially count as votes in a DAO organization and with that hold an extra value layer.
Especially ticketing companies, being the most prominent stakeholders in the protocol, will want to own a good share of $GET. Their ticketing revenue relies on the direction/quality of the code to be on point.
At the moment of writing the DAO treasury holds around 2,6 million $GET.
It is split into:
Both wallets are essentially owned by the token holders.
The Ethereum wallet received initial $GET tokens from the **foundation.
**The Polygon wallet (also referred to as the “fee collector”) is one that will continue to grow as all ticket sales result in $GET being bought from the market and transferred into it.
Do know that the used $GET is only transferred to the DAO wallet after the event has taken place. It also isn’t automatically transferred to the fee collector. It resides in the “EconomicsGET wallet” until the function is called to “swipe” it (which anyone can call).
This DAO treasury is owned by all token holders. It’s through governance (voting where more tokens carry more weight) where it will be decided what happens with these funds. The 2 most popular outcomes among the community/holders seem to be staking and burning.
faq.get-protocol.io