The Blue Marble Goes Live with Stellar’s Soroban

We’re excited to announce that The Blue Marble (TBM) has completed the long-awaited upgrade to use Soroban, a new smart contract technology on the Stellar blockchain. This change is a big deal for us—and it means our NFTs have smart contract stability brought by the tried and tested Stellar network.

First, What is Soroban?

So, what’s the buzz about Soroban, and why is it important for us?

Soroban is the new smart contract platform just released to the Maine that enhances Stellar’s existing borderless payment capabilities. Since Stellar’s inception in 2015, its mission has been to facilitate global access to cost-effective and nearly instant payments. Soroban builds on this to enable the creation of decentralized applications (dApps) that leverage Stellar’s global reach.

Unlike other smart contract platforms, Soroban is not a sidechain or Layer 2 solution but a fully integrated smart contract platform within the Stellar blockchain. It is open-source, emphasizing community trust and developer collaboration. The platform is powered by Rust, known for its speed, efficiency, and security, making it an ideal language for smart contracts.

Soroban is designed with developers in mind, providing a comprehensive toolkit that includes built-in contracts, a local sandbox, SDKs, a CLI, and an RPC server. Its innovative use of Rust and WebAssembly ensures high performance, scalability, and reduced vulnerabilities. Additionally, Soroban introduces features like multi-core scaling, an optimized fee model, and a ledger compaction solution to address state bloat, setting a new standard in smart contract optimization.

So how does The Blue Marble take advantage of all this good stuff?

Royalties with Third-Party Benefits

At TBM, we use Soroban to enhance the way royalties are handled within our NFT platform. Traditionally, NFT royalties allow creators to receive a percentage of sales whenever their NFT is sold on the secondary market. This simple yet powerful mechanism allows creators to be rewarded for their work continuously.

TBM also enables creators to set royalties not just for themselves but also for third parties, such as non-profits or charities.

Expanding this model, TBM also enables creators to set royalties not just for themselves but also for third parties, such as non-profits or charities. This means that every time an NFT is traded, a portion of the sale can directly support a cause chosen by the creator, fostering a culture of giving and community support within the digital asset space.

Creating and Trading NFTs on TBM

Creating and trading NFTs on TBM is straightforward. A monthly subscription fee covers all costs allowing people less familiar with crypto to get started without any technical friction.

Here’s how it works:

1. Creators mint their NFTs as usual but now have the option to allocate royalties to themselves and a third party.
2. When trading NFTs, the platform provides a breakdown of the royalties and identifies the recipients.
3. Upon completion of a trade, the Soroban-powered smart contract ensures the automatic distribution of royalties to the relevant parties.

Who We Are: The Blue Marble

The Blue Marble uses NFTs as a part of its overall service offering to help organisations reward customers and communities leverage Web3 services as incentive mechanisms brought together within branded mobile applications.

Our services cater to businesses, non-profits, and any organization aiming to harness digital advancements for engagement, loyalty, recruitment, and promoting well-being.

Let’s Talk

Soroban gives our platform a big upgrade that provides opportunities around Digital Collectibles and NFTs for loyalty, certification and rewards to support organisations who need to connect with large communities or customers.

We are able to help organisations with fully branded mobile applications that can be customised to provide a central place to develop community around your brand. If we can help you, book a call for a chat.