ByteBlock is an India-based NFT platform on Tezos.
“Historically India is famous for its physical artists. You will find millions of physical artists. This gave us an opportunity to build an NFT platform-specific to India and SEA region.”
ByteBlock is an India-based NFT platform looking to empower millions of artists, with a specific focus on India and South East Asia. They have been working with other well-known Tezos entities such as BazaarNFT and Tezos India to drive innovation for NFT markets on Tezos.
The ByteBlock NFT platform features many unique Tezos-based NFTs and through their regular ‘Lazy Auctions’ many hidden NFT gems can often be collected. They hold regular auctions on the platform. Recently, Chain Of Insight’s ‘Negative Shill Game’ featured NFTs on ByteBlock that were claimed via auction.
The ByteBlock platform prides itself on putting artists first, supporting artists (even with minting costs) and listening to artists in a bid to help empower them through their NFT efforts. You can find a list of some of their artists here.
Could you give us an introduction to what ByteBlock is, the history and what you guys are looking to achieve?
ByteBlock series of products are part of Block and Byte Technologies Pvt Ltd.
We are a company registered in India. It’s being more than 6 months since this company has started. Block and Byte Technologies has very good expertise in blockchain technology. They have built multiple products based on blockchain.
We started ByteBlockNFT in the month of April 2021 with the vision of “Empowering millions of artists”. If you see India has a huge population and the adaption of crypto just started.
Historically India is famous for its physical artists. You will find millions of physical artists. This gave us an opportunity to build an NFT platform-specific to India and SEA region.
For India, you need an NFT platform where minting cost is very less and it supports batchminting. Onboarding should be very simple. People should not go through the artist registration process.
What is the team behind ByteBlock?
This company is mostly driven by Tripti Vishwakarma. Along with her, we have marketing and operation head Pratiksha Gajbhiye. We have a strong team of engineers.
All of our engineers are from premium colleges in India. Along with these people we have very good advisory for growth of the company.
Do you have any financial backing from other entities i.e. Tezos foundation or external backers?
As of now, we are 100% bootstrapped. We are looking for investors to enhance and enrich our platform. Anyone interest can reach out to us.
Is ByteBlock to be built for Tezos only?
We love Tezos because it is very suitable for India and SEA region. We are happy with tezos as long they are improving their network and we get support from Tezos team.
Why did you choose Tezos for ByteBlock? How did you come to that decision?
There are multiple factors that decided the Tezos. Initially, we had a plan to go with Ethereum. When we talked to our artists regarding the gas fee, then Ethereum was rejected at the first moment. Low-cost minting is the biggest reason we choose to Tezos.
After that, we got good support from TezosIndia regarding all of our technical needs. I still see this is one of the community where you get support very easily.
What inspired you to create ByteBlock?
“Empowering millions of artists”
How is ByteBlock different to other Tezos NFT platforms i.e. Hicetnunc, Kalamint, Bazaar marketplace etc? Do they complement each other, compete, serve slightly different purposes?
Our strength is in supporting the artist. It is an open platform so you need not go through the registration process for NFT minting. If you are first-time NFT creator we provide free XTZ also. It helps them to come to the NFT world.
We regularly promote artist work also. We have a separate Twitter handler for promoting the art.
In fact, we are complementing other Tezos marketplaces. NFTs minted on ByteBlock can be secondary sold to Bazaar NFT. We share a lot of thought processes between Bazaar NFT. Kalamint and ByteBlock both are based in Bangalore.
What’s the technology under the hood? Is it Openminter or your own creation etc?
ByteBlock is based on a modified version of Open Minter. If you are an artist so you can easily submit a feature request. The current state of the platform is the request of several artists.
Whether dark-theme, Batch minting, artist page, tagging for photographs all of these features are suggested by our artist. If you are part of ByteBlock then you can easily get some of your favorite features implemented.
Whats on the roadmap for the future?
We are targeting royalty as the next feature.
Will you have Auctions?
We have very different types of auctions for our artists. We use to have an auction on Discord, it happens on Wednesday and Saturday. Wednesday auction we call lazy auction. You will have 16 hours to settle the auction.
This is an only text-based auction. Saturday auction is text + voice based. You just mint your work and bring it to the auction.
List the NFT after the final bid and the bidder will settle it. You don’t need to wait for few days for your auction settlement. Your money will not be locked with platform. No need to spend money to participate in the auction. We found the opportunity in scarcity.
What commissions do you take on the platform?
We take 4% as a platform fee. Initially, we had a ZERO platform fee.
If I’m an artist what is the benefit for me to mint on ByteBlock?
We are the most supportive platform. There is someone hearing your problem. All of the questions will be answered immediately.
You describe yourselves as the artist friendly platform, what do you mean by this?
Just send a message to ByteBlock or Tripti we are a second away to help you. If you don’t have XTZ to mint your NFT we help with that. 50% of our artists started their NFT journey from ByteBlock.
Does ByteBlock have it’s own token i.e. hDAO, KALAM etc? If not does it plan to?
Based on the need we will bring it in the future.
If so how are you planning to distribute/add liquidity through the token? Will you be running a token sale, or will it be in the form of an IDO?
Mostly IDO.
Do you have any collaborations with any other Tezos DeFi/NFT teams etc? If so, do you have any plans to interact?
You can sell ByteBlock NFT on BazaarNFT also. We are increasing our interaction with other Tezos projects.
Do you plan to expand your team in the future?
Definitely.
What do you think about the current state of the Tezos ecosystem?
Tezos has positioned itself well in the blockchain ecosystem. They are going in the right direction.
What do you think about the current NFT market?
We are in the very early stage of NFT. There is a lot of innovation possibility.
What’s the best way for people to connect, interact with for ByteBlock?
Marketplace: https://byteblock.art
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ByteBlockNFT
Telegram: https://t.me/ByteBlockNFT
Discord:https://discord.gg/sVPjEyWyGQ
Any final thoughts?
Happy to be in Tezos space. We together can grow Tezos to a new level.
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