NFTs are now becoming more than just a fad with a burgeoning market cap that is predicted to reach more than US$35 billion this year. Once considered as collectable art products, NFTs are now showcasing its utility as an investable asset class through applications such as NFT-collateralized crypto loans or rental marketplaces.
With the coming financialization of NFT, Matrixport is excited about the innovations driving the NFT rental protocol and marketplace and has participated in Double Protocol’s US$1.5 million seed round, alongside others.
Who is Double Protocol?
Double Protocol is a fully decentralized and open-source NFT rental protocol and marketplace for assets on the metaverse (such as land) and GameFi tokens, including character, prop, and wearables.
Unlike other NFT rental protocols, Double Protocol’s doNFT contract enables lending and renting of NFTs without the transfer of ownership (by lender) and payment of lofty collaterals (by renter). This expirable dual-role solution separates ownership and utility by only assigning the role of user to the renter, with an automatic expiry of this role at the end of the rental period.
- For each original NFT, the doNFT contract will create a corresponding doNFT, which bears the information on the rental period
- After rent has been paid, the doNFT will be minted for the renter
- During the lease period, renters are entitled to any actions on the underlying assets, such as subleasing, merging, splitting, or even financial derivatives
The Potential of NFT Rentals
With its unique approach, Double Protocol solves a key challenge in the NFT rental marketplace: lenders will no longer be afraid of losing their NFTs, and renters will never need to pay collateral. This in turn will eventually lower the barriers to entry such as cost to participate, and lay the foundation for an active rental market.
As the Metaverse and GameFi ecosystems continue to grow, we believe Double Protocol will soon be at the forefront of the NFT rental space. Innovators like them are best-positioned to unlock more use cases such as NFT subletting or installment loans, while mitigating risks in associated offerings, such as high-reward but high-risk and costly NFT-backed loans.
Ultimately, as Asia’s fast growing crypto financial services platform, Matrixport looks forward to NFTs becoming a powerful investing tool and a source of income, powered by the breadth and depth of ecosystem players in the NFT financialization space — bringing new financial opportunities and paving the way towards maturity for the crypto ecosystem.