The advancements that have taken place in augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) in recent years are nothing short of remarkable. New hardware and software have pushed this nascent space from beta mode to practical use for millions of consumers. Innovations such as Oculus Rift along with the newest Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating system have opened the doors to a much richer AR/VR experience.
The global investment bank Goldman Sachs predicts that the AR/VR software market will balloon to $35 billion by 2025 wherein 60 percent of that software revenue will be fueled by consumers. Furthermore, the technology research firm Gartner predicts that, by 2019, AR/VR and mixed reality (MR) solutions will be integrated to 20 percent of large enterprise businesses.
While these technologies are being deployed in scores of industries such as gaming, medicine and e-commerce; mass creation and distribution in this realm is hindered by a low supply of high quality, 3D content. Using today’s prevailing models, users must curate their own objects and environments to populate their AR and VR applications, which can be a major undertaking.
One company that has taken the lead in addressing this issue is Cappasity, a California-based blockchain technology startup that is launching a decentralized content generation and distribution platform. This platform aims to better align creators of 3D content with users and businesses seeking to deploy AR and VR applications. Cappasity’s business goal is to make 3D content generation and distribution easy, fast and accessible for both businesses and ordinary users within the AR/VR space.
There are major advantages to running a marketplace for 3D content on the blockchain. One clear challenge that virtually every digital content provider faces is copyright handling and protection. Cappasity’s approach creates a cryptographic hash for every piece of content uploaded to its platform. It is then stored on the blockchain along with the key information of the person who holds the rights to that content.
Cappasity’s model relies on the immutability of blockchain technology to prevent the manipulation or alteration through data breaches and server hacks. This provides users with clear proof of their digital content ownership by mirroring how the digital rights of content creators are protected in other areas such as music, arts and film.
Roadmap
The founders at Cappasity have been working in 3D technology for over 15 years. They are highly skilled in developing IT businesses. The team includes technology experts in a number of complementary fields including computer vision, SaaS solutions, 3D engine application development and 3D mobile and video gaming.
Each month the Cappasity platform delivers more than 1 million views of 3D content. It is actively used by a number of mobile luxury brands including Jazmin Chebar and Claris Virot. It is anticipated that Cappasity’s platform will be utilized by 30 U.S. educational institutions in 2018.
The Cappasity platform, which runs off the Ethereum blockchain, uses the CAPP token as its proprietary cryptocurrency. Buyers can spend their CAPP tokens to purchase or rent content from sellers. Users can purchase CAPP tokens from online exchanges or earn them by renting or selling their own 3D models and apps or by helping to moderate content that’s hosted on the platform.
As a utility token, CAPP is fully ERC20 compliant. The platform will be open to other developers using Unity, Unreal Engine, Apple ARKit and Google ARCore, among other technologies.
Token Sale
Currently, Cappasity is in the midst of the second phase of its token sale, where a total $20 million of CAPP tokens will be available to buyers. The token sale is only available to pre-registered users. Others will be able to acquire CAPP tokens from online exchanges once the token sale is over. Here are a couple of additional details about the sale:
- Users who maintain their CAPP tokens for half a year will be rewarded by Cappasity with an “airdrop” representing 7-25 percent of their tokens. This measure is intended to mitigate the likelihood of “pump and dump” schemes, where users purchase and sell tokens over short periods for the sole purpose of manipulating prices.
- Cappasity will incentivize large holders to contribute a portion of their holdings to the token sale, which can lead to eligibility for the “airdrop” bonus. This is a much more equitable process for the distribution of tokens, protecting the platform from large holder manipulation.
- A innovation fund which will be launched by Cappasity during phase two of the ICO, will be used to fuel the development of #D content and AR/VR experiences for the platform.
Through these and other strategic steps, Cappasity’s aim is to to draw in top tech talent to grow the platform toward mass adoption.