Thread by @leashless

I'm about to describe how the @Mattereum system integrates into Rarible and the rest of the NFT ecosystem, and how we're going to get gold bars online in Jan 2021, barring unforseen problems.

Here's the technical backgrounder thread if you're wondering...

https://twitter.com/leashless/status/1341543128491302917

So now we've got this handy Asset - a web of Fiat Contracts which take your money in exchange for the ability to enforce legally if this object is wrong.

*Now* we can mint an ERC721 for the object.

Here's the NFT. Here's the Asset Passport which defines the NFT. Can you buy it?

And let's be clear here: we're talking about *physical* delivery of a *physical* valuable asset, defined by *fiat* contracts, enforceable all over the world, off an ERC721.

This is deep, deep uncharted territory. This has never really been done before, not in a functional way.

So what we need: a reason to believe, that if we buy *this* ERC721, *that* bar of gold will turn up on our doorstep upon request

That's what it all boils down to: does buying <thing> on-chain result in <thing> showing up on my doorstep?

Or, for a house, becoming my doorstep?

So for this, we need a new kind of expert: we need a *custodian* who has physical control of the asset, and who has so much to lose that they will not screw you over for the price of this one asset.

Custodians have to have *mass*. They have to be a credible target for litigation

In crypto, you coud do this with an escrow account: Fred is a custodian because he's got $4m of ETH locked up somewhere, and he's charging fees for people to rent his collateral in smart contracts.

One day. Probably not by us.

Initially, we like *strong physical custodians*.

Now, strong physical custodians: let me cut to the chase.

Gold vaults. Diamond vaults. Bonded wine warehouses. Geneva Freeport.

We are talking about the kinds of places that show up in Ocean's $Count movies.

These are the kinds of facilities you can *script* using Mattereum.

Now pause for a second and take a breath.

What does it mean to *script* a wine warehouse with a smart contract?

You've got legal asset definitions in Asset Passports.

You insert money to recieve warranty cover.

One of those warranties covers physical delivery.

Then you buy.

The entity making the physical delivery guarantee - a legal promise - has to meet a few criteria.

1) they need to be large enough to hit with a lawsuit

2) they need physical custody of the asset

3) they need to be able to take an instruction which originates on the blockchain.

So that instruction? The tricky bit. Only a few of these places have APIs.

We've got a partner, who stores their gold, in a place which has an API for gold storage.

Soon you're going to see ERC721s tied to gold bars in $Vault, for sale as standard NFTs protected by @Mattereum.

This is our 2021 plan: piles of assets, of the type kept in bonded warehosues, on chain as warrantied NFTs.

They'll integrate smoothly into Defi: put them into things like MakerDAO to borrow against them. Sell them on (say) Rarible.

NFTs have decent infrastructure these days.

And it may seem pretty odd to think about driving around some Ocean's $Count type warehouse using NFTs, but what is the point of having all this military-grade cryptography if you can't get people to two foot thick steel robo-doors when you pay money into a smart contract, eh?

So that's going live in January, barring severe unforeseen circumstances.

I'm getting a lot of WHEN TOKEN WHEN MOON pings right now. Once we have a running system, consider linklaters.com/en/insights/th…

We are in London for a reason.

So *officially* no comment on token, but ongoing.

All of this is going to be so completely obvious after the event. We get the last little bits of this system pulled together, and suddenly you're slinging around ERC721 tokens in smart contracts which directly manipulate the physical vaulting system *LIKE A PERIPHERAL*

All good.