Hello from Mentaport

(5 min read)

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It is 12:35 pm on the 31st of March 2023 in Santa Monica, California. Despite the market correction we saw in NFTs (non-fungible tokens) last year, at Mentaport, we believe that on-chain digital assets are the future of how people interact between the physical and digital worlds. 

We saw a 25X YoY growth in the number of digital asset trades in Ethereum from 2020 to 2021 ¹. After that, growth slowed down to about 3.5X in 2022 ¹. But during the last quarter of the year, trading volume still hit $1.6 billion, with 5.2 million digital assets sold across marketplaces ². Today, just in the month of March 2023, we are seeing almost $1.5 billion in digital asset trade volume ². 

Importantly, on-chain digital assets have proven to preserve origin attribution, upkeep ownership information, enable fast transferability, and have already attained global reach. New applications are emerging every other week, from music to virtual real estate. Things are moving fast, and more than 250k monthly active traders know it firsthand ¹.

Yet, digital assets have only scratched the surface of their potential. Most collections consist of a smart contract pointing to a profile photo. Communities are seeking more engaging use cases. Additionally, user-to-digital-asset interactions have limited real-world utility. It turns out that developing applications that accurately annotate and adapt smart contracts to spatial information is a challenge.

That's where Mentaport comes in. 

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What is Mentaport

Mentaport is a platform to create location-aware digital assets. We empower developers to set up smart contract rules linked to physical locations, and enable dynamic controls of event triggers over time. 

We seek to build the foundation for blockchain products in the physical world that benefit end-users while respecting their data privacy.  When a smart contract interaction requires location verification, the location data is a point-in-time snapshot that end-users explicitly allow access to in a secure way.

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What can you use Mentaport for right now

Here are some examples of how Mentaport can help you:

• Control distribution: Secure geo-gating at the smart contract level, for one or multiple locations at a time. You can combine this with volume caps and time windows.
• Facilitate discovery: Enable mintlist and mint access by spatial proximity to specific location(s). Let your community find digital assets relevant to their spatial context.
• Personalize assets: Dynamically update digital assets at the time of discovery, mint, or after a certain ownership term. Make your assets tailored at every touch point.
• Gamify interactions:  Engage your users with real-life digital installations. Create experiences like scavenger hunts and immersive displays in Augmented Reality.

Using Mentaport, developers can build creative and engaging digital assets that leverage the power of location and spatial context.

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Our mission

Mentaport's mission is to connect people with the real world to inspire and amplify productive interactions. 

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How you can get started

Mentaport is in Private Beta! To start building on the next generation of digital asset infrastructure, enter your details in the private beta sign-up form by adding your name and a short description of your project. We will reach out to you via email to get you started. 

Once we start, you can deploy a location-aware smart contract in a couple of minutes!‍‍

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Who we are

Mentaport was started by two founders, Mariale and I (Cynthia). What brought us together is our drive to build a product in the intersection of crypto and AI with applications in the physical world and emphasis on data autonomy for end-users. 

Mariale is a creative developer. For over ten years now she has created all types of AI and computer vision software. She was one of the first 100 employees at Magic Leap, where she took her prototypes from the whiteboard to a company launch. Her environment detection SDK has been used by hundreds of XR developers to date.  

I have been a data scientist for over a decade, first as a computational biologist, extracting patterns out of gigabytes of genomic data around the world (Cambridge, Max Planck, UNAM), and later on as a founding data scientist in a fast growing FinTech startup. There, I designed and built the production data pipeline to service real time decisioning on user registration and credit origination in emerging markets. 

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Partner with us‍

We know that Mentaport has the potential to reinvent the way we interact with digital assets. But it will take a larger community to build products with utility in the real world. If you are ready to partner with us, fill out our contact form. We welcome partnerships with community-driven projects, products seeking to push the boundaries of digital-physical interactions, and ecosystem friends. 

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Join our team!

We are hiring contractor roles en route to our first full-time hires, to see the latest roles check out our careers page.

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Keep in touch 

If you just want to keep in touch, follow us @MentaportInc, subscribe to our newsletter, or continue reading our blog. And if you have any questions, email us at hello@mentaport.com!
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Alright, last thing: we treasure your support. Thank you for being here!

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Looking forward to seeing you around, 

Cynthia

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Cynthia Alexander

Mentaport Inc | Co-Founder & CEO

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