The many advantages of blockchain and cryptocurrency offer towards investors, businesspeople and entrepreneurs are diverse and well-known, but there are also projects that aim towards implementing these technologies into smaller, more focused markets. And a perfect example of these projects is Cure WorldCosplay’s initiative on developing their own currency.
Taken from pexels.com
To outline the context, cosplay is a globally-renown hobby that consists in dressing up as characters from comics, movies, videogames, anime (Japanese animation series), and others. These costumes are usually very detailed and sometimes involving role-playing as the character.
Looking deeper into modern industries
As odd as it may sound, cosplay is an industry that moves nearly 18 billion USD worldwide (according to the CRI), only on the costume design and making. And that’s not including other factors like:
Tickets for events: which can rise up to nearly 300 USD for bigger events.
Travelling expenses: including plain tickets and accommodations.
Photography services: starting cosplayers usually hire well-known photographers.
Social media promotion: again, a service often hired by starting cosplayers.
Looking at all of these, and the money spent by fans on merchandise and the support given to most popular cosplayers on sites like Patreon, one can calculate a market share of nearly 50 billion USD. And considering how big the anime, videogames and comics industries, one can only expect it to keep growing in numbers, value and international recognition.
Photo taken at Anime Festival 2017 (Singapore)
The problem within the cosplay environment is that it’s growing a lot faster than the support they can get from materials suppliers for their costumes, photography studios and enthusiasts, and worldwide events. So, Cure WorldCosplay, a multilingual platform with around 720,000 members from 180 countries, is implementing a way for players (content creators) to easily access important supply and promotion services. They call it the Cosplay Token (COT).
Taking advantage of Cure WorldCosplay’s recognition, the COT (based on the ERC20 standard) is planned to be accepted by many top-quality service providers around the globe, allowing players to access them with ease.
Custom currencies – tailor-made markets
Beyond the inherent benefits the COT brings to the players, there is also ground to improve the fanbases’ engagement with their favorite content creators or the industry in general. To do this, they allow all the players and option to mint their own, custom currency (Player Coins).
Player Coins’ value depends on how many the player decides to originally release and is then modified each time a user or fan purchase some of it. Given this, it’s a free model of supply and demand, regulated by COT’s value, and the uses of the currency are uniquely determined by the players themselves.
This opens a way for new incentive and supportive ways of engagement, in which users can show their preference for a certain player while these can stablish rewards programs for the users that support them the most. For example: meet-and-greets with those users that own a certain number of their Player Coin, exclusive content, autographed merch, and more. This works as a motivation for both users and players, which translates into more and more investments made into COT, and increasing its value in return.
Taken from worldcosplay.net. 1) Player purchases COT from an exchange. 2) Player creates their own Player Coin. 3) Users and fans buy the Player Coin using COT directly from the Player. 4) The Player sets the thresholds required for exclusive content and rewards. 5) Users may issue new Player Coin directly from the platform. 6) Users may exchange different Player Coins with each other. 7) Additional collaborative efforts may be distributed.
For these new industries to venture into the cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies grants both with incredible benefits: the cosplay industry will be able to attract the attention of serious and passionate investors, while blockchain benefits from the influx of new users from around the world. Could this initiative set a precedent for other industries (like comics and/or videogames) to step into this sphere of virtual economics?
To find out more about cosplay, discover content creators to support and get information about COT, visit worldcosplay.net.