— By Roudy Hanna: Founder @ Astroverse
Commerce has existed from the early days of human civilization when humans bartered goods to the more complex development of trade routes and corporations. We can find that commerce is the oldest form of transactions made between humans.
So what is commerce?
Commerce is the conduct of trade among economic agents. Generally, commerce refers to the exchange of goods, services, or something of value, between businesses or entities. The growing rate of commerce and its interconnection with the people’s livelihood turned it into an everyday job.
Then what happened?
A boom in commerce happened. Everyone wanted to be part of the new cycle of economy. The cycle that brought builders, traders and decision makers into one. And like anything beautiful ever touched by humans, our greedy nature started finding ways to maximize profits even when others’ lives were at stake. This led to to chaos, which pushed people in power and governments to start regulating these types of transactions, lay rules and laws to try and protect everyone.
But is it really to protect us? Did they truly do this to benefit us?
We think that they made us believe the rules they made were laid to protect us from big whales that hoard goods at low prices then resell them when the prices spike. You know, those entities that have enough resources, power and capital to control our lives?
Commerce became so intertwined with our everyday lives that our mere existence and survival relied on it. We need to get our imports, just as much as we need to get rid of our exports for the right price of course.
Ah, the consequences… Politics, big corporations, lobbies, governments and a new world order. Mutual benefits that set our moral standards, rotate it or even shift it to another spectrum. This is where it gets interesting, these huge untrustworthy entities that we need protecting from seem to have found ways to play under the rules, protect themselves and still win strides of profits on the account of others. They even became part of the system, so connected, spread out yet balanced that they convinced the rest of us that their well-being is directly linked to ours.
Commerce in the Fashion Industry
Looking at it today, from a wide perspective instead of the need of fitting in… You will see that everything is just another marketing campaign, tailored for your neurotransmitters to infuse that little drop of dopamine into your system to make you drool over wanting the next thing!
Haha, look closer my friends… The next new thing is an old new thing recycled enough times to make it look like a frankenstein-ish design so mutated that you don’t recognize it anymore. We drop them like flies, by the season, the occasion or the purest intentions of a multi-millionaire influencer with the same beauty aspects of its predecessor. A 2.0 version that keeps on giving.
What the F… is going on?!
This sure doesn’t sit right with me, having to watch so called geniuses designing the same outfits over and over again… What happened to cultural abundance? Folklore and different parts of our civilizations? Why did we start to resemble each other so much?
One word: SALES!
Yes, it’s sales, directly linked to the marketing and that pretty little influencer we talked about. They are forcing the easiest standard of beauty, diluting it and making it sound like it is available for everyone. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a walk down memory lane for a minute:
Fashion and clothing used to be a bold differentiation between social classes. Elitists in every community needed a way to tell the world they are elites without having to really say they are elites. For example, the earliest of traders known to men, Phoenicians, started to wear robes dyed with Tyrian purple, one of the oldest dyes discovered in nature. They stayed true to their origin, they simply went out and added a cultural sign of elitism to their clothing.
Fast forward to today, and the catastrophic ways to make things available for the masses we see lesser green ways, lesser humane ways and lesser fairness in the economic cycle of creating new clothing. Which led to an availability of all types of clothing to anyone.
Wait, wait! I’m not done yet; even Banks started lending people money to buy the luxuries in clothing just to fit in.
Yes, it is a fascinating well-oiled machine that puts pressure on all its screws and chains to work perfectly and tirelessly. Absolutely mesmerizing if you ask me.
Commerce & Blockchain: A NEW WORLD ORDER
I know. You’ve all been waiting for this part. So what now? Nobody really knows!
And I hate to break it to you, anyone saying that they do, is either lying or pulling you into another Ponzi Scheme.
The time now is for builders and the sentiment that is yet to settle down across the whole space. So maybe it is time to start asking ourselves, can we really lead a trustless commerce? Create governance from the people for the people? My speculation says yes… By leveraging the blockchain technology and its transparency.
But how?
NFTVs BABY!
A new technology has emerged called NFTVs or Non-Fungible Token Vouchers. They are basically governed by a smart-contract designed to cater for commerce transactions by relying on the wyvern protocol with built-in functions like: Redeem, Refund, Complain or Fault/Cancel. This entire voucher has an expiration date where it will be redeemed by default if no action is taken.
Fun, right?
Well not yet, we are still trying to figure out a way to make it optimal and without any intermediary to arbitrate any result from any conflict.
By game theory, it should work seamlessly. But again, we are humans and we are touching it. So a new theory was introduced which is incentivizing people to complain when there’s a fault. To redeem successful vouchers when there is no fault, and to cancel the Voucher in case of any fraud. Sounds great, yeah?
Still… not yet. People found a way to break it one more time. Impressive at this point, but it happens that builders in this space are more dedicated to stand up to these illicit actions.
Hence, small modifications were applied to this new technology, it remains as it is but to counter any fraudulent interactions with the system everyone has a credibility rate based on their actions through the transactions. In other words, your rate would get slashed in two if you get reported as a fraud which will automatically affect how people transact with you, and limit anyone with fraudulent intentions.
Very good, now if you’re already wondering how to apply this technology in our everyday lives, you’re on the right track… Have you heard of the Metaverse and how big brands are racing to dip their toes in there?
Let me try to explain it to you in Layman terms…
Wait, hold on, I have to go now, my mom is calling me.
