Making a living in the creative world is a difficult task. Not only must your work stand out against thousands of similar pieces, it also has to be properly marketed and listed to be considered a viable asset. In today’s system, much of the market is run by centralized institutions like publishing companies, and while there have been strides towards more forward-thinking platforms like Etsy and Amazon, it’s clear that creative commerce suffers from a number of debilitating pain points like fees.

Enter the Embermine Project (MBRS): a new decentralized creative commerce platform that empowers content creators and artists alike to sell their work directly to consumers without the use of a centralized middle-man, but by instead leveraging smart contracts on the blockchain. Essentially Embermine enables buyers and sellers to interact with anonymity (if so chosen), security and for significantly lower fees, all while streamlining the transaction process.

Interested in Embermine? Here’s a quick rundown of the project:

Platform & Development

First off, it is interesting to note that the entire Embermine platform is being built on top of a custom blockchain stack called TECHNE, which is designed specifically for the collaboration of network participants around common endeavors managed by Compacts, hybrids of abstract, programmable contracts and no-nonsense prose agreements.

Our goal is to use [blockchain technologies] to optimize and streamline the creative process–from connection, collaboration, to distribution.

Here are the major features of the Embermine platform, as described in their whitepaper:

The Embermine platform consists of 4 major entities:

Creators – start projects and begin the process of drafting the Project Compact, essentially a nexus of the programmatic agreements around a common endeavor, detailing ownership and compensation as well as detailing the project goals. Collaborators – are the various entities who work within a compact to bring goods and services to market Customers – are the entities which purchase creative assets and participate in the Distributed Patronage system (which provides an effective framework for all participants of the platform to tap into networks of value) Projects – are Composite entities that consist of autonomous Entities bound by a common purpose.

While many of these key features can be found in other projects, this is perhaps the first platform to incorporate all of them into a clean, concise package.

Ancillary Projects

It is interesting to note that the Embermine team has been diligently working to build a diversified set of crypto/blockchain assets. Here are the projects, as described on their website:

Token

There are three types of tokens on the platform: the seat license, creative assets, and the transactional unit. With any cryptocurrency platform, it is important to understand exactly why they decided to issue a token to function within its system. Here is the reasoning for Embers tokens, straight from the team:

Embers are seat licenses for the Embermine Platform. A single Ember is required to create a User ID and establish a presence within the network. Once a User ID is created, the Ember is taken out of circulation.

Additionally, creative asset tokens are generated by each project, functioning as digital bearer certificates proving ownership of purchased products. Finally, the transactional unit (named Ions) is required to participate in commercial activity and enter the market upon removal of Embers from the network. Ions can be used as fees in secondary market transactions to increase the value of a creators content, where gas is charged for each movement of the asset from entity to entity.

Embers were distributed in a token generation event in early June 2017 with a total supply of 50,000,000. They are currently listed on EtherDelta, RadarRelay, Cryptopia, and SingularX.

Team

This is perhaps the strongest feature of the young project. Launched from the ashes of a publishing company, the Embermine team set out to make a real impact on the creative market. The team, which is shown below, features a wide variety of skillsets and is led by seasoned executive James Drake. The project is actually structured as a company at this point in time, but they have indicated aspirations of dissolving the private entity into the platform itself.

Final Take

We are excited by the scope of the Embermine project, as it looks to solve real problems faced by the creative market space. The clear platform use cases combined with the strong technology, business-oriented team and exciting ancillary projects leads us to believe Embermine is poised to make significant strides forward in 2018.

Follow us: Telegram | Twitter | Newsletter

Disclaimer: The author(s) of this article may have a position in one or more of the securities mentioned above. This article is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Always conduct your own due diligence before making investments.