The internet of things and the tokenization of everything

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I have been an Enjin holder since forever, thanks to @acidyo back in the day giving me a detailed explanation of, "check this one out", so I bought some. Note, not all of his recommendations have worked out so well, but it was nice to see some more action on the price today, which cleared a few sell points that I had - and then kept climbing. In the last hour or so, it has moved from 43 cents, up to a respectable 66 cents. The news that drove the push is that Microsoft has released a game using Enjin for NFTs with usage inside Minecraft - which is pretty big news.

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While this isn't apparently a full blown game integration, it seems a test for proof of concept, where they can fiddle around with it in the wild and get real-world feedback from a narrow user base.

“NFTs are important because they provide irrefutable proof of digital scarcity,” said Simon Kertonegoro, vice-president of developer success at Enjin. “With over 126 million users, the ability to spawn blockchain assets inside a Minecraft server is a huge step towards NFT adoption,”
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The process that they are using is a quest narrative, where users will be able to complete tasks to earn an NFT artefact of some kind, which allows them to continue on the quest. At the completion of the last stage of the the quest journey, players will be able to cash out to a fungible token, that can then be used to access for benefits on Telegram and Discord, unlocking things like private rooms - which effectively means getting through a paywall with activity, rather than money.

This kind of testing ground and implementation of ideas is where the innovation will be driven from ,as user data and behavior can be observed. what is going to be interesting is how behavior will change once new incentives are put before the player - will they act the same or take the bait?

It is because of this change in behavior that the paradigm shift will take place over time, for as we know, what gets incentivized is where the mass of activity will gather. It is part of the reason that Facebook will struggle to do the same, as for nearly 15 years, the culture of Facebook incentivization hasn't been monetary reward. Introducing a tokenization mechanism for users on Facebook and behavior changes, culture changes and while many users will love it, many users won't, as the place no longer fits their experience and expectations of what the platform should be and they will go quiet as they explore new possibilities on other platforms and gravitate to them, even though they might be offering the same.

Incentives drive us all and even the platforms that are not directly financially enabled, are driven by incentives, with most social media platforms providing a feeling of social status return on investment, even if only a feeling. People send out their tweet replies as if the world sees them, even though for most, it is unlikely more than a handful read - same with Facebook and Instagram.

However, this changes when there are financial rewards on the table as it provides a medium for exchange, a currency that can be traded for something else that is far more easily visualized and applied, than the value of social capital. This means that people will likely start shifting toward what earns them something and while some will focus their attention on a particular area or platform, others will use them more like tiny faucets of loyalty points that they will earn through consumption and can be used to buy something, whether it be a good, service, or access.

This will not be restricted to online activity either, as it will increasingly leverage the growing Internet of Things (IoT) where smart products will be able to becoming faucets and tools for mining. A car can earn increased tokens based on driving efficiency that can be traded for upgrades or discounts. A cooktop could do the same. Smart watches can track activities for a return, a television could reward users for not using it or even evaluate what is watched and give it a score. Everything becomes a game.

The world economy is rapidly changing as the gap between rich and poor widens, but it is also going to go through an evolution of tokenization at a level that just wasn't possible before. The economic models of these tokens are going to be varied and as a result, they will incentivize different kinds of behaviors, some good, some poor. However, since we all work on incentive of some kind, if we want to reinforce positive behaviors, we have to value them - not only value them socially, but also economically.

For far too long, there has been a misalignment between activity and reward, where negative activity tends to take the financial value and positive activity gets virtue value that can be traded for very little that improves our daily well-being. Being good doesn't pay the bills and while this shouldn't be the reason to not be good, we all have bills of some kind to pay, so we are constantly having to tradeoff human value for economic value. If in the future, activity that benefited society as a whole were able to also pay the bills, the outlier wouldn't be the person who goes out of their way to do good, it would be the one who goes out of their way to not do good.

There is a lot of caveats in the coming world, which will require knowledgeable and skilled people to pay attention and participate in building mechanisms that incentivize the development of better for profit, not profit at any cost.

People talk about the Internet of Things - but in reality, the value will lay in the tokenization of everything.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]

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19 comments
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Unfortunately Enjin right now only works as a speculative asset. It is unusable because of high gas fees. How viable is your technology if you want to sell an NFT worth 10$ while you pay a fee of 10-15$ (number is going higher the more eth price rises). I have maybe 5-6k worth of ENJ if I sell all my NFTs. The most bonkers part of that equation is that I need to pay more in gas fees than all that ENJ is worth. So right now holding any Enjin nft means you're locked inside a gas fee hell unable to do anything until Ethereum or Enjin scales (not this year probably).

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Yep, this is the issue with everything on Ethereum at this point, but it doesn't stop the infrastructure from running tests for that future. Would be nice if this was all getting done on Hive though, wouldn't it?

I am guessing cryptokitties aren't moving much at the moment :D

At the moment, I am just speculating on it btw, never used it for anything. Pretty much, the only thing I use is Hive, which I use for the on platform social interaction and gamification.

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Hive would have it's own set of problems, what kind of problems we won't know until they happen. Even though there is some usage on Hive who knows how Hive would scale with millions of daily users (if it ever comes to that).

Gaming on Eth is still alive, you can play Axie Infinity and Lost Relics with no problems and farm items, only when you want to transact you won't be able to do it unless you're Elon Musk.

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II would like to test those problems out :) Has to be done at some point. I would also like native second-layer tokens very soon....

I think the Enjin integration for Microsoft might be playable, but no idea what they will do with the transactions - although, they might have got around this by offering a fungible token - but not necessarily Enjin.

Elon is going to get lonely out there - playing with himself.

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I believe NFTs have great potential and we are just starting to see the very initial formats. You can link an NFT to real life events, discounts, presents, products, and the list goes on. Mixing both worlds, the crypto and the real is what can bring great experiences when engaging with an audience.

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I think it is the way the world already largely works, it is just that most people don't have access to the real value areas. Currently at least, it is possible to buy into the infrastructure and affect the direction the entire world will move.

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(Edited)

Tokenization of everything will mean that everything will be a subject of econonic valuation. And I think it's one of the biggest issues of humanity, that we're stuck in the economic-value-based mindset.

The economic models of these tokens are going to be varied and as a result, they will incentivize different kinds of behaviors, some good, some poor. However, since we all work on incentive of some kind, if we want to reinforce positive behaviors, we have to value them - not only value them socially, but also economically.

I believe it's precisely the problem: we may use the blockchain, but we're still stuck in the old paradigm, where we only care about the valuation of everything. What's the difference how we then reward people? They are still just a value-producing machines waiting to be put to work.

This will not be restricted to online activity either, as it will increasingly leverage the growing Internet of Things (IoT) where smart products will be able to becoming faucets and tools for mining.

Which, for me, means that there will be only less and less spaces where I can still just be a human, and not a pawn in the economic calculation.

Anyway, these are my biggest fears which do not allow me to be so optimistic about all these changes. I'd like to elaborate on this in the future and open up a discussion, will be super interesting for sure!

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And I think it's one of the biggest issues of humanity, that we're stuck in the economic-value-based mindset.

We are guided by it now and everything is already tokenized, it is just that the visibility and value is in the hands of the very few, which causes the problems we are seeing now.

What's the difference how we then reward people? They are still just a value-producing machines waiting to be put to work.

Work is necessary to get anything done - however, what kind of work done, matters. You can make money from mining coal, you can make money from developing clean tech. Which should carry the higher incentive? You can make money from shorting stocks, you can make money from investing into education services. It comes down to consumption - while hospitals face a shortage of nursing staff who are poorly paid, A basketballer or a footballer can get 50 million a year - how many nurse salaries is that for an individual player? How we consume matters too.

Everything is based on supply and demand of some kind, even if there isn't money involved. While there are many risks to tokenization like this - the bigger risk is believing that people will en masse "do the right thing", because it is the right thing to do.

All discussion in these areas is interesting!

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Thanks for the reply. I agree with you in all your remarks that you've made in the comment.

(...) everything is already tokenized, it is just that the visibility and value is in the hands of the very few (...)

So right. Bringing the visibility into how everything is tokenized is the right move, but is still a move within the paradigm. I'd love to explore possibilities of how we could try to step out of the paradigm. I believe blockchain could be a way to do it!

Work is necessary to get anything done - however, what kind of work done, matters.

Definitely, I am not against the concept of work is necessary. On the contrary, I believe that fair and honest work is one of the biggest virtues. There's a saying that you are what you eat, but I'd also say: you are what you work for. And here's the cornerstone. Currently most of people (especially in the West) work to earn to consume. And whether we pay in dollars or in bitcoin or hive does not matter all that much. The reason we see all these bubbles in crypto is exactly that, people still see them as a way to amass wealth to be then consumed, and not as a way to shift the entire paradigm. And I think here your post and my outpourings meet, so let's leave it at that for now :D Maybe I'll be able to write a post on these topics as well soon :)

Thanks again for the post and the comment, there's a lot of value that you bring to the community with your posts and I enjoy them very much. Greetings!

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I'd love to explore possibilities of how we could try to step out of the paradigm. I believe blockchain could be a way to do it!

This is through the ownership model. THe problem currently is that the majority of people don't own anything, even the things they value in their life like their social media accounts are not theirs. Bringing ownership and responsibility back into activity makes a difference.

From here, this is where the "fair and honest" work comes into it, as currently most people are working for other people, getting only a fraction of the value they put in, while the top passively skims the majority.

Have a great night - time for bed for me :)

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Thank you for your engagement on this post, you have recieved ENGAGE tokens.

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I just wrote a post a week or two ago that kind of ties in with this. There is a startup that uses blockchain and tokens as tolls on their long range wireless network for low bandwidth IoT devices. Fits right in line with what you are talking about here and how it is going to be more and more widespread in the future.

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Yep, it is going to be integrated into everything and there will be side chains and cross-chains etc that will bring in endlass ways to configure them for value.

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People send out their tweet replies as if the world sees them, even though for most, it is unlikely more than a handful read

That's me with ko-fi XD

With the IoT one, J has been saying that one day activity tracker data would be used by insurance companies to adjust premiums per person (perhaps instead of having "plans" like they do now) so I guess they could/would do likewise with driving data (though if all cars are automated by then perhaps it would only be applied to people who prefer to drive manually? XD ).

There's already at least one phone app that "rewards" you for not using your phone (I think it's with a plant or something, the longer you don't use your phone the bigger the plant gets) so it probably wouldn't be a huge stretch to do something similar with a tv.

Was it you that once wrote a dystopian nightmare of a short story about the tokenisation of everything? XD

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