Introduction

The first known NFT appeared in as early as 2014, however it wasn’t until the 2021 NFT boom that the technology caught mainstream attention. Since then we have witnessed the significant cultural and financial value NFTs have been able to create.

Such value creation was only possible because it was community driven, and NFT communities were able to grow at such speed because they were decentralised. They were not entirely decentralised, some important functions of the most successful NFT communities are still centralised. For example the treasury is usually controlled by the founder, the strategy and roadmap are often determined by the founding team, and rarely are decisions made by voting. However there are important aspects which are decentralised that made all the difference, namely the ownership of assets which is protected by the blockchain, the intellectual property rights which are often CC0 or explicitly passed to the owner of the NFT, and access to timely and open information which although is neither onchain nor protected by law, has become a social standard for any serious NFT project.

These decentralised aspects give the owner of an NFT the right to future financial gains, the freedom to create and express and the ability to make quick independent decisions. All of these result in more closely aligned incentives between the founding team and community members. When self-sovereign individuals meet the power of a mob, explosive growth happens.

However the story should not end here. Currently NFT projects mostly consist of art, collectibles, and utilities, all of which require significant time, resource and investment to create and sustain. While the status quo has given birth to many successful NFT projects, the larger potential of NFT lies in allowing anyone in the world to create his or her own global decentralised community and channel its power. To realise this vision, a number of products and services need to work in concert including NFT creation, NFT minting, NFT membership management, token-gated access, social media, instant messaging, community management tools, data analytics and more. There has been no place on the internet where all of these can be achieved easily at a low cost, until now.

Atticc is excited to launch its Decentralised Community Creation feature, bringing together all of the above-mentioned functionalities to create a simple yet powerful experience for community builders and members alike.

Creating a Decentralised Community on Atticc

On Atticc, every community is based on an NFT. Creating a new community is synonymous to launching a new NFT. Below are some unique advantages to launching an NFT on Atticc:

• Atticc utilises the battle-tested and gas-optimised ERC721A standard, the same standard used by popular NFT projects such as Azuki and Moonbirds.

• The smart contract of the NFT launched on Atticc is entirely owned by you. Once launched, only you will be able to make changes. This is in our opinion, superior to the shared contract method adopted by some NFT marketplaces, where the ownership of the smart contract belongs to the platform.

• Once launched, you are free to utilise the NFT on other Web3 applications such as Opensea, Etherscan, Dune, Snapshot, Guild etc. The possibilities are endless.

• Atticc is super powerful for launching NFTs for membership purpose. You can customise the quantity (including unlimited), price, limit number per wallet, restrict minting access via a code, set royalty percentage, set transferability (soulbound) and more.

• Atticc provides you with the flexibility to update smart contract parameters even after minting has started. You may want to change the quantity, price, access code or royalty percentage to suit the changing needs of your community. All of these can be done on Atticc. In fact only the NFT name and image are not changeable and everything else can be updated on the fly. Atticc displays a record of changes made to the smart contract, providing transparency to community members.

For detailed step-by-step guidance on how to create a decentralised community on Atticc, please refer to our docs.

Use Cases

The use cases of decentralised communities are endless. Incentive alignment, creativity, composability and transparency are unique advantages of decentralised communities. Below are some example use cases:

• Decentralised Charities - We have seen the good crypto can do from the crypto donations Ukraine received. Creating a decentralised charity on Atticc is a great way to promote humanitarian efforts. By minting a membership NFT, the member is contributing to the treasury of the charity while becoming a member at the same time. The use of funds are fully transparent onchain, making it very easy to track how the money is allocated. Members of the community benefit from the social media features on Atticc, where they can share content, form discussions and chat with each other in a decentralised and end-to-end encrypted way. The NFT, especially if soulbound, becomes a badge of honour for charitable actions, forming part of a decentralised identity that could bring credibility and future benefits to the member. Actions of the decentralised charity can be determined by a DAO voting, achieving full transparency across the entire fundraising, decision making and allocation process.

• Decentralised Societies - Many membership societies rely on members’ contribution to function. Such organisations for example student societies, sports clubs and social clubs can all benefit from the end-to-end transparency of a decentralised community mentioned above. Leadership positions can be voted in, use of funds can be tracked and audited by anyone and such transparency will incentivise members to more actively participate in and promote the community’s activities.

• Fan Clubs - Creators and influencers can create decentralised fan clubs on Atticc to bring their fans together. The token-gated content feature provides extra value to your most loyal fans. You no longer need hundreds of thousands of followers on social media to be able to earn advertising and sponsorship revenue, all you need are 100 loyal fans who are willing to consume your token-gated content by minting a membership NFT. The aligned incentives brought by such NFT membership will encourage your fans to work together to promote your brand, further bringing you closer to a bigger and more loyal audience.

• Investment Clubs - Minting the membership NFT can be the equivalent of raising funds from LPs, except it’s simplified to the click of a button. Investment decisions and actions are made transparent by the blockchain. Investment returns can be automatically calculated in real-time utilising analytics tools such as Dune.

• Crowdfund a Startup - Crowdfunding a startup by creating a decentralised community not only brings all the benefits of traditional crowdfunding methods but also the added advantage of giving liquidity to the investment before and after the product comes to fruition. The investment decision does not have to stop the moment money is sent, based on the performance of the startup throughout its product lifecycle, the investment has market value and stays liquid.

• Decentralised Components of Centralised Organisations - Decentralisation vs centralisation is not absolute but a spectrum. Centralisation has the benefit of faster decision making and enables the adoption of strategies which have to remain secret initially in order to work. However the most centralised organisations can still benefit from having decentralised components. Wherever community support is required, creating a decentralised community to align incentives and bring transparency can work wonders.

What Will You Create on Atticc?

The above are some use cases we thought of, however your creativity should not be limited by our imagination. We can’t wait to see all the innovative ways our users will utilise such powerful technology. Connect your wallet to atticc.xyz and create your own decentralised community today!