I’ve been trying to set aside time to do a deep-dive on @Goldies ScaryGary sneaker for a minute now. While doing so, I attended an event at Chicago’s Premier Digital Gallery @Im_Not_Art. Immediately spotted the homie Matt (owner of ImNotArt) to get the details. He explained to me how this was the first event after their Art Club launch a few weeks back. Based on content I saw from other attendees, I saw that it was a hit but I was more intrigued by their use of NFCs and POAP NFTs for membership.

So Near-field communication (NFC) is a technology that works similar to bluetooth. Cool thing about NFCs is that you can attach them to almost anything. Cards, Clothing, SHOES, etc. Considering that… they’re the perfect medium for being our IRL gateway to the blockchain.

When one taps a NFC with modern smart-phone, it’ll activate a notification on the phone and when the user clicks it… it launches a website. If we consider web3 infrastructure today, that opens up a world of capabilities. RTFKT attached them to t-shirts in ArtBasel that launched a simple landing page announcing a future airdrop to the holder.

@0x0zAgency (a local Chicago Dev group) created a DApp that was linked from a NFC chip hidden in the toe-box of Goldie’s sneaker seen in the feature image. That Dapp launched an NFTminter that was capable of minting another copy of the NFT to be advertised in virtual spaces…

Yeah, it’s a lot to comprehend initially. I was able to test the beta version and while there were some user experience pieces to smooth over, it was a rock solid proof-of-concept. NFC chips can act as the tech-gateway into tokenized experiences which can be monetized across time. If the ScaryGary sneakers had dropped 1 year earlier it would have been a hit because very few collections (other than bluechips) were offering their holders anything of value, let alone having a sneaker with a built in DApp they could monetize in the metaverse.

This is all opening up a space where our real world interactions will become tokenized on-chain. We’ve got DApps and landing pages, but looking forward to see what Im_Not_Art and @0x0zAgency continue to create as we build out the infrastructure (and business models) of phygital experiences.