New NFTs From Lamborghini, Fox’s Krapopolis

This type of NFT-based membership, that token-gates artistic and educational platforms, is becoming increasingly popular.

Web3 app spotlight: Raelic

Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but according to Andrea Castiglione, the founder of venture capital and advisory firm Silent Unicorn, they are also temporary.

That’s why Castiglione, alongside co-founder ex-pro footballer Alessandro Del Piero, created Raelic (pronounced relic) — a peer-to-peer NFT-based social networking mobile app. Think Instagram meets Patreon. 

Raelic users can mint photos or videos as tradeable NFTs in the app for a gas fee and post them to a scrollable feed reminiscent of Instagram’s user interface. NFTs can be minted on Ethereum, Klaytn, Polygon or Binance Smart Chain.

Blockworks participated in an early access app test and spoke to Castiglione to learn more about Raelic’s ambitions.

Blockworks: Tell me about some of the pain points of Web2 that you are trying to tackle through Raelic.

Castiglione: First of all, it’s always been very difficult to interact with decentralized applications and for people to understand that they need to install a browser plugin. Then they have to put some money on that plugin. And to do that, you have to get an exchange account on Coinbase or Binance or any other exchange, and load it. Then you can use the dapp [decentralized app]. That’s only step one. Everything is very web based and it’s not very mobile friendly.

And the ability for people to produce content from their phone was what enabled the internet to explode, and TikTok and Instagram. So you need a social layer that allows people to easily create from their phone. But in order to be true to Web3, it needs to be noncustodial.

Another big issue was the disconnect between existing social networks like Twitter, Instagram or TikTok where people discover NFTs and particular communities. Then they have to go to OpenSea or LooksRare to buy it. After they go to Discord, full of scammy little bots, to talk with other people within the same collection. So you go to three platforms to do something that you can do on a mobile phone.

Blockworks: So Raelic is like a one-stop shop. Can you give me some examples of unique use cases?

Castiglione: I don’t think we have really tapped into the creator economy yet. For example, photo reporting. Take a picture, mint the moment, block the moment, and then write the story  underneath in the description. You could sell that to the local newspaper or outlet later. 

Or let’s say you’re a busker in London. You’re always singing and you used to post to your Instagram account, but people that go to your Instagram can only follow you. Now you can go to a social media account [Raelic] where you start building your followers who can also buy a video of that song that you sang beautifully.

Blockworks: Is Raelic considered a decentralized social media (DeSoc) platform?

Castiglione: I would say it’s a hybrid because we are a centralized service, it’s a brand. But every interaction is peer-to-peer. So you buy and sell completely peer-to-peer. We don’t get any info of that transaction and we don’t take any fees. You can create on the blockchain with complete autonomy and things are completely noncustodial.

But the governance right now is in our hands. So it’s a centralized service provider that is creating tools that are noncustodial and true to Web3. Going forward maybe one day we will decentralize the ownership with a governance token or DAO [decentralized autonomous organization]. 

But we’re taking it one step at a time. So today we ask — How do we bring the next billion people into the world of Web3 in such a way that they can create content that they actually own and can interact with people?

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