In the Project Spotlight series, we interview interesting projects developing on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Previously, we shared interviews with many projects, including Kalata Protocol, Tranchess, Argon, My DeFi Pet, and Alpaca Finance. The next project we interviewed is Babylons. The first community-owned NFT marketplace on BSC where you can collect, trade, mint and stake!

Spotlight on Babylons

IMPORTANT: Please note the following content does not constitute an endorsement or approval of any of the products or services of the project, organization, or individual.

Can you introduce us to Babylons? Can you explain your project to those unfamiliar with it?

Babylons is the first ‘truly’ community owned NFT marketplace on Binance Smart Chain with low gas fees, fast transactions and easy-to-use minting platform where a user can create green NFTs, collect from amazing artists and trade with others while being involved in a fully functional DAO that uses the BABI governance token to operate, get rewarded and also socialize in our colorful community.

NFTs are an important and immediate challenge and opportunity for supporting public goods and services especially of the creative variety through the value generated “out-of-the-ether’’ and at least propose a partial but solid solution for the tragedy of the commons problem well known in economic science. We aim to pull the conception of legitimacy for NFTs into a good and community-driven direction in order to create an actual chance to found a rock-hard channel of financing to artists, charities and much more to ensure that multiple groups benefit from them simultaneously.

When was the idea behind Babylons born, and what led to it?

Before the formation of the idea behind Babylons, collectively as a team, we had already started to plant the seeds of the idea consciously or unconsciously coming from various backgrounds such as arts, technology and economics. As the concept of non fungible tokens came to surface together with revolutionary economic models and decentralized project management systems, we all got intrigued into the idea of merging multiple disciplines and industries that we were already into. Thus, we started to dream of a Babylonsian future even though we did not have the term “Babylonsians” back then, we all had the idea. After years of research and friendships, we managed to bring together a team and mentors who tailored the idea of Babylons and a Babylonsian future.

Can you introduce us to the brains behind Babylons? Tell us something about your team.

We are 7 good friends in the core team. Furkan Özalp is the CEO. He has been in the crypto ecosystem for 5 years. Ataberk Sevim is responsible for the technology behind Babylons and he is a Berkeley Alumni to-be. Alp Arda Seyhan used to work at a leading global management consulting firm, now he is managing and operating various strategies from business to marketing. He continuously looks for opportunities to build better Babylons. İsmail Küçük is our solidity master and Yunus Emre Çandır is our "full-stack" developer and systems architect. Egemen Hocaoğlu is the community manager of Babylons coming from an engineering academic background. His involvement in art started in his own way after absorbing it for years from various artists all over the world while focusing on various aspects of blockchain at the same time. Last but not least, Mert Uzbaşlı is our lead designer responsible for all design matters including the marketplace design. He's been a member of various successful art-centric startup projects during his career, he's been working on various creative areas such as new media arts, audiovisual performances, motion design etc. When we are in need of external help, we also always out-source trusted partners for the extra workload. You can find all our LinkedIn profiles on our website (babylons.io).

What are the main advantages of Babylons compared to competitors?

Being built on top of Binance Smart Chain differentiates us from most of the big platforms however, this barely scratches the surface of what we have to offer.

We have a weekly reward system that financially incentivizes the active users of the platform, both buyers and sellers are eligible for weekly BABI airdrops. Almost half of our total token supply will be distributed to the community via these weekly airdrops.

While doing so, we only take 2% from buyers and sellers which also makes us stand apart in the competition with the lowest commissions as well as lowest gas fees. Revenue that is generated through these 2% commissions are also used for deflationary mechanics like buy & burn programs and some percentage of it goes to the stakeholders like dividends.

Most importantly, we care about our community above all. So that we always listen to their feedback and suggestions, which we know that's not the case with most of the other marketplaces. Combined with our roadmap and tokenomics, we feel like we have quite a unique standpoint in the NFT space.

Why did you decide to build on Binance Smart Chain?

We believe that low costs and fast transactions in BSC will enable the masses to be involved in the NFT space since all costs related are significantly cheaper than ETH, which again is the blockchain the most popular NFT platforms use, thus discouraging a big part of the society with lower incomes to get involved in the game. BSC is very user-friendly from both developers’ and end-users perspectives, also it is very easy to adapt to if you are already familiar with Ethereum. The time to consider Ethereum alternatives is now, and BSC shines bright like a diamond when you are looking for solutions to build such an NFT business as Babylons.

On the other hand, we believe in an interoperable and cross-chain future. We already partnered and started working with PolyNetwork to provide cross-chain support to the community.

What is your security strategy? How do you protect your users, their funds and data?

We don't hold users' funds and NFTs on our wallets. People can easily connect their wallet and use our marketplace without depositing funds to our website. All their tokens will remain in their respective BSC compatible cryptocurrency wallet that they prefer to use while connecting to Babylons.

Long story short, users will hold their BEP-20, BEP-721 and BEP-1155 tokens in their own wallets, at the same time, they will be able to see and interact with them using Babylons platform via their own wallets.

On the other hand, we believe that security is top priority so that we are working with Certik to make an audit of our smart contracts, and that audit is already in progress, which you can follow up here:

https://www.certik.org/projects/babylons

Where should I start if I want to get into Babylons?

As an artist, one could first go to app.babylons.io to create his/her profile connecting via Metamask and then could create a few NFTs to showcase them and promote them to their personal network. This could be merely a showcase with one’s NFTs listed not for sale and could also be to eventually sell them by listing them actually for sale.

As a collector, one can check the hot bids and hot collections on the marketplace after having a quick glimpse of the browse section. When s/he sees something that I like, s/he could go and check the creator of the NFT that s/he likes. One could dig into his or her bio and check the social media profiles to learn more about the creator/artist. Then if s/he likes the price that's been asked for the NFT, s/he could buy it directly or bid below the listing price using WBNB on Babylons.

Click here for a tutorial on getting started with using Babylons NFT Marketplace.

You can follow our Youtube channel for more tutorials and videos about new Babylons feature updates and exciting news. We also share a lot of detailed content in our blog (blog.babylons.io), you can check there frequently for more detailed explanations of everything.

And the final question; what does the future hold for Babylons?

Auction system will also be enabled this month before we go public with BABI. Right after the public IDO round, BABI will be listed on ApeSwap and pre-defined liquidity will be provided. As BABI comes to life, weekly rewards for active users will start to be distributed according to again predefined conditions and limitations. You can be eligible for the first week’s reward by trading NFTs on Babylons already. You can find the exact numbers for these conditions and airdrops in our website and relative blog posts as well. Profit sharing mechanism will also start immediately after token launch, earning interest for stakeholders.

As we enter Q3, 2021, community governance by voting will be partially activated utilizing BABI token and Babylons will get more decentralized each week through release of BABI token supply. First big burn event will take place in Q3 as well. Multi-language support is already on the way. We already work on solutions for more types of file support for especially 3D, VR and AR content. We will have an analytics dashboard where users will be able to get relative statistics they need. We have plans for an aggregation and API service for NFTs on Binance Smart Chain. We will also launch two funds, one for supporting emerging artists and one for fighting the global warming crisis. NFT to NFT swap system will also be activated in Q3, 2021 as an advanced feature. Most importantly cross-chain support will come in this quarter via the technology that our partner PolyNetwork provides.

In the final quarter of this year, we plan to shift towards a fully active DAO as Babylons. Fractional ownership of NFTs will be added as an advanced feature enabling more convenient collaborations. This may happen even before because I know our dev. Team is already working on it. We will launch a mobile app to give mobile users the best NFT experience ever. Additionally, we are already working for a VR NFT gallery with other teams including our latest partner NETVRK. There will be social functions like chatting and more in the marketplace. And as we approach the end of 2021, Babylons brand will be refined and BABI token will be listed in a centralized exchange to be announced later.

Further cases are absolutely possible as the DAO governance model kicks in.