Project Curate is a branch of the World Builder Foundation's ecosystem. It seeks to promote the curation of human knowledge and content, including literature, art, and research, and language, as well as the development of new material. Through Project Curate, people will be able to have increased access to museums, libraries, and other resources, and will receive numerous benefits for supporting curation efforts.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a fast growing asset class. They are unique identifiers that can be held and traded on a blockchain. Since their initial development, some have started to create NFTs that "represent" media, such as pieces of art. These NFTs are certificates of authenticty, but the first generation of media NFTs lacked more function. CUR-NFT is going to change that.
Many of the existing media NFTs have sold for a lot of money. However, an NFT is not a piece of media, or even a file. It is a mere number which can be linked anything off chain. NFTs do not do anything to affect the physical world, and generally have no connection to it, unless the NFT represents a real world piece of art, which is maintained by a trusted third party. However, there are still a few sources of value that can drive prices of NFTs in an organic way.
Just like original pieces of art carry much more value than a replica, even if they are identical in every other way, and many times even if the replica is superior, an NFT which has been shown to be created by a specific person, and is deemed original or authentic will likely carry more value.
Discussing supply and demand and use cases is beyond the scope of this document. However, NFTs gain value when they can be used for different things. NFTs that represent game assets automatically have value because they're usable within a game. Media based NFTs are more problematic and it can be difficult to make use cases for them.
An immediate way to increase the value of an NFT is to back it with some form of currency. Project Curate's media NFTs can all be backed with CUR tokens. These tokens are temporarily locked out of circulation, and are tied to the NFT upon creation, or any additional future backing. If the NFT is ever burned, the burner will receive the CUR.
People approved by the NFT's holder (or past holders) can add to the NFT's backing. However, doing so will increase the lockout time in order to prevent abuse. Project Curate itself will also be able to back the NFT, without lockout penalties. This system will be used as a way to distribute various awards, such as art contests, as well as through potential future programs that award based on originality of content and other factors.
Backing a media NFT with hundreds of thousands of dollars may be possible for celebrity millionaires, but not for a skilled, but less than famous artist. To support artists, Project Curate's media NFTs rely on a multiplier effect, similar to traditional crypto staking. As with other World Builder tokens, CUR is minted using the World Builder forge system. However, unlike with most other tokens within the ecosystem, a small percentage of additional tokens are minted whenever a smith uses the forge. This extra CUR goes to the NFT contract's balance.
The minimum lockout times for staking, as well as penalties for short lockout periods and bonuses for long lockout periods reduce the risk of abusing the system, such as creating cheap NFTs to pull resources from the system through the multiplier effect.
NFTs are undergoing a transformation. Thanks to newer token standards, an NFT can now have its own associated tokens. These tokens can be used to represent fractional ownership or control. A user can obtain a fraction of the NFT transferring CUR, in proportion to the desired amount of fractions. For projects that require a fixed token supply, an initial mint followed by no more allowed minting is also an option.
CUR-NFT advance statistics will make it easier to appraise the value of an art piece. Statistics will include
- Mean and median, as well as the standard deviation and skew for
- Backing across all NFTs
- Age of all unburned NFTs
- All statistics will be updated once per hour
Creation of new media is just as import as the curation of existing media.
Some people have an unusual sensory condition where normal sensory input is processed as alternate senses. For instance, some people experience "hearing colors." Synesthetic AI is a project which will allow for conversion of media from one type to another.
- Audio <-> Text
- Text <-> Image
- Image <-> Audio
World Builder focuses on creating assets that have significant real world value. We do so by networking with partners to create uses for our crypoassets, turning them into true forms of money. Because CUR is focused on the topic of art and curation of information, we will be networking with services that sell art related supplies, print on demand services, content preservation services, and more.
While the NFT is fractionalized, this fractional ownership is different from the ownership of the NFT itself. The funds used for the initial buy of an NFT, sold through our marketplace, will go to backing the NFT. A portion of additional sales will also go towards backing. In this way, the NFT will gain initial value when sold and will gain additional value through each additional sale. That value will become accessible to the fraction holders. This system makes certain royalties easy to track, as the artist can hold a portion of fractions.
One issue with NFTs is licensing and copyright. First and foremost, CUR NFT will never support the unauthorized use of media in the creation of NFTs. We also want to make it easier to show authorization. The exact details are still being worked out by the team. And this section will be expanded in time.
Humans have an amazing capacity to communicate. Language is like no other form of communication. And there are so many languages across the world. Sadly, many of these languages are dying, as people stop using them. Universal communication is important, but in many cases languages capture the culture of the people who use them, and to lose a language is to lose a part of ourselves. Preservation of knowledge and art is a core mission for us, and so we want to leverage CUR to help support people who are interested in learning and preserving languages.