One of the primary pillars of Web3 is called DeFi. We tend to talk about decentralized finance as though it were just alternative banking. Yet its rapid growth into a $100 billion business and the subsequent $3.5 billion that online creators earned in just one year tell a different story. Crypto is doing more than challenging outdated banking practices; it’s creating an opportunity to connect communities and empower people in an otherwise siloed financial system.

What we’ve seen in Web2, the internet era we’ll loosely define as between 2005 and 2020, is a centralized system where only a handful of large tech companies accrue value. Web3 is already promising to be different and serve as a crypto-led era powered by a decentralized, community-governed ethos. With the right infrastructure, brands and individuals can work directly with their audiences without social platforms taking large cuts of their earnings. For the first time ever, we have a chance to give individuals true ownership of their assets. 

So what is true ownership? Let’s say I buy a ticket to a concert or sporting event. I’m buying my entry into an experience, but I don’t own the ticket. You’ll probably see a message in fine print at the bottom of the ticket, wagging a finger at you, reminding you that the experience is non-transferable. And what’s the definition of ownership if not the ability to sell? But if we sell experiences on the blockchain, the NFT acts as the representation of ownership and it gives people the power to negotiate, name their price, and trade on an open market. In the hands of the individual, that ticket has the chance to create so much more wealth.

NFTs are giving people the ability to own things in more meaningful ways. And those people are also working together toward a common goal: the growth of real community. At Cryptopia, Salt Lake City’s conference for crypto enthusiasts, OCAVU shared our plans for a new infrastructure that will allow communities to self-govern their own choices and assets in the free market.

We’ve created a system that gives any artist or entrepreneur the right to create whatever they want the way they want. This content can be 2D or 3D, video or AR, and can all be stored inside of OCAVU’s existing asset-management platform. Their property can be added to any other platform, including the person’s own website, and can be sold as an NFT. This infrastructure keeps the product consistent across platforms while fans and communities can connect with the artist and purchase NFTs that have utility.

It’s not just some idealistic fantasy. 

We’ve patent-pending a utility engine that can assign, distribute, and enable utility tied to any NFT. That means we can turn NFTs into concert tickets that won’t include that fine print saying you can’t transfer the product you thought you bought. Users can log into the OCAVU Network and see their tickets that are actual NFTs. It’s a fully functioning Polygon wallet that is embeddable to any website without the need for a plugin extension. The OCAVU Network allows for true community management and 1:1 marketing automation on the blockchain.

On Thursday, Cryptopia used the OCAVU Network as its ticketing system. As the sole wallet providers for the event, it seemed like the right place to launch our 888,888,888 minted tokens at the stroke of midnight. It was an after-party event where we surprised guests by airdropping NFTs and rewarded them with a huge amount of tokens. Looking forward, early users will have the opportunity to earn rewards by providing liquidity, incentivize the market, and enable our token to be used at scale. The OCAVU Network Token is the backbone of the OCAVU Network. It facilitates a connection between traditional fiat and the Web3 world. Users will be able to purchase digital assets on the blockchain using any form of payment they want thanks to our partnership with Stripe. It also acts as the source of liquidity for individual community tokens that will also be powered by the OCAVU Network, of which several are on their way.

And it’s just the start of our patented strategy. With our revenue projection placed at $22 million for 2022, we’ve decided to redirect our business model from a 20 percent blockchain focus to 50 percent, letting crypto and NFTs share the spotlight with our virtual and augmented reality technologies.

By now, our reasons for doubling down on blockchain should be obvious. Web3 is an era for the people, from entrepreneurs to artists to influencers, who can engage with each other, their fans, and new communities on their own terms. After decades of corporate-owned and government-owned banking, it’s the start of a collective-owned future.

In the short time that blockchain has even existed in our lexicon, it’s become one of the most powerful tools for an artist. NFTs accounted for at least $3.5 billion in creator revenues in 2021, enabling 22,400 people to earn an average of $174,000. By comparison, Mark Zuckerberg’s pledge to invest $1 billion into the creator network through 2022 is expected to yield only $300 million of revenue for content creators. And given the platform’s 2.9 billion active users, this amounts to an average of only $0.10 per user. There’s a better way to empower creators and give them a means to earn more from their work.

The opportunities that banks and tech behemoths have today should be opportunities for everyone. And with token exchange being the most popular use of decentralized finance, The OCAVU Network will let communities and their users enjoy true ownership of their assets and tokens. The people want sovereignty and OCAVU is giving them the ability to own something and do as they please with it. With our tools and infrastructure, brands, artists, influencers, and more can grow their networks and choose their own self-governed partnerships. It’s a new ecosystem that can offer what Web2 couldn’t.