‘Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’ — Unknown
‘In the absence of access to the right tools of the trade, all knowledge about fishing is at best useless and at worst a most cruel torment.’ — Vleppo
In our last article the concept of value embedded in unlisted digital assets was touched on very briefly. In this article Vleppo will explore value as it relates to these assets in further detail and run through an example of how Vleppo intends to unlock this value for people globally.
Vleppo’s two principles for establishing value for unlisted digital assets
As stated previously an unlisted digital asset can be determined to have value if:
(1) The asset is able to be sold for a monetary value; and
(2) Property rights can be defined for the asset in such a way as to create exclusive use of the asset.
In terms of Principle 1, by ‘sold’ we don’t only mean the actual exchange of the asset for money but rather any form of monetisation such as leasing, licensing or final transfer of ownership. Basically, any action that gives rise to a single or periodical cash flow associated with the action determines this principle to be met.
Not all assets have value and this is quite clearly the case with regards to digital images. A mother taking a photo of her baby is creating a digital image in the same way that Peter Lik does with his panoramic masterpieces. Two digital images but only one could be considered a digital asset — and as lovely as it might be it’s not the photo of the baby.
Principle 2 is somewhat trickier particularly given the archaic traditional copywriting process which has been a happy hunting ground for IP attorneys of decades. IP protection costs can rapidly escalate to the point that protection afforded by the copyright is more than offset by the costs incurred.
In the end the key to establishing one’s property rights as they relate to digital assets comes down to ‘first in best dressed’. The person with clear evidence of them being the first to register an asset is in the position of power should anyone else try to claim otherwise. The Blockchain provides a unique framework through which holders of digital assets can register their ownership of a digital asset and have this captured in a tamperproof way.
How does Vleppo assist in unlocking the value from digital assets?
Say for example you are a photographer based in the Philippines. You’ve got a small portfolio of photos uploaded online and you’re earning cashflow from your portfolio which has been growing as you’ve added more images.
Then your only camera is stolen bringing your growth plans to a shuddering halt. You need to buy a new camera and quickly! So — what options do you have?
Access to personal loans from traditional lenders is going to be potentially pretty tricky considering you’ve not got a regular job (they are hard to come by in emerging markets). You quickly discount the idea of approaching the local payday lender as they have eye wateringly high rates of interest and a predisposition to a bit of nastiness should things not exactly go to plan to repay the loan.
So, what if you could approach Vleppo and use your portfolio of photographs as collateral for a short term loan to purchase a new camera and get your emerging business back on track? What if you could do this simply by:
Registering your assets with Vleppo and having them captured in the blockchain;
Allowing Vleppo to place a caveat over these assets in case of default;
Negotiate the rate at which you obtain the loan via Vleppo’s peer-to-peer marketplace;
Receive the funds to buy your camera so you can continue creating digital assets to increase your cashflow and repay the loan; and
Have Vleppo remove the caveat and you can continue to grow your business.
Vleppo has this particular use case in mind as a way of addressing the marginalisation of certain people by the traditional banking system. We are keen to help put the tools in people’s hands to achieve their aspirations and meet them where they are at with the digital assets that they have — unlike traditional lenders.
And unlike many players in the Blockchain space who have theoretical solutions looking for problems to solve, Vleppo is targeting a clear problem being assisting people to unlock the value from their digital assets.
The future is bright. The future is Vleppo.
PS: Oh, and by the way the choice of Philippines in this example was no accident as you can see here although this use case could just as easily be in New York, London or Shanghai.
About Vleppo:
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