Justin Banon, Co-Founder of Boson Protocol

What is Boson Protocol, and how does it enable products, services, and experiences to be sold in the metaverse?

Boson Protocol is the decentralized network on which future commerce will run. We enable anyone to sell physical products as NFTs, without the need for a centralized intermediary. In addition to this, we are bridging commerce in the real world to commerce in the metaverse. This means that customers can shop in virtual worlds and have physical items delivered to their doorstep, whilst still retaining the digital item in the metaverse. NFT vouchers make this possible, as real world products are tokenized as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This enables users and organizations to connect digital decentralized technologies with the transfer and trade of physical goods.

Can you tell us what decentralized commerce is?

To put it simply, decentralized commerce allows brands to bridge the gap between shopping at home and in an actual store. Through virtual realities, brands can offer a virtual shopping experience where customers can buy a product in their store in the metaverse, and have a physical version delivered directly to their door.

Can you tell me more about the NiftyKey and Mastercard collaboration? What does this mean for Boson’s ecosystem?

NiftyKey, connected by Boson Protocol, enables financial institutions to offer loyalty products and services to their customers using NFTs. As one of the first major applications to be built on top of Boson Protocol, they are using our infrastructure to bridge the real world with the metaverse, further empowering companies to reward physical and digital products in the metaverse as NFTs.

Recently, NiftyKey was selected by Mastercard to join their Start Path program to democratize use cases for people and businesses around the world through the use of blockchain technology. This is a substantial step for Boson as our goal is to expand our ecosystem with a limitless number of applications. As Mastercard is a well known brand with a strong reputation, this will increase overall adoption of Boson Protocol. We are building a programmable, interoperable, composable system on which many other commerce products, services and applications will be created in the future.

Threedium recently received a Boson Protocol Ecosystem Grant, can you explain what this means?

The Boson Protocol Ecosystem Grant is an initiative designed to reward innovation and to incentivize the thinkers and doers who will fuel metaverse commerce. This grant was recently awarded to Threedium, the immersive shopping experience tool developer, to further enable the physical redemption of 3D digital goods. Our infrastructure allows users to sell physical products as NFTs, without the need for a centralized intermediary. Threedium makes this possible as users can sell digital twins of their products and receive the physical item as well. With this comes a new path for digital ownership where users will become accustomed to receiving 3D versions of their items with every purchase.

What is in store for Boson Protocol in the future?

We envisage Boson Protocol as the fundamental layer that will enable an entirely new type of decentralized commerce. We recently launched Boson Portal, a pioneering virtual lifestyle, commerce and cultural experience located in Decentraland, which enables brands, artists, and creators to buy and sell physical goods as NFTs in the metaverse. As Boson is a core strategic partner at Metaverse Fashion Week, Portal will be a key area for the event. Digital fashion brands DRESSX, MetaFactory, and AUROBOROS have taken over retail spaces in Portal where users can buy exclusive limited-edition items, demonstrating Web3 native metaverse commerce in action. We look forward to more partnerships and organizations joining us as we continue to build our ecosystem towards the future of commerce, whilst encouraging others to do the same.