Introduction (Originally Posted July 20, 2021)

Hello, world! We are 4K. We are building the world’s most incentive-aligned peer-to-peer marketplace, one that is owned by its users. Our mission is to empower people to transact with more trust, more transparency, more speed, and with a 95+% reduction in fees. Unlike incumbent marketplaces that win at the expense of their users, we win alongside our users. In this post, we’ll share our solutions to problems that have been plaguing peer-to-peer markets and announce the launch of our first product. Let’s dive in!

How 4K Improves Upon Incumbent Marketplaces

There are several critical problems in existing peer-to-peer marketplaces. These problems include high rates of fraud, long delivery times, and high fees. An even more fundamental problem is that the equity and debt holders of peer-to-peer marketplaces are accruing the vast majority of the value while the users, the people without whom these marketplaces would be worthless, receive no upside. This has been the status quo for so long that many have taken these market dynamics as a given. We have solution to more equitably distribute value and create a more resilient business. Before diving into that solution, let’s begin by brushing up on the offerings of existing marketplaces, starting with eBay, to get a better sense for the current state that we are improving upon.

eBay

When shopping on eBay, buyers have no way of knowing whether the condition of the item in the pictures is an accurate representation of the item’s current condition. Even if the item is in the same condition, the buyers have no way of knowing whether the item is a worthless knockoff or an authentic item.

Curated Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces

We are not the first to point out these issues. Several teams have recognized these issues and sought to solve them by serving as a curation and authentication layer. They whitelist certain goods for sale and whenever a buyer and seller reach a price at which they want to transact, the seller sends the items to the curated marketplace to verify that it is authentic. If verified, the marketplace then sends the item to the buyer.

While these curated marketplaces offer improvements over eBay, we believe they take two steps forward and one step back. They solve for curation and authenticity, but the price one pays, in addition to higher fees, is that the authentication layer adds significant time to the settlement process. Also, because buyers are charged immediately, buyers have charges on their credit card for potentially weeks before finding out whether the transaction will be cancelled due to inauthenticity.

We see curated peer-to-peer marketplaces as a feature set improvement and not a magnitude of improvement.

The Solution: 4K

So, if current marketplaces are leaving much to be desired, what is the solution? 4K is the solution, of course ;)

At 4K, we offer a marketplace with less fraud, significantly lower fees, and faster settlement times than any Web2.0 incumbents. We do so by pre-authenticating and storing the items offered on our marketplace before sellers find buyers so that buyers can shop with confidence knowing that what’s listed online is available, authentic, and could be at their door the very next day. Here’s how it works:

1. We whitelist various items (we’re starting with watches, sneakers, trading cards, and other investment-grade collectibles).
2. A user sends us a whitelisted item.
3. We authenticate, insure, and store the item and issue the user a digital token that is redeemable for the physical item at any time. This is similar to a coat check claim ticket. Whoever brings the ticket to the coat check gets the coat. We call this claim ticket a non-fungible token, also known as an NFT.
4. The NFT holder can do whatever they want with their NFT. They can sell it on our marketplace, they can sell it on other marketplaces, they can hold on to it and simply use us for storage, or they can use it as collateral for a loan.
5. The user can redeem their NFT for the physical good anytime by sending us the NFT and providing us a shipping address.
6. The user then receives the physical item and world peace is achieved (we promise that at least half of this line is accurate).

To overcome the even more fundamental issue of equity and debt holders accruing value at the expense of their users, we will be issuing a token in the future that will align our incentives with those of our community and enable our community to win alongside us. We will share more about our token as we get closer to the token’s launch.

Why this Solution is Awesome

For Buyers

• Shop with confidence knowing that everything on the marketplace is already authentic.
• Receive your purchase as fast as the next day.
• Pay only the ETH gas price as a fee.
• Enjoy professional customer service.
• Buy with crypto!
• Coming soon: Use your NFTs to earn yield, collateralize, borrow, lend, and interact with DeFi!

For Sellers

• Pay significantly lower fees — we charge a 1% fee, which is a 90%+ reduction compared to incumbent marketplaces.
• Spend less on shipping — you can ship to our commercial address by the pallet.
• Enjoy white-glove service — we authenticate, store, protect, and insure your own inventory for you.
• Protect yourself with instant and irreversible settlement — no fraudulent chargebacks and no disputes.
• Coming soon: Use your NFTs to earn yield, collateralize, borrow, lend, and interact with DeFi!

For Professional Traders

• Avoid the need to physically settle and re-authenticate items with every trade.
• Get get access to markets that, until now, have been prohibitively opaque.

The First Step: Provably-Fair Drops

Our mission to build the world’s ultimate peer-to-peer marketplace is ambitious and we’re doing so with new technology that may take some getting used to. That’s why we’re excited to announce the launch of our first product, 4K Provably-Fair Drops! We’re starting with drops for three reasons:

1. Develop familiarity with NFTs that are backed by physical goods.
2. Build trust in our ability to redeem NFTs for their physical representation.
3. Excitement for the possibility to trade collectibles faster and more cost-effectively.

What is a drop?

A “drop” is when a company offers a high-demand item to its customers, usually one that will sell out instantly. Sometimes these drops are in-person, leading people to wait in line for hours, and sometimes days, in order to be one of the few to have the opportunity to buy the item. More often, these drops occur online so people will rapidly refresh their browsers at the specified time to have the opportunity to buy the item.

Product drops today are plagued by two critical issues:

1. Participants have no way of knowing whether the people conducting the drop are rigging the system to ensure that their accomplices win.(https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/us/ann-hebert-nike.html)
2. Even if the drop conductors are acting in good faith, the person who wins a drop usually isn’t that brand’s biggest fan, but rather the person with the most sophisticated army of bots that move through a checkout flow faster than any human possibly could. We know because we bought and test nearly every single bot available! ;)

We have designed our provably-fair drops product with these issues in mind.

What is a provably-fair drop?

A provably-fair drop is one in which participants need not fear rigging nor bots.

We solve the rigging problem by using provable randomness to select a winner. The source of this provable randomness is the Ethereum block hash of the first block added to the Ethereum blockchain after the end of the drop enrollment period. The wallet address that is closest to this block hash wins the drop, which makes it impossible for us to rig the drop.

To protect our drop participants from bots, we require drop participants to sign a transaction from a wallet that has enough funds to purchase the drop at the time of drawing. While this doesn’t guarantee the elimination of all bots, it makes it significantly more expensive to use bots and will dramatically reduce their impact.

To sign up for our drops or to simply learn more about them, check us out at 4K.com!

Backers

Our investors provide us with more than just capital; they also offer us invaluable guidance that makes our endeavor possible. That is why we are so grateful to be supported by the exceptional funds that participated in our first round of funding: Electric Capital, ConsenSys Mesh, IDEO CoLab, Collab + Currency, and Crosscut Ventures.

What’s Next?

We gave you plenty to chew on so we’ll leave things here, but stay tuned for the launch of our marketplace in August! To get the latest updates from us, be sure to sign up for our mailing list at 4K.com.

Links:

We’re Hiring! https://angel.co/company/4kcom/jobs

Twitter: https://twitter.com/4kprotocol

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/MFzBVM8wsF

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/4kprotocol/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/4KProtocol/

Bitclout: https://bitclout.com/u/4kcom

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/4kcom/