Channel Manager for NFTs -Algorand
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are becoming a craze these days as they provide the benefit of authority and authenticity of issuance and lifecycle of an asset. Issuing these NFTs on top of Algorand provides the higher speed, low cost and easy traceability for the parties involved with the digital asset.
In this solution, we are bringing Channel Manager, as a medium to issue and digitise NFTs, provide custodial solution by mapping each user to a mobile number, perform commerce like Buy, Sell, Re-sell and Send. For custodial solution, we are using Hashicorp Vault, which provide management of secrets on Amazon Web Service (AWS).
The functionality of channel manager can be decentralised by creating a governance protocol and giving control to multiple authorities depending on the use-case. In this example, we have created a channel manager for ticketing system, where multiple marketplaces can connect to the channel manager and digitise their tickets as an NFT and allow commerce using these digital tickets on top of Algorand blockchain.
For example, event organiser in United Kingdom is hosting Katy Perry’s concert and wish to sell these tickets on multiple marketplaces like Ticketmaster, Eventbrite and multiple other local and self-hosted platforms. Event Organiser can connect to the channel manager and issue the tickets as NFTs and marketplace can make use of the same channel manager to perform commerce based on the conditions set by the event organiser. The system can handle the load of creating these multiple NFTs as Algorand Standard Asset(ASA). This way inter-operability and transparency can be brought into the system. Re-selling or sending tickets can be made possible with the low cost and scalability of Algorand, as this solves the ticket touting and ticket authenticity issue.
Custody
Blockchain can have immense advantages to consumers, however usability is the key issue. Here we are mapping each consumer’s mobile number to account address and private key on Algorand blockchain. This mapping is stored in Hashicorp vault, leveraging the safety and security of a software based security module. Channel Manager has the capability to provide different marketplaces with the facility to map Algorand address of their user with human understandable mobile number, and port their users on blockchain with ease.
Algorand provides various SDK support for generating address and performing various operations on Algorand blockchain.
Digitisation
NFTs are represented as an Algorand Standard Asset with issuance parameter set as 1. This uniquely creates an NFT and here is our structure to represent
Commerce operations like buy, sell, re-sell and resend are performed using various transaction mechanism using Purestake Api for connecting to the Algorand blockchain.
Demo
Here is the demonstration of an event app connecting to the channel manager and solving the issues pertaining to ticketing world.
The app provides various use case implementation in Java and Kotlin. Rekey functionality and non-custodial features are also implemented as part of the android app code.
References
Android App : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eventersapp.marketplace
Channel Manager Code (in Golang) : https://github.com/eventers/Eventers-Marketplace-Backend
Android Code (in Kotlin + Java) : https://github.com/eventers/Eventers-Marketplace-Android
