Ticketmaster's dominance in the event ticketing industry has long been a source of frustration for consumers and artists alike. High fees, scalping, and a lack of transparency have fueled calls for change, yet regulatory efforts to curb the company's power have largely fallen short. Now, a new contender has emerged that may succeed where regulators haven't: onchain Real World Asset (RWA) tickets.
RWA tokenization involves representing real-world assets, like tickets, as digital tokens on a blockchain. This technology offers the potential to revolutionize the ticketing industry by addressing many of the issues plaguing the current system.
One of the key benefits of onchain ticketing is increased transparency. Every ticket issued using an onchain system can be verified on the blockchain, ensuring authenticity and preventing fraud. This transparency extends to ticket sales, which are visible and verifiable on the blockchain, helping to ensure that tickets are genuinely available and not reserved for inflated resale prices.
Another advantage of onchain ticketing is its potential to eliminate scalping and bot issues. By using blockchain technology, ticket issuers can implement measures to prevent scalpers from buying large quantities of tickets and reselling them at inflated prices. This can include measures such as limiting the number of tickets that can be purchased per transaction or requiring buyers to verify their identity.
Onchain ticketing can also provide artists and event organizers with greater control over their ticketing. Traditional ticketing monopolies often control event financing, forcing artists into restrictive contracts. Blockchain technology offers an alternative by providing a decentralized finance (DeFi) solution that allows for event financing without giving up control. For example, artists and event organizers can use their unsold onchain ticket inventory as collateral for DeFi funding, allowing them to crowdsource the funds needed to realize a show, tour, or festival.
The OPEN Ticketing Ecosystem is one example of a project that aims to disrupt the ticketing industry using blockchain technology. OPEN's mission is to take all tickets onchain, delivering transparency for fans and fair earnings for creators. The OPN token powers all ticketing activity on OPEN's tooling. Ticket integrators source OPN from the open market to access tooling and issue tickets.
Despite the potential benefits of onchain ticketing, there are also challenges to its widespread adoption. One challenge is proving token legitimacy, ownership, and custody. It can be difficult to prove that a token represents ownership of the underlying real-world asset. Another challenge is legal and regulatory ambiguity. The legal frameworks for tokenization vary across jurisdictions, leading to ambiguity. There are also technological complexities and security risks associated with onchain ticketing. NFT contracts have the potential to contain vulnerabilities.
To overcome these challenges, it is important to establish well-defined legal frameworks for tokenized assets. Blockchain projects should also work closely with legal experts and regulators to ensure compliance. In addition, it is important to implement security measures to protect against hacking and other security threats.
Despite these challenges, the potential benefits of onchain ticketing are significant. By increasing transparency, eliminating scalping, and providing greater control to artists and event organizers, onchain ticketing has the potential to create a fairer and more efficient ticketing industry. As the technology matures and regulatory frameworks become clearer, onchain RWA tickets may very well succeed where regulators haven't in disrupting Ticketmaster's dominance.
