Brent Annells / Smart Token Labs

Brent Annells on Smart Token Labs' tokenization software for brands

InterviewApril 13, 202214:44

In this episode

Ashton Addison speaks with Brent Annells, CMO of Smart Token Labs, on their tokenization open source software, merging web2 companies into the web3, how brands can connect to the NFT ecosystem, and more.

Key takeaways
  • Smart Token Labs developed TokenScript, a framework that wraps existing tokens to enable composability, portability, and connections to web2 sites and services.
  • Brand Connector is a point solution that allows any website to recognize, verify, and interact with tokens and user wallets through a simple npm package.
  • The solution is EVM-based and works with Ethereum-compatible blockchains, including a recent partnership with Clayton Foundation's public blockchain.
  • NFTs have become a gateway for mainstream brands to experiment with web3, with examples including hotel chains offering VIP status to NFT holders.
  • TokenScript aims to establish tokens as digital primitives and building blocks of web3, similar to how web pages became ubiquitous in web2.

Transcript

Read the full transcript 2,779 words, auto-generated and lightly edited

I'm Ashen Addison from Block West capital for investment pitch media in the Crypto Coin Show and today on blockchain interviews we have Brett anels CMO of smart token Labs Brett welcome to the show and thank you so much for taking the time today thanks for having me you're very welcome a lot going on with smart token Labs I know you guys have your hands in a couple

different pots let's just kick off the conversation from you by hearing a little bit about you know high level overview of the solutions smart token labs is bringing into the industry and then we'll dive into the details yeah sure well smart token Labs is you know our mission is to make token smart we're an open S open source software development company for

web 3 we believe that you know the web 3 future is the will happen or occur via the coming together of web 2 and web 3 the bringing of crypto to cryptography and blockchain Technology into web 2 Mass adoption will happen through better user EXP experience that comes through through that happening and we've been building for that future for the last

four years we fundamentally believe that tokenization is going to be at the heart of the building blocks and the bridges between web two and web 3 and that's what our focus is amazing great intro Brett thank you so much and you mentioned there one of the main goals is making tokens smart and smarter maybe you can talk about the tokens

right now why aren't they smart and how are you guys doing that yeah great question so I guess the you know the way that we make tokens smart is through a core solution we have called token script and token script is a framework for creating a smart token interface around existing tokens so what that means is it enables it's effectively a wrapping

around a an existing token a coin an nft or any other type of token that enables that Co that it brings composability and portability to the token and Limitless logic and potential utility it does that by enabling tokens to connect to other tokens or to Smart contracts in the same way that adap does but really importantly it creates a connection

Point into web two sites and services so what we're doing is we're creating a bridge through token script to bring tokens into Web Two to connect to websites to services like membership and awards programs those sorts of things very cool and of course with that there's a lot of different tokens that are on different blockchains and I'm guessing you know there's not one one

line of code that can just solve all of it are you guys focused on a specific ecosystem inside of already existing tokens like in the ethereum ecosystem or is it something else yeah I mean we're an AVM based solution we've recently partnered with the Clayton Foundation out of Korea so we're working on their public blockchain which is evm compatible so

essentially we're an ethereum based solution but we enable pretty much any type of token in that ecosystem that's great to hear and now looking at this from the web 2 perspective say you're one of millions of people that have a web 2 platform they would approach you guys and how would you be able to most benefit them from integrating this

technology yeah so we've got this longer term Vision around token strip where looking to create token script as a new standard for building blocks of web 3 so that's a framework in and of itself we've just released a point solution out of that called brand connector and brand connector enables any web to any website basically to

to recognize verify and interact with any token and any user wallet so that creates a whole range of possibilities so it's one of simple examples of a bridge between web 3 and web two so any website can for example recogniz a user can visit a website might be a hotel booking site the hotel booking site has Brand connector installed it recognizes that

there's a user wallet it asks the user if they want to interact with the website if the if the user wishes to do that then it can recognize specific tokens that they have in their wallet specific nfts in particular and it then it can customize its content its offer its services based on the tokens that the user holds okay very interesting and I'd love

to dive into this a little bit more just to get clarification let's just say for example I was a web 2 platform that was just going to hook in they were going to put some code in and make it so you can plug metamask in and then You' be able to access you know some ethereum tokens I'm guessing you would also have to mess with the website itself and have a

checkout or something like that how is smart token Labs you know different and have a competitive advantage over taking that other route well so we just deployed as a simple npm package at the at the browser level and through that we can recognize any wallet so any wallet can be recognized and any token can be recognized from within that wallet so it's a it's a

fully open source web three based solution it's that's very open very cool and you mentioned that you have you and your team have already been working on this for four years and of course at the same time cryptocurrency has been growing so much since the last Bull Run 4 years go how do you see the adoption of web 2 platforms keeping up to this are you seeing a lot of

traction yeah I mean it's it's I think it's a really a really it feels like a real moment in time like a pivot Pivot Point you see I guess you know nfts have really been you know they're part of the Z Co now you see multiple Brands looking to experiment and get involved in web three via nfts either by partnering with collections or doing drops themselves or

experimenting with utility or liquidity in some sort of different way that's sort of like the stepping stone into the metaverse so there's a there's a lot of interest and activity at the moment by mainstream Brands looking to bridge into web 3 you know D5 is a less less obvious or easy pathway for them but nfts has sort of been like a Gateway what

we're seeing I mean we've been building for this vision of tokens as the building blocks of web 3 for four years we had this Vision that tokens would effectively the new digital primitive that they will become as ubiquitous as web pages and I think that's starting to be born out now if you if you look at the way that just take B up y Club as an example what UK

laabs is doing you know the it's like the token itself the nft is like an open Innovation platform things are being built out of that you know from from from your nft from the token that you hold in that collection you have open IP rights and you can create anything you like you can Bridge into you can you can launch a record label into Central land you can launch a merch

merch offering and you know VI a web2 website you can do all these sorts of things and you're doing it from the from the architecture of the token the token is the digital primitive so it's sort of everything's sort of coming together at this point what we see with brand connector is it's a it's a great way for both Brands to connect to nfts or recognize nfts or partner with

collections in a really simple way you know one of the most one of the one of the an example of a partnership that we're doing at the moment is with a with a resort chain out of out of the US and they have a big operation in New York City and they're going to they're putting brand connector into their hotel and resort website and they're basically making Apes VIPs for

the time that they're in New York for nft myc so all they're doing is they're just taking the technology and they're recognizing a an nft that someone's hold and says look that represents who you are you're an OG in the in the in the crypto space you have a high value Asset we want you we want you to sort of you know visit visit our facilities and we want to recognize

you as a VIP they can do that without actually having to partner with the collection itself they can just make that available as an offer so really easy way for Brands to start to connect into nfk they can they can recognize it brand connector can recognize recognize a coin an nft or a specific nft trade and then from the other side it's a it's

a great way for collections that you know that want to partner with Brands to provide a really simple gateway to plugging in M yeah incredible on the nft side I feel like the use cases and the way that web 2 companies are looking at the blockchain industry now from before nfts when it was really you know using bit coin to pay at the e-commerce

Or just like purely a transactional now to non-f funable tokens being able to give kind of any kind of access like do you see the growth of nfts into web 2 as the Catalyst that is going to be driving a lot of these web2 businesses into that or is there still more things to come it's a it's a fantastic Gateway and it's the underlying technology

that's a fantastic Gateway so you know what do nfts enable they represent utility and liquidity they represent authenticity or scarcity you know they're enabler of great experience or a way to speculate now I think with Brands you know it's going to be much more on the utility the authenticity The Experience side of things that they're

going to be experimenting with nfts so what nfts are an incredible way to you know enable what's been done for a long time through loyalty and reward the ENA of surprise and Delight experiences so dropping something to your customers that enables you to attend an event or be part of an experience where the nft is you know is an authenticator of your

membership of a program and it and it unlocks certain types of experiences for you I think they're the most obvious ways that you're going to start to see Brands you know leverage it less so on the speculation thing but at the same time you can take an example you can take the example of a membership program so like Quant quantis is a major airline in Australia and they have the

quantis frequent flyer program and so you'll start to see Brands tokenize themselves so they'll they'll partner with nft and they'll Bridge into nft collections and they'll look to you know get borrow brand Equity out of partnering and doing those sorts of things but they'll become token issuers in their own rights so with a membership program if you look at that

spectrum of utility to liquidity you could look at it from two different perspectives so quantis could look to it could tokenize the membership you know so you're you're a platinum or a or a gold or a silver member of quantis and that gives you rights gives you rights to different types of lounges it gives you lights rights to real world experiences it gets you into the into

the plane you know you can tokenize that as an actual membership and that will act from a utility perspective the other way that you can look at it is you can tokenize the points the membership points so we're not all using particularly recently we haven't used frequent fly points to redeem travel because we haven't been traveling so you can potentially be creating a

secondary Market from those points which is going one step further and I think we'll see lots of that sort of innovation you think about time share and things like that I think you'll see lots of that sort of innovation coming but I think we're just I also think we're just at the beginning definitely just at the beginning Brent and with that said do you have any hints on

future plans for SM smart token labs and what you guys are going to be building throughout this year and to come yeah well we're we're really focused I mean we have two core products we have token script which you know a new standard for the internet for tokens is the building blocks and the bridges between web 2 and web 3 we have Alpha wallet which is

A mobile nft wallet which is effectively a super user agent for smart tokens the main focus this year is we will be on token script we're really focused on our go to market is really focused in the nft space and brand so bottom up we're working with nft collections we have a bunch of smart contracts that we that we that we use and have available for derivative

Collections and things like that so we do doing a lot of work to enable nft collections from a technology perspective but then top down we really we're really focused on brand connector as as the point solution which which we think really has Market fit right now there's there's so many Brands looking to connect with nft collections there's so many nft collections looking to

bridge into the real world and we think we've got a really elegant and simple solution for both those parties to grow in the next 12 months so that's our primary focus awesome so with that said how can nft collections or brands or just people interested in learning more about the technology get more information on Smart token labs and get involved with the

communities yeah sure so I mean look we're we're an open source software development company so all of our Tech is freely available so you know simplest way is at token you can you can hit us up at token script on Twitter where you can go to GitHub tokens script and look at the repository and get access to the code we do partner as part of our you know

this early stage of driving Tech adoption we do partner with Collections and we do partner with Brands so we do that where we where we see Temple opportunities to you know to showcase the technology so we're always excited to talk to people that are doing Innovative stuff it's it's it's their project it's their initiatives we're just in an enabler with technology in

the background that's that's our that's our role in the world so but we love to partner with companies that are and Brands and Collections and DS that are doing Innovative stuff so they can reach out to us directly as well great I will leave those links in the description box below for the viewers as well thank you so much Brent for taking the time to come on all the best with

everything smart token Labs moving forward and let's follow up in the near future truy thanks ashon

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