- Cardano (ADA-USD) launched Da Vinci’s Locker on April 4
- The cross-chain NFT marketplace allows anyone to turn their intellectual property into revenue without involving a middleman
- This real-world utility makes Cardano one of the more promising cryptos to own
Source: Stanslavs / Shutterstock
Cardano (ADA-USD) sent out a press release on April 4 announcing the launch of Da Vinci’s, the cryptocurrency’s version of Opensea, the world’s largest non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace.
“Being built to become Cardano’s version of Opensea, it aims to better represent, as well as incorporate the needs and wants of the NFT community, which will evolve via direct community involvement in decision making and voting in vital issues that concerns the administration of the Marketplaces functionality,” the press release said.
If you’re trying to determine if Cardano provides real-world utility, Da Vinci’s Locker could be the initiative that convinces you it does.
The Problem Cardano Is Trying to Solve
One of the most significant issues creative types face in the art community is that too many middlemen are involved in a transaction. As a result, the artist doesn’t see nearly as much of the financial reward as they should.
To counter this problem, intelligent people have been working on using the blockchain to dump the middleman by selling NFTs on the blockchain. Unfortunately, though, there’s something called “cross-chain interoperability,” which means that your best and the most valuable customer might exist on another blockchain, thus eliminating the opportunity to do business.
One of the biggest issues with Ethereum (ETH-USD) is the high fees. New York City venture capitalist Fred Wilson’s April 4 blog post discussed this issue. Wilson was looking to renew a .ETH domain he owned, but the gas fees were so high he decided to go back and complete the transaction when the gas fees were lower.
“When the unit price of a single NFT asset on the Ethereum blockchain costs several or dozens of dollars, the gas fee for an on-chain transaction on that particular Non-Fungible token may cost tens or even hundreds,” Da Vinci’s Locker’s white paper states.
“However, to migrate the NFT asset to another blockchain with cheaper gas fees seems to be a technically feasible but tedious thing to do, as it will be extremely difficult to retain NFT’s uniqueness in cross-chain transactions.”
Da Vinci’s Locker intends to remedy this problem.
Da Vinci’s Locker Offers a Solution
Da Vinci’s Locker introduces “Cross Chain Atomic Swap protocol” for NFTs. This allows anyone with intellectual property of value to transact with other people across multiple blockchains. That potentially increases the value of intellectual property because it can be sold to more prospects than those on your blockchain network.
“A cross-chain transaction, also known to others as an atomic swap, allows for the straightforward transaction of cryptographic assets from two different blockchains using smart contracts with a set of pre-defined rules,” Da Vinci’s Locker’s white paper states.
“Essentially, the transactional smart contract gives users access to the other’s cryptographic asset within a specific time frame, completing the transaction and finalizing the swap once both parties meet the conditions stated with the smart contract.”
I encourage you to read the entire white paper if you want to know more.
In the end, Cardano believes Da Vinci’s Locker provides NFT buyers with the opportunity to purchase NFTs on multiple blockchains without having to use numerous NFT platforms to complete the transactions.
Even better, it is introducing programmable NFTs, which will enable the owners to modify the NFT over time, depending on the circumstances. Sports lends itself to this kind of product. So do investments. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) could mint an NFT when it goes over $3 trillion in market capitalization, $4 trillion, and so on, all with one digital asset.
The Bottom Line on Cardano
Like everything revolving around digital assets, it’s hard to know what the future holds other than a lot of change. But Cardano could be sitting on the next great trillion-dollar idea.
If so, Cardano is worth a lot more than today’s $1.19. Alternatively, Cardano’s Cross Chain Atomic Swap protocol for NFTs could be sending the cryptocurrency down a dead end, or worse, over a $1 cliff.
We don’t know.
When I last wrote about Cardano in early March, I suggested that Cardano had the potential to revisit $2 by the end of 2022. With the launch of Da Vinci’s Locker, there’s no question this could happen. The real-world utility it’s introducing into NFTs makes Cardano one of the more promising cryptos to own.
Cardano’s in the early innings of an extra-inning game. So there’s a lot that still needs to play out before its hand is considered a winner. But I like Cardano at these prices.
On the date of publication, Will Ashworth did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
