Using NFTs as payment tools

It’s been 18 hours since I’ve boarded my first flight. Meanwhile I switched two times. We’ve finally landed. After passing through customs I look for my name. Someone should be waiting for me. I see him. He is a middle aged man holding a tablet with my name on it.

We get to the parking lot and board the fully electric car with a brand logo I don’t recognize. As my host mentions, the government subsidized 50% of its cost. 

As we drive to the hotel I look outside and I see hundreds upon hundreds of apartment blocks, many of which are still being built. 

It’s July 2018 and I’ve just arrived in the city I’ll call home for the next 10 days, as I network and showcase our technology to local partners. It’s Hangzhou, China. This is where my view on payments tech will change forever.

The Hangzhou skyline

Electric cars and QR codes

The “small city of four million citizens” was a treat in many ways. Our hosts showcased some of the most advanced Chinese tech companies as well as traditional buildings and artefacts dating back to 2000 BC.

Now, 4 years after Oveit showcased its edge payments technology at the tech conference in Hangzhou, two things still linger on my mind.

The first is just how many electric cars, bikes and scooters roamed the streets. At the time Tesla was hot and growing but not nearly as big as it is right now.

At the time traditional western car manufacturers were still debating whether they should or should not switch to electric. EVs were still a huge gamble. It surprised me to find out that more than 100 electric car brands were active in the Chinese market, with many others providing charging stations, batteries and parts. All the taxi drivers switched to electric cars. It was partly due to cost savings, partly due to the government subsidies and strategic push.

NIO flagship store in Hangzhou. What was about to be unveiled was the EP9, which would become one of the fastest electric cars in the world.

The second big surprise was payments. Specifically QR code payments. One of the companies we visited just passed both VISA and Mastercard in terms of the number of transactions processed. As it turns out, that company’s growth would be stifled in a few years but at the time the energy and enthusiasm was something you can feel in the air. That company was Ant Financial, the financial arm of AliBaba.

Even though the future of the company and its prominent founder remains unclear, one thing is for sure. The total electronic payments market in China kept on growing following my visit and exploded during the Covid-19 pandemic. Tools such as AliPay and WeChat Pay were at the core of this growth and transformation. Their choice in payment processing interfaces was a peculiar technology: QR codes.

Our visit at Ant Financial. Standing in front of the ant: me.

In the western world we use different interfaces for online vs offline transactions but both are still governed by the credit and debit card. With the appearance of Apple Pay and GPay, a lot of these payments migrated to the smartphone. Many, but not nearly all. We still use debit cards, credit cards, bank transfers, cash and oh, dear … checks.

This was not the case in Hangzhou. From shopping for clothes to food, from paying your bills and taxi rides to the vegetable market, everyone used an electronic means of payment I found a bit funny at first: QR codes. For me they were a technology that failed to leave its mark in the marketing and advertising industry. What I failed to realize at first was that these were not your run of the mill QRs. They were dynamic, would run on basically any smartphone or tablet, were impossible to fake or copy, secure and easy to use.

QR codes were scanned via mobile apps and the user paid directly from her bank account, simply pointing the camera at the vendor and confirming the transaction. There was no need to carry multiple cards, each secured and processed through a specialized POS. Everyone paid and accepted payments using their smartphones quickly, safely and instantly.

Cash, especially foreign currencies, was discouraged. For some reason – I needed to exchange a $100 bill and it took me three hours to finalize the transaction. Even as a foreigner cash was a no-go.

What did I learn? It was a simple but powerful lesson: that payments in the way we grew accustomed to were now obsolete. The old way was effectively dead. Banking institutions, slow to innovate were still issuing plastic cards (so hot in the 80s) and hardly adapted to the new globally connected world.

The world changed and we, as a company, were part of the wave of changes that were transforming the world of finance and payments. Our story involved a particular market where we were good but in time we decided we want to become the best: cashless payments for live experiences. This now ranges from events and live entertainment venues to travel and hospitality.

The system we showcased in Hangzhou, our edge payments system, went on to power large festivals and venues, with tens of thousands of visitors. As the pandemic reshuffled the world of live experiences, we continued to innovate and ride the wave of change. 

Recently, our R&D started playing around and found out what could happen when you combine our existing technology with the decentralized wonder called blockchain. We discovered an interesting concept that we now believe has the potential to transform the world of payments. Just like the QR codes I saw in Hangzhou, it looks and feels peculiar as a payment technology. Enter the NFT.

NFT payments – beyond fancy monkeys

NFTs are self contained digital ownership contracts. When minted to a crypto wallet, the assets this NFT holds are transferred to said wallet. These assets can range from photos, songs, movies to games and more.

But the NFT can also work as a holder of prepacked benefits and digital wallets, holding value, both fungible and non fungible. When combined with the right infrastructure, the NFTs become a payment technology.

In our case we discovered we can connect the NFT to the addons we developed, as well as the virtual wallet that our users pay and accept payments with. The usage can range from prepackaging a beer and a t-shirt  to a concert to your next travel package, containing your plane ticket, payments in the city, access to attractions and local businesses or a hotel stay, even when you travel to Hangzhou.

What it can also hold is a virtual wallet. The wallet can be pre topped up, connected to a debit or credit card and can be used to pay. The NFT can become a payment technology, with properties unlike anything before, which we’ll discuss later. All this when the vendors use our Oveit Pay.

NFT payments – beyond bank accounts and transfers

As it turns out, the payments underlying AliPay and WeChat in China, as well as the likes of Revolut and Kash App are interfaces to systems that hold funds and rely on the traditional banking system. However, building upon the classical approach, they have built their own checks and balances systems to operate a secondary payment system. This new layer improves the payment speed, scalability, makes payments more usable and friendly and makes microtransactions possible.

However, operating these systems comes at a cost. These systems handle real money so their infrastructure needs to be maintained constantly, supervised and updated.

At a certain point it’s harder to keep systems secure than it is to build new features like loans, social payments and more.

As it turns out, you don’t have to do that. There is already an existing technology out there that enables fast and secure transactions, without any single point of failure: the blockchain, in its many incarnations.

There are also tools users can tap into to connect to this new technology and purchase, transact and store virtual value: the crypto wallet.

The blockchain ecosystem was in need of some sort of mechanism to point to digital value and move it from one user to another, securely. This new tool emerged in the past two years. It can do anything a bank account does plus what a card and a swift transfer can do. And a bit more. It’s the NFT.

Unlike the wallet, the NFT can hold multiple types of value abstractions. It can be transferred, it can be sold or gifted. Moreover – it can be governed by clear, transparent rules at the time of the minting. These rules are written and exposed to the whole world to audit. They are all set up in what is called a smart contract.

nft tickets

However, there is some confusion when it comes to the general outlook on NFTs and whether they are a useful technology or just a pump and dump scheme. The confusion is the following:

Think of NFTs as a preloaded debit card, with a bank account attached to it, with all sorts of benefits you can claim in the real world or online. It can have money stored in this bank account, it can have membership programs for all sorts of brands and communities. This card can be safely transferred or sold at a profit. It can be used as a collateral. It’s all the financial systems you know, all baked into one. And a bit more as it can be transferred, sold, traced, governed by rules and it doesn’t depend on any one system to run.

So far all we saw was the pretty picture placed on top of the card. But the bank account it was linked to was empty. There were no loaded benefits. No one built membership programs. There were no places you could use it to gain real benefits, in the real world, online or … the Metaverse. People just plastered pretty photos on it and sold them. 

This is where we are right now. As with my time in Hangzhou, we all see the photo (back then it was the QR code). We don’t see what’s behind the photo and where it can lead. In the short time we had to get accustomed to NFTs we didn’t see how we could use them to transform payments. We only saw the surface.

Glancing beyond the monkey photos and the doodles, we can see the future of how NFTs can be used for payments as well as value storage and transfer. We can see the financial system moving from a single, monolithic, architecture which is old and slow to adopt change. The system is in the midst of a transformation into a new vibrant system that puts humans and human communities at its core. 

Just like our existing civilization, it all started with photos of ape-like creatures doing stuff.

Meanwhile, at Oveit, we are putting this vision to the test with our very own NFT tickets.

October 28, 2022 NFT ticketing, Oveit Features, Technology 2 comments

How to accept crypto payments for events and venues

Being part of the event management industry, we had the chance to work with visionary leaders from all over the world. Working with such partners has always forced us to adapt and innovate, making sure that Oveit is the ticketing tool they (and their communities) are looking for. And crypto payments make no difference. 

But it’s time to say that crypto payments should become a thing. The market itself evolves at a speed never seen before: according to a report from Crypto.com, by the end of 2022, there will be 1 Billion crypto users! That’s a 10X increase in the span of just two years!

This opens new possibilities for businesses in general and event organizers in particular: accepting crypto payments to easily onboard this new generation of customers and event attendees. 

But the rapid growth in popularity has its shortcomings. There are still many myths around the industry and accepting crypto payments, especially for event organizers, may seem like a hard thing to do. But it shouldn’t.

That’s why we made it easy for events and venues to accept crypto payments for tickets. Here’s how you can accept crypto payments for your events with Oveit.

How to accept crypto payments through Oveit

Open an account with Oveit. 

Our event management software helps thousands of event organizers create full experiences. Sell electronic and NFT tickets, check in attendees, and set up a cashless payments system – no coding required.

Connect your payment processor. 

We work with Crypto.com and Utrust to accept crypto payments and with PayPal and Stripe for fiat currencies. We work on direct payments, meaning each time an order is confirmed, money goes straight into your account.

Set up your event in minutes.

Our easy-to-use solution helps you get started in minutes. Set up ticket categories, registration forms, and add-ons, invite team members and create your own event economy with Oveit Pay. Our real-time reports will help you get an overview of your experience.

Publish your event, share it with your community, and get paid right away.

You can easily embed the registration form on your website or send registration links to your customers.

Yes, selling tickets for crypto has never been easier. But while the technical implementation is frictionless, you may ask yourself why you should accept crypto payments for your events. To answer this question, we’ve prepared a short list of the benefits of doing so. Based on our experience, customers prefer to have multiple payment options, and crypto payments have gained more traction in the last two years.

Why accept crypto payments for your events?

Easy to implement

The days when accepting crypto payments was a time-consuming chore are fortunately behind us now. Nowadays, businesses from all over the world can easily accept crypto payments – without the need for any technical background. 

Our crypto payment processor partners will help you get paid in various coins, taking care of all the complicated processes that may take place in the background. All you need is to create a merchant account and connect it to Oveit. Afterward, each payment will go straight into your account, without having to wait until your event is over in order to get access to your earnings.

Crypto payments have lower transaction fees

It may sound hard to believe, but accepting crypto payments is actually cheaper than working with fiat currencies. Over the last few years, the crypto market benefited from incredible investments. In both financial capital and manpower, thus creating an infrastructure meant to serve its users.

While the traditional payment processors’ fees are, in general, between 2 and 3% + a fixed amount, the norm for crypto processors tends to be just 1% of the transaction. This will help you better budget your event and have total control over your money, without having to spend enormous amounts on unnecessary fees.

Instant payments from anywhere

Events are international gatherings. Over the last few years, we’ve had a chance to be part of hundreds of events in different parts of the world. And one thing is certain: events gather like-minded people. Regardless of how long they have to travel to be part of these extraordinary experiences. By accepting crypto payments you allow attendees from all over the world to easily secure their place. Without having to worry about local currencies and high exchange fees. 

As more customers tend to avoid fees related to the classical banking system, crypto payments will allow anyone, from anywhere, to easily purchase tickets for your next gig.

Accepting crypto payments gives access to new customers

Customers that are looking to pay with cryptocurrencies represent a new segment, one who otherwise may not be tapped into by your business. According to Forrester Consulting, US-based businesses that started accepting crypto payments attracted new customers, 40% of which were new customers that spent, on average, twice as much as credit card users. It’s safe to say that allowing attendees to buy event tickets for crypto will allow you to interact with new audiences.

Global cryptocurrencies have a total value of $2 trillion (as of 2022), and accepting crypto payments will allow you to tap into the wealth created by them.

Early adopters will help you spread the word

Accepting crypto payments can also be a marketing hook. Each new technology has seen its share of early adaptors. But none had the ability to create such loyal fans as blockchain did. And although it’s safe to say that blockchain and cryptocurrencies are heading towards mass adoption, the enthusiasm has not faded. In fact, we see a continuous increase in both enthusiasm and user base. And events related (directly or indirectly) to Web3, blockchain, and NFTs benefit from this wave of passion.

Allowing customers to easily purchase event tickets for crypto will make them spread the word about their experience; not once we’ve seen it with our existing customers. For both crypto payments and NFT ticketing. 

Final words

Decentralized payments become more popular each day. New customers are onboarded in the crypto world, encouraging more businesses to accept different payment methods from their customers. And based on the adoption rate seen today, it’s expected that by 2030 almost half of US citizens will own cryptocurrencies (43%). And these numbers will be considerably higher in countries with poor local economies.

The future is already here – especially in the event management industry. As more and more customers, especially those from the younger generations, are looking for alternative payment options, we hope that this article helped you get a better understanding of how to accept crypto payments for your events. And why you should start today.

October 5, 2022 Event registration No comments yet

NFT ticketing and beyond

To mark its 160th Anniversary, the Romanian Post launched an NFT collection of 160 digital stamps available for purchase. And Oveit was there as the technology partner, ensuring that anybody interested could easily purchase the NFTs.

The entire event is built around the number 160. 160 years since the Romania Post was established through a Royal Decree, 160 digital stamps were minted as NFTs, each representing a year in the Institution’s history, 160 Euros is the price of one NFT. However, this number has another significance as well. 160 Euros is the cost for a hospitalization day at HOSPICE Casa Sperantei, the humanitarian organization helping those suffering from incurable diseases.

All earnings resulting from the sale of the NFT collection are going to HOSPICE Casa Sperantei, the collection having an entirely charitable purpose.

We were honored and extremely happy to be part of this project. We’ve always treasured innovation and made our best to create software solutions that help others. That has an impact on the communities that our partners are serving. And this project checked all the boxes.

Distributing the NFTs

The 160 NFTs have been divided into two categories: 10 of them, representing years of significant importance in Romania’s History, have been selected for an open auction. Of course, the starting price for the auction was 160 Euros. The rest have been sold online, for a fixed amount, here.

Using Oveit to sell NFTs

Oveit was initiated as an event ticketing software, developing more complex solutions like cashless payments software, digital wallet, or NFT ticketing. This helped us understand that one of the most important parts of developing powerful software solutions was to make them easy to use.

The National Post needed a technology partner to make the NFT acquisition as flawless as possible.
Payment. When trying to reach broader audiences you need to take into consideration several potential concerns. And payment can be one of those concerns. To make the collection available to a larger audience, we’ve activated payment with both crypto and fiat currencies. Yes, with Oveit customers can easily pay with fiat currencies for NFT tickets (or NFTs serving any purpose for that matter).

Buying an NFT with Oveit

As mentioned, we focused on creating a solution that allows customers to buy NFTs as easily as possible. The whole experience can be embedded into any website, allowing you to customize the buying process.

Just like ordering an e-ticket, customers can select the desired amount and proceed to the next steps. Being built on top of a registration system, Oveit allows you to collect relevant information from your customers, helping you better understand their wants and needs. Once these steps are completed, the customers are redirected to the payment page – but not before allowing them to select how they want to pay for their NFTs; through fiat (through Stripe or PayPal) or cryptocurrencies (through Crypto.com).

Once the payment is confirmed, customers are redirected to a confirmation page where they can connect their wallets. As Polygon is our technology of choice, we provide two options here:

  1. if the customer has a MetaMask wallet, the system will automatically connect the NFT to their wallet
  2. if the customer uses a different wallet, all they have to do is enter their wallet address in the designated field.
demo confirmation page – Oveit NFT ticketing

When the wallet is connected, the minting process starts. The minting is done by Oveit, with the help of our partners, and it doesn’t require any extra steps from you or your customers.

Having the NFT is minted, Oveit sends an email to the buyer. The email will offer more information on the collectible and has direct links to Rarible and OpenSea, allowing the buyer to check the artwork. A step-by-step tutorial on how to claim an NFT issued with Oveit is available here.

What’s next for Oveit NFT ticketing?

We are happy to see more and more event organizers, artists, and businesses using our NFT ticketing feature. Technology has the power to transform the entertainment industry. We feel that all ticketing will become NFT ticketing.

Oveit’s NFT ticketing tool helps you:

  • easily create and safely sell NFT tickets
  • get access to secondary market sales through royalties
  • set up smart contracts that allow revenue to be fairly distributed amongst all parties
  • sell merchandise together with the NFT tickets
  • connect virtual and in-person experiences by using collectible tokens
  • Join the Web3 revolution and create the next big thing in experiences
    …and so much more.

However, our experience showed us that there is a huge untapped market, as the process of buying an NFT may be considered difficult by some. This is why we are now working on a solution that will allow anyone to buy and use an NFT; even those that don’t own a digital wallet.

August 30, 2022 Event registration No comments yet

5 ways you can use NFT ticketing in events

With all its ups and downs, promises, hopes and disappointments, there is no doubt Web3 is here to stay and transform the world. The live entertainment industry is no exception – it is getting its fair share of disruption from Web3. As Oveit is one of the pioneers and leaders in the NFT ticketing space, we have decided to dive deeper and explain how you can use NFT tickets to build a better experience, connect better with your audience and solve problems you previously couldn’t solve.

But first – what are NFTs?

The most common misconception around NFTs is that they are expensive pieces of digital art. Well, they are that too. The most expensive NFT, a series of NFTs actually, called “The Merge” was sold for $91.8 million and was acquired by 28,983 collectors, snapping up 312,686 “units of mass”. This sale put the artist, Pak, at the forefront of the highest selling living artists.

So – are NFTs artwork? Are they cryptocurrencies? Yes and not really. You see, NFTs are digital ownership contracts. The ownership relationship is usually between a crypto wallet and a piece of digital content. So far the most popular form this digital content was expressed in was a piece of digital artwork. However, this is just the beginning. Let’s see how you can use NFTs to up you experiential game:

NFT ticketing can offer visitors valuable digital collectibles

Outside of the hype, there are great reasons to test NFT ticketing as an alternative to “classic” digital tickets. First and foremost, a lot of your visitors will attach a sentimental value to the visit to your event. Adding an authentic digital collectible to tickets may make your visitors feel they get more than they paid for and can add to their digital identity.

In the past, great experiences provided their visitors with all sorts of physical mementos, like a t-shirt, the physical ticket design, a wristband and more. However, t-shirts get torn, tickets get lost and at some point you do have to take wristbands off, no matter how much you enjoyed the experience. With NFT tickets your visitors can always have an authentic, beautiful memory of the visit to your event, one they will not lose and it will only get more valuable with time. Speaking of valuable collectibles:

NFTs can become digital collectible with increasing value which you can tap into

Not only can you provide NFTs together with your tickets but you can also tap into the secondary market for these collectibles. 

Whenever an NFT is deployed to the blockchain, such an NFT is governed by a special kind of program designed to run perpetually on the blockchain: a smart contract. This contract can govern all sorts of behaviors your buyers might have. 

If, for example, you want to get a cut of all future resales (a royalty) the smart contract can be programmed to send back a certain percentage to your own crypto wallet whenever someone resells the NFT ticket you have issued. The best thing – you don’t have to do anything for this to happen. The system will automatically send a certain percentage on each resale.

The fact that NFTs are actually self contained programs running independent of your activity or your ticketing provider helps solve one of the biggest problems (and opportunities) in the live entertainment industry: the secondary market.

Use NFT ticketing to handle secondary market sales and combat scalping

Scalping is as old as ticket sales. I’m pretty sure that whenever one of Shakespeare’s plays got popular in The Globe, just south of the Thames, there would be scalping involved. Some people would buy a lot of tickets when they went on sale with the hope of reselling them at a profit on the night of the premiere.

For centuries the best way to limit and keep scalping in check was prohibiting resale, which is effective to a certain degree. However – the need for a secondary market cannot be ignored. As the likes of StubHub have shown, people will want to resell their tickets. A better way to govern resells has to be implemented. 

With the multitude of ticket sellers and types of tickets, this was not doable until blockchain ticketing technology was introduced in the ticketing industry by the likes of Oveit. Now the secondary market can be governed through NFT ticketing. Event promoters, artists and fans alike can work together to find the best way to handle sales while limiting potential losses to artists and promoters, as well as horribly inflated ticket fees to end consumers.

Use NFT ticketing to cross the boundaries of virtual and in-person events

Whereas in-person events can only happen at given times and in specific event venues, virtual events can be asynchronous and can be accessed from all over the world. The same ticket can be used to enter a real-world event but at the same time can be used digitally to access VR or AR worlds where specific experiences can be accessed.

You might think – can’t I use an e ticket to do that? Not necessarily – the world is quickly moving toward more immersive experiences where the ticket is more like a virtual passport rather than an access control token. With the NFT ticket you got at the Disney World you may be able to interact with virtual branded worlds, play games, earn rewards and more. For this to happen, the ticket will work as an open-access identifier you can use across all sorts of experiences. Blockchain is perfect for that.

Pack value into tickets, allow them to be transmitted

For a very long, long time the ticket was a simple access tool. It would allow you to enter a certain location. As the world of experiences has evolved, so has the usage of such tools. We at Oveit have always been at the forefront of innovation in the field.

For us, the NFT ticket is a way to store and access value in the form of non fungible as well as fungible tokens. Fungible value is the value you can spend in a certain venue. For example – $100 worth of purchases you can spend at your favorite festival. Non-fungible is something that cannot be split or exchanged. For example a t-shirt, a few special rides you want to access, meet and greet with your favorite star, a burger or three beverages.

With NFT tickets visitors can tailor their own personalized experience. If for some reason they may not make it to the event or venue, they can resell this experience and you, the event organizer, can get an additional fee, providing the same experience.

These are just 5 ways you can use NFT tickets to transform your event experience, your theme park visit or your tourist resort visit. We’re sure there’s plenty more we didn’t mention. What is your favorite?

July 25, 2022 NFT ticketing No comments yet

Oveit announces partnership with deep-tech company Humans.ai

The partnership is the next step forward, as part of the company’s strategy to move towards Web 3.0 and the Metaverse by incorporating experiential digital art in the form of AI NFTs.

Oveit’s live stream shopping platform Streams.Live has also revolutionized the retail process for its clients in Europe and the United States in the past year, by changing the buying behavior. Online merchants have been able to connect much more authentically and in an interactive way with their target audience, using live online video sessions that simulate a personal experience.

Continuing to disrupt the live stream shopping experience, Oveit, which has become well known for its cashless payment solutions for events and venues, as well as solutions for access control and registration for virtual and live events, is developing new products to help its users stay connected by bridging online and in-person events with collectible tokens and creating experiential art with events tickets as AI NFTs, with the support of Humans.ai’s innovative technology.

“We believe the future of commerce is experiential and social. Artificial intelligence powered NFT ticketing for events will become the gateway to an unforgettable experience that now can be tokenized and held forever.”, said Mihai Dragan, COO at Oveit. “The AI NFT tickets will unlock more possibilities for Oveit, as we are rapidly moving towards Web 3.0 and the Metaverse with our solutions. Through our partnership with Humans.ai, event tickets will become so much more than just access codes. They will take the form of never before seen experiential digital art, in addition to ensuring access credentials and unique perks for events, empowering organizers to generate new revenue streams.” added Mihai Dragan.

Oveit’s AI NFT tickets will allow attendees access to both in-person and digital experiences, also holding special perks, created especially for events and a way of transforming unique moments into digital assets. The NFT tokenized tickets will enrich the experience with forever-lasting digital assets that will continue to bring in royalty long after the event is over.

“We are excited about working together with Oveit and helping them create, mint and sell AI NFTs as the next generation event tickets in the form of unique digital assets that can be used or sold through digital worlds, enriching their customers’ online experiences. The AI NFTs we are developing together will be much more than tokenized tickets, they will take the form of experiential art, allowing attendees access to both in-person and revolutionary digital experiences.”, said Sabin Dima, Humans.ai’s CEO.

Deep-tech company Humans.ai leverages blockchain technology and artificial intelligence to enhance the standard NFT and expand its functionality, transforming it from a static art form to an interactive and intelligent asset class capable of encapsulating neural networks or segments of a person’s digital DNA. The technology, named AI NFT, represents a new type of NFT that enables people to use their biometric data to create artificial intelligence solutions that are kept ethical by complex governance, consensus, and verification mechanism. Humans.ai’s unique consensus mechanism, Proof-of-Human, will be integrated to demonstrate there is a real human behind every transaction, making it more secure and trustworthy.

May 2, 2022 Event registration No comments yet