Darkblock, the protocol for decentralized unlockable content, announced today a strategic partnership with Soltype, the leading platform and marketplace for Literary NFTs on Solana, that will introduce readers and collectors to the world’s first truly decentralized unlockable ebooks.
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.
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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.