NFTA
A cross-chain NFT Auction and Loan
Platform
Whitepaper v1.0
DISCLAIMER
The information provided in this whitepaper is only for information purposes of the NFTA project. This should by no means be interpreted as a recommendation of investments in the NFTA tokens. Investments in NFTA tokens are associated with risks that are above the control of the founding team such as market circumstances. Besides, the plan laid out in this document may be adjusted to adapt to future situations to achieve the best performance of the NFTA platform.
A product of SOTA Finance
Table and Content
1. Introduction 3
1.1 Abstract 3
1.2 NFTA auction market 3
1.3 NFTA loan market 4
3. Roadmap 4
4. Team 4
4.1 Founding team 4
4.2 Advisors and Reviewers 5
4.3 Partners and Investors 6
5. Product design 7
5.1 NFTA auction market 8
5.1.1 Overall design 8
5.1.2 Auction artworks 9
5.2 NFTA loan market 10
5.2.1 Marketplace lending 10
5.2.2 Pool lending 11
5.3 NFTA tokenomics 12
5.3.1 NFTA token utility 12
5.3.2 NFTA token distribution 12
6. Other product features for future extension 13
6.1 Adding features to improve user experience 13
6.2 Further extension to other blockchains and content partners 13
1. Introduction
1.1 Abstract
Similar to real-world collectibles, NFT collectibles' valuation tends to be rather subjective. As a result, NFTs, especially high-value content items, are suitable for sale through the auction market. This also leads to another inherent aspect of the NFT market which is the low liquidity. Consequently, NFT owners may have difficulties dealing with their short-term funding needs while holding the NFTs.
NFTA is an advanced cross-chain platform that provides P2P NFT auction and loan services, with a focus on high-value content NFTs. The platform will start in Phase 1 with NFTs issued on the Binance Smart Chain. In later phases, it will extend to accept NFTs from other blockchains. The ultimate goal is to create a market where unique artworks by talented artists can reach the owners who value them and support the NFT owners' short-term funding needs.
NFTA token is the governance token of the NFTA market. The token is issued on the Ethereum blockchain (ERC20) with an amount fixed at 100 million tokens. NFTA token holders can propose and vote for new development features of the platform, and receive rewards for participating in such activities. In the future, a portion of platform revenues will be used to support the governance activities.
1.2 NFTA auction market
Auction has been an essential part of real-world collectibles for a long time. Due to the
subjective evaluation, this is a useful method to discover the price of an item. The same is true for digital content NFTs, especially high-value content collectibles.
There are currently a few available markets that provide NFT auction services. However, different from usual NFT markets where NFTs are listed and traded easily, it takes a lot more selection and preparation processes to execute NFT auctions. As a result, only a small part of the user needs, both NFT owners and buyers, are being addressed.
Besides, digital content NFTs are created on different public blockchains. The NFT market is rather fragmented which makes it difficult for an NFT created on a public blockchain to be traded on another blockchain's ecosystem.
NFTA auction market is a cross-chain P2P NFT auction market that aims to bring a large number of high-value NFTs to the auction market so that talented artists are recognized and valued. The platform is designed to let NFT owners submit their NFT easily for auction. After appraisal and acceptance by the platform admin, the remaining auction process is automatically arranged. In phase 1, the NFTA auction market will accept NFTs created on the Binance Smart Chain. The platform will add Binance Smart Chain and other blockchain networks in later phases.
1.3 NFTA loan market
NFT collectibles tend to have relatively low liquidity. Owners want to hold the NFTs for long-term value accumulation and wait for the right deal before reselling them. However, that means the owners' fund is stuck with the NFTs. We believe that breaking through the liquidity hurdles is one of the keys for the NFT market to develop further.
Similar to real assets that can be used as collaterals for funding, NFTs should also be used to support the owners to get loans by depositing the NFTs as collaterals. NFTA is a cross-chain P2P NFT loan market that is designed to address the borrowing needs of NFT owners.
Compared to a normal P2P lending platform, the NFT loan process is different mainly because the asset values are rather subjective. Therefore, we design to let lenders select NFTs and agree on the terms with the borrowers. Similar to the NFTA auction market, the NFTA loan market also starts with NFTs on the Binance Smart Chain in Phase 1 and extends to other blockchain networks in later phases.
3. Roadmap
2021 Q2: Project landing page, whitepaper, token issuance, token listing
The first version of the P2P NFT auction and loan market based on the Binance Smart Chain
2021 Q4: Adding NFT on HECO Chain, mobile application, governance function 2022 Q2: Further extension of the platform to other chains, content, and more
advanced auction methods
2023 Q2: A portion of transaction fees will be used for governance purpose
4. Team
4.1 Founding team
Tommy Le, Founder
A serial entrepreneur with demonstrated performance to deliver large-scale projects with 18 years of experience. He started his career in FPT Software, the largest IT company in Vietnam, and later on became a director. After leaving FPT, he founded and was the CEO of SotaTek - an IT consulting and development company with 200 employees, providing services to customers worldwide. He is also the Co-founder of SOTA, a P2P NFT marketplace for creators and collectors.
William Nguyen, CEO
Former CTO of VCC Exchange, a Singapore-based crypto-exchange with a strong presence in the Vietnam market. William was awarded various prizes such as the Champion of Student Science Research Conference or Google Summer of Code for NASA's project. He also worked at Senior levels of international corporations such as DeNA or Mitani Sangyo Co.LTD.
Andy Nguyen, CTO
Former CTO of SotaTek, Andy Nguyen is known for his extensive expertise in constructing complicated ERP and enterprise systems. Moreover, Andy is a Certified IBM Solution Designer, specialized in developing smart contracts with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Neo as well as related
systems.
Son Nguyen, Project Manager
Son has been working as a Scrum Master and System Architect in the IT industry for more than 15 years. His career was mostly with international IT companies where he gained the expertise to manage and perform high-quality product development. Son’s tech stacks cover a wide range of technical areas, from web/mobile applications to blockchain, cloud services.
4.2 Advisors and Reviewers
Dung Nguyen, Advisor
Doctor of Business Administration, Founder of SOTA
Dung Nguyen, a Doctor of Business Administration, has more than 15 years of experience in Economics, Business Management, and blockchain research and development. He has been on the Board of Directors of several successful blockchain projects. Dung is the Founder of SOTA, a P2P NFT marketplace for creators and collectors.
Chantal Lang, Advisor
IT/Blockchain project manager, crypto investment trainer
Chantal has more than 25 years of experience working in the IT industry as a project manager, with a special focus on blockchain technology. She is a crypto influencer who is passionate about training the communities about crypto investments. Besides, she provides consulting services to blockchain projects.
Caroline Morcillo, Art Advisor To be added...
Thao Nguyen, Reviewer CEO of SOTA
Thao is currently the CEO of SOTA, a P2P NFT marketplace for creators and collectors. She had 14 years of working experience in the financial and fintech industry in Japan and the
Netherlands. Her expertise covers various financial areas including investment, risk
management, and asset modeling. In 2019, she became the Business Development Director of TomoChain Japan, TomoChain Pte. Ltd.sota’s Japan subsidiary.
4.3 Partners and Investors
SotaNext
A company that specializes in blockchain development and consulting services. SotaNext is known for its strong and experienced blockchain development team, both in the public and private blockchain areas. The company has been providing blockchain-based systems for customers globally, notably Japan, US, Europe and Vietnam.
http://sotanext.com/
VCC Exchange
VCC Exchange is a digital asset exchange focusing on blockchain. Our core
competencies are heavily geared towards technology and user experience. We are users too, and we aim to provide you with a credible and transparent exchange, where users can trust and use in the long-run, not short-term usage.
https://vcc.exchange/
Chain Ridge Capital
Chain Ridge Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and decentralized finance. The fund invests in companies and protocols building the next wave of innovations in the digital space with product-market fit and real use cases. Chain Ridge Capital's focus is on building trust with founders that exhibit clear visions for the future and providing any necessary support to help them flourish.
https://chainridge.capital
Crypto Revolution
Crypto news and social media trends have become a major factor in the cryptocurrency market. Crypto revolution produces daily videos on a multitude of cryptocurrency topics including crypto news, social media trends, trading suggestions, chart analysis, tutorials.
https://cryptorev.net/
01 Capital
We offer our clients expert services drawing from our track record in tech, fintech, DLT, network incentives, tokenization, and capital markets. Our service offering falls into three categories; consulting, network economics, and corporate finance.
https://www.zero1.capital/
Three M Capital
Three M Capital is an Australia-based crypto investment fund. The fund advises multiple current projects and is in the process of launching its own project. The company has its own platforms and forums to educate and advise investors and traders about potential opportunities and even provide training to future traders.
https://www.threem.capital/
5. Product design
In phase 1, both NFT auction and loan markets will be built on the Binance Smart Chain. The platform's backend is connected with the SOTA NFT marketplace (https://sota.finance/en) to enable the single sign-on function for users on both platforms. That means users can sign in to both platforms with the same account so that NFTs created/purchased on the SOTA marketplace can be posted for auction and loan directly on the NFTA market. On the other hand, NFTs
obtained from the NFTA market through auction or loan financing can be sold on the SOTA market from the same user account.
Nevertheless, the NFTA auction and loan market can accept any NFTs to be posted for auction and loan financing as long as the NFTs are created on the Binance Smart Chain. Users just need to send the NFTs to their wallets on the NFTA platform and execute transactions.
5.1 NFTA auction market
5.1.1 Overall design
NFTA auction market overall design
Anyone can propose their NFTs on Binance Smart Chain for auction in the NFTA market. Owners need to create an account on the NFTA platform and deposit their NFTs (or an account on the SOTA NFT platform).
To propose an NFT for auction, an NFT owner (seller) selects the NFT from his/her collection, defines an expected minimum price and expected profit-sharing percentage above the minimum price, and sends it to the platform admin. The admin will then verify the proposed NFT and auction conditions. Once accepted, the admin will arrange an auction for the NFT.
In each auction, an NFT (which may have one or multiple copies) is posted for buyers to bid in a pre-defined period. If a new bid is submitted in the last minutes before the deadline then the auction period is extended automatically. Note that there will be conditions to join and submit bids at the auction such as having a minimum deposit (staking) amount of NFTA tokens, the governance token, in the platform. After the auction ends, the winner will have a certain period to send their funds and receive the NFT. Auction participants (except the winner) now can claim the deposit (staking) back to their wallets.
Once the winner sends sufficient payment for NFT, the NFT will be delivered to the winner's wallet. Payment will be made to the NFT owner's wallet following the agreed price and profit-sharing.
After the payment period, if the auction winner does not fulfill the payment, the auction is deemed to fail and the NFT will be delivered back to its owner's wallet. The winner will lose his/her staking amount in this case.
5.1.2 Auction artworks
We will onboard a series of artworks from talented artists, especially from Asia and Europe to the NFTA auction market. Below are some sample artworks from our content partners.
Artworks by Dao Hai Phong, a well known artist in the Vietnamese contemporary art.
"Welcome" by Dao Hai Phong "Red Love" by Dao Hai Phong
"Golden Morning" by Dao Hai Phong
Artworks by Nikos Probst, a distinguished German digital artist
Digital Landscape Series I, II, III and IV by Nikos Probst
5.2 NFTA loan market
5.2.1 Marketplace lending
The NFTA marketplace lending section is designed to facilitate the lending/borrowing directly between a lender and a borrower.
To start the loan process, a borrower will post an NFT from his wallet and submit his desired loan terms (such as borrowing currency, amount, and borrowing period). Note that only NFTs included in the platform's white list can be posted to receive loans in the market. Besides, borrowers may need to fulfill KYCs and staking depending on the borrowing amount. After submission, lenders will see the NFT included in the set of NFTs available for them to make lending offers. The lender evaluates the NFT by checking its originality and trading history and decides on the loan terms to make offers. The more the lender considers loan terms close to the borrower's desired terms, the more likely it will be accepted by the borrower.
An NFT can accept multiple loan offers. The NFT owner gets notification of and can review loan offers on his/her profile page, and decide which offer to accept. After the borrower accepts a loan offer, the posted NFT will be transferred to the NFTA smart contract and locked as collateral. At the same time, the offer loan amount will be sent from the lender's wallet to the borrower's wallet.
At the end of the borrowing period, the borrower will receive a notification to pay back the loan amount, including accumulated interests. Once the borrower makes the payment, the NFT will be released back to the borrower's wallet.
In case the borrower fails to meet the payment, the loan is deemed as default and the NFT collateral will be transferred automatically to the lender's wallet.
5.2.2 Pool lending
The pool lending feature is provided to facilitate fast lending to NFT owners. Using pool lending NFT owners can get instant loans with their NFT collaterals without necessarily waiting for the loan offers.
For this type of loan, borrowers will submit their NFT assets and expected loan durations to the platform. The NFTA pool lending engine will calculate loan amount and interest rate
automatically.
Once the borrowers accept the terms then they can decide to take out a loan and the borrowed amount will be sent immediately to their wallets. At the same time, their submitted NFT assets will be locked as the pool's collateral. Apart from NFT collaterals, borrowers may need to fulfill KYCs and staking depending on the borrowing amount.
Lenders can join the lending pool to provide loans immediately at any time by submitting their lending amount. A lender ultimately owns a portion of the loan pool proportional to his/her lending amount in the pool. That means interest rewards will be paid to pool lenders
proportionally to their loan amount. In addition, results of NFT collateral liquidation will be shared among the pool's loan providers.
Overall structure of a lending pool
5.3 NFTA tokenomics
5.3.1 NFTA token utility
NFTA is the governance token of the NFTA platform. The token is issued on Ethereum
Blockchain (ERC20), and bridged to Binance Smart Chain (BEP20), HECO (HRC20) and other chains. The total number of tokens is fixed at 100 million.
NFTA token utility:
● Staking: to participate in NFT auctions and submit offers, buyers are required to stake an amount of NFTA tokens
● Governance: token holders can propose and vote for new platform features (platform governance) and receive rewards for participation in such activities. Starting from year 3, a portion (5%) of NFTA platform transaction fees will be used for governance purposes.
● Liquidity mining incentive: there will be incentives for token holders to provide liquidity
● Payment and lending: NFTA tokens can be used for payment of NFTs and lending
5.3.2 NFTA token distribution
The NFTA tokens will be distributed as following:
● 45% (45 million) for sale
● 15% (15 million) for team
● 20% (20 million) for treasury reserve
● 20% (20 million) for community
6. Other product features for future extension
6.1 Adding features to improve user experience
To allow users to access the NFTA platform easily from their smartphones, a new mobile app will be developed. Users can select trade NFT auctions and loans easily at any time, anywhere from the mobile application.
Besides, to bring mass users to the market, we will add payment methods such as credit card, Pay Pal to make the platform accessible to non-crypto users.
The platform will gradually add more advanced features to the platform to suit specific user needs for the NFTA market. Below features are in our consideration:
● New auction methods such as auction per NFT copy (in case of NFTs with multiple copies)
● Silent auction
● Auctions of digital and physical artwork combination
● Credit evaluation of the borrowers based on their borrowing history
● Credit evaluation in collaboration with other lending platforms
6.2 Further extension to other blockchains and content partners
In later phases, the platform will add NFTs on the Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum blockchain so that users can post their NFTs from other platforms to the NFTA market for auctions and loans. We will also onboard more content partners in the future.
