Darkblock just wrapped up a project with Jungle Cats, a PFP project on Solana, that yielded the creation of more than 110,000 unique 3D assets. Using Darkblock’s protocol for decentralized unlockable content, each of these 3D assets was encrypted, stored in a darkblock that was minted on Arweave, and immutably attached to one of the 5,585 NFTs in the Jungle Cats collection.

This morning, holders of each Jungle Cats NFT has exclusive access to 10 unique 3D frames that showcase their iconic lion PFP. These frames vary in shape and color, ensuring that every asset is a truly one-of-a-kind addition to the NFT holder’s collection. NFT holders can now showcase their framed Jungle Cats PFP in virtual reality environments or explore augmented reality experiences. The possibilities are limited only by the imagination of the Jungle Cats community.

In addition to the Darkblock protocol’s ability to turn NFTs into decentralized vaults for encrypted digital assets, this project was also made possible by PFP Content Factory, Darkblock’s content-generation and bulk-upgrade tool. PFP Content Factory allows project founders to quickly generate unique images derived from all the PFPs in their collection, then upload the entire batch of newly generated images and have each one automatically attach to the correct corresponding NFT within the collection.

This partnership exemplifies the power of Darkblock’s decentralized unlockable content technology and its ability to enhance and add value to NFT projects. By providing Jungle Cats NFT holders with unique and exclusive 3D assets, Darkblock enriches the community’s experience and solidifies the value of owning a Jungle Cats NFT.

Jungle Cats holders can access and download their 3D assets by visiting the Darkblock app and following these steps:

• Connect your wallet
• Select “My NFTs” from the main nav bar
• Select the “Unlockables” tab to view your NFTs that have decentralized unlockable content attached
• Click on your Jungle Cat PFP
• To the right, under the description, you should see the Darkblock Viewer with some content visible, but still inaccessible. Click the button that says “Authenticate Ownership”
• Sign the message to confirm you own the wallet that contains this NFT
• Once the content is decrypted, select the file and download!
• Show it off in AR or VR environments

While Jungle Cats holders can access their 3D assets via the Darkblock app, the unlockable content is accessible from anywhere that integrates the protocol. Darkblock’s mission is to decentralize content and make it accessible anywhere someone interacts with their NFTs, whether it’s an ebook, videos, PDFs, or metaverse assets.

If you have a PFP project and are interested in doing something similar for your community, check out PFP Content Factory and/or email Whit, who leads communications and partnerships at Darkblock. 

NOIS is a platform that brings creators and music lovers together. Its roadmap calls for an upcoming PFP drop, the proceeds of which will fund the creation and distribution of music tracks, which will most likely also be minted on the Solana blockchain. It plans to initially use Darkblock’s protocol to deliver valuable content to its community by directly attaching it to their PFPs.  The content it expects to attach may include music videos, behind-the-scenes footage, concept art, thank-you messages, and more.

Using Darkblock’s multichain protocol and free app, creators and NFT projects are able to encrypt multimedia content; permanently store it on Arweave’s decentralized content blockchain; and then immutably attach it to their NFTs. It’s what we call “decentralized unlockable content,” which means that not only is the encrypted content stored in a decentralized manner, but it is also unlockable by the NFTs’ owners anywhere that integrates the protocol. In NOIS’ case, holders will be able to unlock their NFTs’ exclusive content on the NOIS website, via Darkblock’s app, and on the Night Market marketplace once it launches. Darkblock is also working on a Chrome extension that will allow people to view and unlock their NFTs’ Darkblock content on Magic Eden.

NOIS plans to use Darkblock to not only offer added protection for its NFTs’ assets, but to also increase the value of its PFPs for its holders over time by turning them into tokenized containers for exclusive content. It plans to also use Darkblock to increase the utility of its future Music NFTs by attaching additional assets, whether music videos or the track’s stems to encourage remixing.

We look forward to working with NOIS team to explore how decentralized unlockable content can add value to a PFP project, and return value to its community.

About Darkblock

Darkblock, a web3 pioneer in decentralized content delivery and monetization, enables creators to control the distribution, accessibility, and monetization of their content without making it right-click-savable. By turning NFTs into tokenized vaults for digital content (e.g., music, videos, podcasts, films, comics, ebooks, 3D metaverse or gaming assets, or even HTML files), Darkblock provides the infrastructure creators need to harness the power of web3 technology, unlock new storytelling and community-building tools, explore new business models and ultimately build a new creator economy free from platform control.

Website | Discord | Twitter | YouTube | Medium | LinkedIn

Soltype has integrated the Darkblock Protocol into its platform, which means that collectors who mint or purchase Literary NFTs on Soltype are given true ownership of the attached ebooks through decentralized access. While the ebooks will be token gated and accessible on the Soltype platform, it is also using the Darkblock Protocol to encrypt and store the files in a decentralized manner, and immutably attaching them to the collectors’ NFTs so they will be unlockable by owners regardless of any platform-related issues.

“We believe decentralizing content is the future of digital ownership and we’re excited to partner with Darkblock to provide our users with a more secure and robust ebook NFT experience,” said Paco Puylaert, Soltype’s CEO and co-founder. “We’re committed to giving our users the freedom and security to forever own and access their ebooks, no matter what happens to us.”

While most ebook platforms—both in the Web2 and Web3 spaces—seek to lock readers into using their platform by storing content in their own walled gardens and gating access with a username (i.e., Kindle) or NFT (i.e., centralized ebook NFT platforms), Soltype recognizes that decentralizing content is the only way to provide true ownership of digital assets to readers, immutability to an author’s work, and prevent over-zealous censorship of literature. All Literary NFTs minted on Soltype’s platform will have their corresponding EPUB and/or PDF files encrypted, stored on Arweave and immutably attached to the NFT. 

“Decentralized content means users hold the keys to the content and choose where to consume it, not the other way around,” said Chris Seline, CEO of Darkblock.

He continued: “Amazon is a behemoth, so we never even think about the fact Kindle could disappear—but it could. And if it did, all those ebooks you’ve purchased over the years would disappear overnight. That’s the risk of centralized platforms locking content in walled gardens—and it doesn’t matter if they’re gating access with a password or an NFT, if any link in the chain is centralized, then the benefits of decentralization are lost.”

More concerning than the unlikely chance that Amazon shutters Kindle is the fact it has complete control over the ebooks its users “buy.” Amazon could go into a user’s device and delete an ebook without prior warning—in fact, it has already done this. Just like decentralized social protects users from being deplatformed without recourse and gives them ownership of their social graphs, decentralized content protects users from overzealous censorship of books and other forms of content and gives them ownership of their digital assets, whether ebooks, films, or metaverse assets.

The first Literary NFT that will be minted on Soltype’s platform and benefit from Darkblock’s tech will be Dracari by E.R. Donaldson, which is small, 140-edition test mint. It will be the world’s first decentralized unlockable ebook. 

Dracari is a dress rehearsal for Soltype’s first big mint. On March 1, Soltype will launch Riglan, a novel and Literary NFT by award-winning Marvel writer B. Earl. 

“If we believe NFTs provide the delivery and ownership technology of the future, then we need to be thinking in decades—not days,” Seline said. “Current owners and future buyers of Literary NFTs need to have confidence that the digital assets associated with their NFTs will be accessible forever without worrying about 404 messages or broken Dropbox links. That’s what Darkblock and Soltype are doing.”

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About Soltype

Soltype is the leading platform and marketplace for Literary NFTs on Solana. It provides a user-friendly interface for authors and publishers to mint, sell and promote their ebooks in NFT form. Soltype is committed to giving readers true ownership of the ebooks they purchase on their platform via the Darkblock Protocol.

Website | Discord | Twitter | LinkedIn

About Darkblock

Darkblock, a web3 pioneer in decentralized content delivery and monetization, enables creators to control the distribution, accessibility, and monetization of their content without making it right-click-savable. By repurposing NFTs into tokenized vaults for digital content (e.g., music, videos, podcasts, films, comics, ebooks, 3D metaverse or gaming assets, or even HTML files), Darkblock provides the encryption infrastructure creators need to harness the power of web3 technology, unlock new storytelling and community-building tools, explore new business models and ultimately build a new creator economy free from platform control.

Website | Discord | Twitter | YouTube | Medium | LinkedIn

The hackathon, which Magic Eden launched this past fall after making waves in the Solana ecosystem when it made creator royalties optional, offered a chance for developers to learn more about Darkblock and our protocol. Recognizing that our tools and mission are to empower creators to make money from their work, Magic Eden had tapped Darkblock to be a partner in the hackathon. We offered a workshop and fielded questions from builders throughout the event, which ran from Oct. 28th to Dec. 13th and boasted more than $250,000 in prize money.

Web3 Music Vault was one of a few projects incorporating Darkblock’s protocol for decentralized unlockable content. It was developed by a member of the Darkblock community, Prizem, and offers one of the first-ever applications for playing token-gated music seamlessly from a playlist via Alexa.

Using Darkblock, musicians can immutably attach mp3 files to their NFTs as unlockable content. Once the Music NFTs get into the hands of collectors, all they have to do is visit Web3 Music Vault to connect their wallet and create a playlist for Alexa.

Prizem’s project offers a great example of making web3 content available in the places where people are already consuming their content. The app also offers a good example of how Darkblock’s protocol can be integrated into any website, wallet, native app, or even hardware.

Songs of Eden, a popular musician who has already utilized Darkblock to distribute his music, believes Darkblock and apps like Web3 Music Vault will enable creators to reclaim control over music that “musicians/producers have been giving away in the last few decades.”

“Web3 is a chance to get it back,” he said.

He showed off Web3 Music Vault in a video he posted on Twitter.

This technology offers promise for much more than just music. Audiobooks, podcasts, lectures, or any audio file can be attached and played using the Web3 Music Vault. The Web3 Music Vault provides users with a seamless way to play token-gated content. 

Because it was built as part of Magic Edens hackathon, the app currently supports only Solana, but Prizem has expressed interest in adding support for additional chains if the demand is there. If you want to learn more or encourage him to continue developing the app, join Darkblock’s discord and bug Prizem.

Darkblock: How did you transition from traditional museum curation into digital?

I worked for almost 10 years for the Museum of Yugoslavia in Belgrade. I was always more focused on contemporary art and research-based contemporary artistic practices. I’m actually quite new to Web3. I heard about NFTs and I was like, ‘What’s going on here and how will curating work?’ Then I decided to join the amazing team at All.Art/SolSea. 

How does a curator rotate collections? How do you decide what you want to show?

One of the collections that I was in charge of had around 2,000 objects. The process of curating is much slower in real life than in the Web3 space. Some [IRL] exhibitions can take two or three years. It takes a huge team of people working closely with designers, architects, etc. There is a lot of collaboration.

Do you encourage artists to join not only the digital space but NFT land? 

With virtual reality, I think you should look at it kind of critically. Digital art is perfect for NFTs. But if you are working with art whose materiality is important, then maybe not. 

I worked on one exhibition that had so many pieces not ideal for VR. To tell you the truth, it was hell to make that exhibition. Not for me personally, for our 3D techs. In some cases, you shouldn’t turn your art into NFTs.

What you can definitely do and think about is adding different layers of story to the artwork. For example, if you have a painting with different layers, you can deconstruct the artwork and NFT-ize certain parts of it.

Overall, I believe that traditional art or physical art should still exist.

Are there any trends in AI art that you are seeing?

Yes, we’ve seen a significant advancement of AI, especially in the past few months. This artist, Sophia Elvis, takes participants’ dreams and turns them into art using 70% AI and the rest traditional art in Photoshop. It’s amazing what you can do with prompts and entering different things…you can get amazing stuff with AI, it’s a bit scary.

Tell us a little about the last VR exhibition you did.

The last one we did featured a Puerto Rican artist. While we were working on the exhibition, Hurricane Fiona happened. So he would send emails saying ‘Sorry, I didn’t have electricity this week,’ but still send these ideas. A lot of the things he sent were visual materials, like the pink wallpaper you see in the corner. He was passionate about the project and it was really such a pleasure to work with him. It was really a feeling of artists, curators, and designers working together and overlapping not only in real life but in this space as well.

How many virtual halls or exhibitions does All.Art have?

We have around 20 halls available and they vary on how customizable they are. For example we put one artist in a huge temple like the Pantheon called “Temple of Dreams.” She makes this beautiful AI art that works well in the space. But once you use a space like this [temple] for something, you can’t use it too much, it becomes a bit boring and people have already seen it. Hopefully we will work on creating more art galleries, but for now we have about 20 spaces we can use and then a few custom made or clone VR exhibitions. 

The experience of building an exhibition is so different. Working in the physical world, when you want to make an exhibition, someone has to build it. Here, you just have some clicks. Sometimes it feels like I am playing Sims again.

Are there plans for interactivity?

Absolutely. Yes. We can be interacting in five minutes! They’re [the exhibitions] all available for viewing on the web. But they’re also available on headsets on the VR All.Art App, one of the products of the All.Art universe.

For artists without a large following, what do you recommend for them to get involved?

For me, I really don’t think the number of followers on Twitter or Instagram is necessarily the main criteria. We have some really great artists who have 1,000 followers, not 5k or 10K. One of the main things to get on the radar is—and I know it can be a hassle—to apply for collection verification. People are usually scared like, ‘I’m not gonna apply for collection verification because I don’t have all the followers.’ Doesn’t matter. Apply. You just have to be a real person who wants to try and we’ll work the rest out together.

Big thanks to Jovana for taking the time to sit down with us and chat about NFTs and the future of virtual exhibitions.

Tune into Darkblock Presents every Thursday on Youtube Live and make sure to send us your questions, topics, and guest suggestions!

Darkblock: Where’d you come from? How did you come up with Exchange Art? 

 I actually came from PricewaterhouseCoopers. I was a director in the technology consulting practice. To put that in perspective, it’s a level below partner. I saw an opportunity with web3, and I didn’t wanna miss it.

I saw a clear market gap within the Solana blockchain for fine art. So as a marketplace, we went in that direction. If we think about the previous 12 months from when we launched, it was about $200,000 in sales. Now…it’s considerably more. We’ve had  over $11 million paid out to creators and collectors in the past 10 months.

Exchange Art just closed a $3.2M seed round. What are you planning to do with the money?

When we first started Exchange Art, we actually bootstrapped it. Then we did the raise but that happened at the heart of the bear market. If you’ve ever fundraised, it is not the most ideal market conditions. Despite this, we were able to raise at a very fair valuation. In terms of what we’re doing with the capital, it’s really about continuing to build tools for Exchange Art. Exchange Art is the leading fine art marketplace on Solana. Our bread and butter is not focusing on, what is called in the industry, a Degen trader (someone that doesn’t care about art, they want a collectable they can trade). We care about creators. Our focus is to continue to provide amazing tooling so that creators can go to market in many different ways. That is very different from, let’s say, an OpenSea or Magic Eden. They’re very focused on building tools so that traders can trade a high velocity of speculative collectibles. We just aren’t in that business. They are so different in terms of what they stand for and the behaviors of the users that collect them. 

How do you get a creator like John Le Studio into your ecosystem? 

John is not just a normal talent, he is an extraordinary talent. He is like the Moebius of our time.  I’m putting him up there with some of the greatest illustrators that ever walked. It’s not just his ability to create, it’s his ability to brand, communicate, and articulate the meaning in his work. That’s really his X factor. I think he’s going to have as big of an impact on Solana as XCOPY had with Ethereum. In fact, he’s doing things that XCOPY never did. For example, he went to Capitol Hill to talk on behalf of Solana on the benefits of the blockchain for artists. Very smart guy, very talented. We are thrilled that he continues to sell exclusively on Exchange Art. 

How do you make yourself a 1/1 artist-friendly location?

For us, it’s really about talking to the users. Community is everything. From day one, I wanted to provide a platform for creators to unlock their potential. It’s not just on our core platform, it’s also our marketing channels. That’s one of the things that has really differentiated us. Also, I always wanted to be accessible to help artists. This is a tough world. This is a new world. It’s a completely different paradigm shift on how artists sell. I want to make sure each one of them unlocks their potential. Our incentives are directly aligned to the artist making more money. 

It’s in our best interest to provide coaching sessions, workshops, all kinds of capabilities that teach them how to market, how to communicate their work, and new techniques that can unlock future creative works. Helping grow collectives, helping grow collector investment DAOs, and helping grow this core ecosystem beyond just the platform is what has enabled Exchange Art, and for that matter, Solana, to continue to grow. It’s doing things differently, right? Like there are material differences between Ethereum and Solana that I think are really cool. There’s a lot more of these collectives that exist within Solana.

So you’ve got the fine art market nailed down. What about other media types? 

One of the things that I wanna do is open up capabilities that can unlock future markets. Like, how do you provide utility for music? Maybe you put music within a profile. All of a sudden this music NFT that I have has scarcity and value within a platform. One of the things I keep thinking about is, what can I do that allows us to have this core business very focused, but also enable an ecosystem. There probably is going to be a dominant music marketplace and that’s probably not gonna be us. But how can we partner to help their growth? Ultimately, my goal is to get as many humans onto Solana as possible. I recognize that there’s gonna be different businesses that exist within Solana. The idea of only having one marketplace, that’s not gonna enable the growth of the ecosystem right now. You need specific tooling for specific use cases. So I think you need to allow certain markets to develop independently from an aggregator. 

You’ve added a new chat feature to your website…what was your thought behind this?

The idea is to be open and inclusive. With fine art, the reality is that it’s a devil and a good. It gets expensive. And there are a lot of artists that have friends that want to show support but cannot afford to put in a bid. We wanted to create a situation, an environment, an event around an auction where friends can support friends. They can root them on and create excitement. It’s also a great way for collectors to kind of talk a little smack which is fun. It’s less about being social and more about making things fun.

What are you excited about in the pipeline that you can talk about?

We’re moving from a Web2 login for creators. They [currently] use their email to log in, but now they can connect their wallet and manage their profiles from multiple wallets. So that’s really exciting. It’s kind of simple, but it’s something that I think is an important step to moving to Web3.

The other thing that I’m excited about is for creators to be able to ‘follow’ and the integration of a deeper notification system. One of the things people don’t realize about how crazy our product market fit is, is that people are being retained without a retention mechanism. Right now, people are coming back organically. They’re not coming back because we’re pulling them back. So it tells you the real potential of what the next month looks like when you actually have a retention mechanism in your funnel that can pull people back. So the ability to have email notifications and that whole notification flow is a big theme over the next quarter.

The other thing that we’re looking at is the potential of unlockables. That’s something over the next quarter that we’re definitely exploring with y’all. Again, our goal is to continue to provide tools specifically for artists and give them new creative capabilities. Cause like what do unlockables provide? That’s a new way creators can market, right? Every single new contract that we deploy, whether it was buy now, offers, auctions, the additions, all of these are new ways that artists can market. Unlockables is another way that artists are gonna be able to market. That’s really our focus, how do we keep building cool tools for artists.

The lessons learned in Web2, building an audience, keeping people notified. This mechanism that’s been built. How do we bring that over to Web3 without violating that?

It’s not really about Web2 versus Web3. It’s a question of whether you want to be a platform or an aggregator. That is actually the fundamental question. With a platform, the whole makes more than the platform. Whereas if you look at Facebook, their perspective is, ‘I wanna make the most money.’ The creators do not make money relative to how much money Facebook makes on advertisements. It is a completely disproportionate relationship.  If you look at their most recent model, I think it’s like 47.5% that they want to take in the metaverse. That is a question of values and principles. Do you wanna be a platform or an aggregator? Microsoft—great example—chose to be a platform. They could have extracted an immense amount of value from the software industry. They chose to let an ecosystem grow. Right? You see companies like Apple today. They’re choosing to act more like an aggregator than a platform. They continue to restrict innovation in Web3 en mass. So that’s more the question I ask. Do I want to be a platform and allow people to make tons of money and grow the whole pie? Or do I want to eat the world? It’s a tough thing as a company because you’re always trying to grow, but that is the fundamental question you always have to ask yourself…what do you wanna be?

What projects are you guys working on? Are you playing in this big PFP community? 

There are amazing opportunities to invest in talented artists and the amazing art that they create.  We wanna make sure that they [the artists] get education around those opportunities. So we partnered with DeGods. We’re also partnering with Degen Apes. There’s a lot of really amazing PFP communities. We got some exciting stuff with the MonkeDAO that’s coming. For us, anything that is generative is not on Exchange Art. We draw a really clear line that we wanna be known for something. I think that brand awareness, growing, and educating communities on why we are special and different, has been really critical to our growth. People know what to expect when they come to Exchange Art. They do not want to see things like generative projects. There are plenty of sites that can do that. That’s what makes us really special is that clear brand identity.

Big thanks to Adam for putting on one more hat this week and answering all of our  questions. Hopefully there will be more Darkblock x Exchange Art content on the horizon.

Tune into Darkblock Presents every Thursday on Youtube Live and make sure to send us your questions, topics, and guest suggestions!

Jungle Cats users will be given the opportunity to purchase the Darkblock protected NFT in an auction on Jungle Cat’s website launching today (June 16, 2022) at 11AM CST. All users will have access to the first page of the comic, but only the highest bidder will be able to unlock and access the full comic.

We are excited for this collaboration as it highlights not only the limitless possibilities of unlockables (gamification, extended utility, community building, etc.), but also the importance of security in web3 for pay-per-view mediums like comics. Without encryption via Darkblock, pay-per-view creations on web3 are not monetizable and are vulnerable to copying/resale. With Darkblock, comics can finally enter the web3 arena. In this case, a jungle safari!

To enter the auction for the Jungle Cats comic, head over to their emporium and get started. Stay up to date on other Darkblock partnerships and happenings on our twitter or by joining our discord at chat.darkblock.io.

About Jungle Cats:

Jungle Cats is a strong and diverse community building in Web3 and the Metaverse. Jungle Cats is a collection of high-quality Lions and Lionesses roaming the Solana blockchain. Their OG collection of 5500 lions was deployed in October 2021 and sold over 80,000 tickets. Following the first drop, lion holders were given free Lionesses (3800 total!). JC’s second phase of operation is an interactive ‘Jungle Safari’ roadmap hosted on their website. Holders of both a Lion and a Lioness will send their Jungle Cats on a journey through the safari to find their voice and yield $GROAR. Each stage unlocks new areas of the map to experience the ecosystem. Learn more on their website!

Website | Twitter | Discord

About Darkblock:

Darkblock gives creators more control over the distribution of their content. Comics, ebooks, podcasts, music, movies, journalism, pay-per-view, YouTube, OnlyFans, Patreon, influencer content, metaverse assets — and more — will all require access control to become viable NFT markets. Whether it’s through sales, ad revenue or rentals, we aim to guarantee the flow of income to creators by letting them hold the keys to their content.

Website | Discord | YouTube | Medium | Twitter

Creators and buyers will now be able to monetize their digital assets without selling their work/collections. The proceeds from rentals will still flow back to the original creator of the NFT.

The rental service will launch on Solana soon. Exact information on the release will be announced via our social media accounts, so stay tuned! Once launched, rental will be available for protected, Darkblock encrypted NFTs.

We are so grateful to the geniuses at Cardinal who share our vision of encrypted content rental and we can’t wait to work together.

About Cardinal:

Cardinal is a protocol on Solana designed to enhance the utility of NFTs and empower the next generation of on-chain digital assets. The Cardinal standard allows you to either wrap an existing token or create a new one with built in functionality for revocation, automatic time or use-based expiry, and selective transferability.

Website | Discord | Twitter | Medium

About Darkblock:

Darkblock gives creators more control over the distribution of their content. Comics, ebooks, podcasts, music, movies, journalism, pay-per-view, YouTube, OnlyFans, Patreon, influencer content, metaverse assets — and more — will all require access control to become viable NFT markets. Whether it’s through sales, ad revenue or rentals, we aim to guarantee the flow of income to creators by letting them hold the keys to their content.

Website | Discord | YouTube | Medium | Twitter