📄Focus Market White Paper

Last update: November 2022 (Version 3.1)

Our Vision

Focus Market is a community focused NFT platform that will power its own economy. With our FOCUS token, we are building a full economic ecosystem that will empower, incentivise and enrich all stakeholders involved in the platform.

At a Glance

Focus Market is a place where digital photo assets can be created and traded

It is a place where collectors, businesses and organisations can buy photo assets with proof of purchase and ownership

It is a platform where all stakeholders in the photography space can create their own social presence and network with other members of the community

It is an ecosystem where the Focus Market community can be involved in all aspects of creating and trading value in the photography space

Finally, it is a place for our community to thrive and become empowered and take the art forward

Introduction

FOCUS MARKET is a NFT platform running on the Ethereum network specialising in photographic assets. It is a fully fledged ecosystem for everything related to photographic assets utilising blockchain technology to create, distribute, add value and trade photographic assets.

Rationale & Background

Photography is one of the main forms of artistic expression in the 21st century.

However, this huge potential market hasn’t been tapped into even with the digital technology available today.

In 2021 alone, over 1.4 trillion photos were taken. How to monetise this potential market has been a real problem of the last 20 years.

THE PROBLEM

Photography has some issues when it comes to unlocking creative value and monetising photographic assets.

Firstly, due to websites and apps like Instagram and Facebook, everyone can access or even use your photos without due monetary compensation.

Secondly because of the sheer volume of photos being produced, literally millions every minute, it becomes very difficult to prove ownership and apply copyright claims.

Thirdly, the market for digital photography assets is currently controlled by large monopolies such as ShutterStock, Adobe and Getty Images. These large firms are taking the a large share of the earnings from photos, while the creators (the photographers) themselves are receiving low royalties from their creations.

THE SOLUTION

Blockchain, smart contracts and NFTs are the technological innovations of our times. The Web 3.0 ethos has a close connection to the photography landscape.

However, Blockchain and NFTs are still nascent technologies and their full potential is yet to be realised. Currently, NFTs are disrupting the world of Art and virtual assets.

We at Focus Market believe that the time is right to disrupt the photography space, given the rapid adoption of NFTs. We have developed a marketplace that allows owners of photos to mint, sell, buy and exchange photographs. In fact, the marketplace will be a first step into a fully fledged ecosystem for the photographic community.

WHY FOCUS MARKET?

We are a NFT platform which uses the Ethereum network to create and transfer value in this space. We want to be the place where photography is promoted as an art while democratising the space.

Our Ethos

Community Focused

We have made this platform community focused from the ground up. With the FOCUS token, the community and stakeholders of the project will be rewarded with a share of platform revenues via staking.

This will align the interests of the community and the stakeholders so that everyone benefits from the success of the Focus Market ecosystem.

Socially Aware

Blockchain and proof of work systems are very energy intense. We decided to go with Ethereum as the proof of stake consensus system is far less energy intensive than traditional proof of work systems. Moreover, Ethereum is the most mainstream blockchain network out there and it underlines our commitment to mimimise the negative impact on the environment.

Inclusive

Photography shouldn’t be seen as a niche, it is a universal form of expression. In fact it is almost woven into the fabric of our modern lives. So our platform will be inclusive for all in this field. The creators and collectors will feel part of a bigger community that fosters positive and creative outcomes.

Incentive Based

It is important that our platform is inclusive but also rewards those who contribute to its success. To this end we will have incentives built into the platform that will reward creators and collectors based on their activity on the platform.

The top creators and collectors will receive airdrops of the FOCUS token. As these FOCUS tokens can be staked to receive rewards, this means that it will be in the interests of both collectors and creators to be active on our platform. This will align their interests with the Focus Market platform.

As mentioned above, we are community focused, meaning that our upcoming FOCUS token will allow community members to stake and earn a percentage of commission from each sale.

THE FOCUS MARKET ECOSYSTEM

The Focus Market Ecosystem has two keystones that define its purpose.

Our ethos is to leverage the current technologies afforded by blockchain and NFTs to create an immersive ecosystem for our community.

KEYSTONE 1: The Marketplace

The Marketplace will serve 3 purposes.

1. Open Access Marketplace - Allow anyone and everyone to mint, buy and sell photographic assets. The ethos is that everyone should be able to access photography without restriction.

2. Curated Marketplace - Focus Market will also have a section where high quality, vetted, authentic photographic assets are traded. This will allow established photo artists / celebrities and their fans to engage and monetise their photographic assets

3. Stock Photo Library - An important part of the long term development of the platform will be devoted to stock images where photo artists can directly license their work to users on our platform. We aim to decentralise and make stock photography available and affordable for every user who needs images or everyone who wants to contribute and commercialise their photo library

KEYSTONE 2: The Community Hub

This is our community section where many value added services will be provided to our community. These may include virtual spaces where the community can come together for events, drops, information sessions, workshops etc. The main aim is to allow the community to use this Community Hub to extend the utility offered by the platform. The FOCUS token will be an important currency of the Community Hub.

Social Citizenship

As a community focused platform, we believe that giving back to the community through social impact initiatives is important on many levels. With ‘Web 3.0’ being the creator and ownership economy, it is important that our community is aware of and supportive of initiatives that will make a positive impact on society (locally and globally). So the Social Citizenship space will allow community members to contribute, donate, volunteer and add value to the social impact initiatives supported by Focus Market.

Social Space

This is the central hub that will connect all community members and allow them to socialise and network. Members will be able to use this space for chilling out and discussing anything and everything related to the photography space while forming important networking contacts.

Collaboration Space

An important space for brands, photographers, celebrities and other community members to form partnerships and collaborations. Focus Market wants to facilitate collaboration that can help our community to add value and monetise their photo assets. Newly created photo assets can then be listed as NFTs on the marketplace.

Education Space

Community members will be able to provide educational workshops to other community members. These could be free or paid sessions (FOCUS tokens) which will aim to add value to community members while giving a stronger profile to the providers of these workshops.

Events Space

This space can be used to host special events, be it for promoting upcoming drops, exhibiting photo assets or anything else related to photography. FOCUS tokens will be used as primary currency for facilitation of the events.

THE FOCUS TOKEN

The Focus Market platform is expected to launch as a public beta in December 2022 with the Open Marketplace. The minted NFTs will use the ERC 721 and ERC 1155 standards for Ethereum.

The FOCUS token (Etherscan symbol: FOTO) is the utility token (ERC 20) and it will allow the holder of the token to vote, and earn a percentage of the platform revenue from the marketplace (via staking).

This share of the transaction fee is the key feature of the FOCUS token. As the Focus marketplace will have transaction fee which is taken from each sale, those who hold the FOCUS token will receive a share of this transaction revenue. This share is 50% of the transaction fee and it will be distributed to all FOCUS token holders via the platform staking smart contract. So in effect, the more FOCUS tokens an individual holds, the greater their share of the transaction revenue.

The summary of the platform transaction fees is as follows:

1. Open Marketplace - 5% fee per sale

2. Curated Marketplace - 10% fee per sale

3. Stock Image Library - 10% fee per sale

The total supply will be 100,000,000 tokens with roughly 60 percent going to community initiatives, 10 percent being used for seed, private and public sales, 10 percent for the team, 10 percent for liquidity and the final 10 percent for a partnership initiatives.

Public Sale 2%

FOCUS Token Vesting Schedule

	Portion	Months	Vesting
Core Team	10%	25	6 month cliff, 4% monthly release
Seed Investors	3%	18	10% TGE, 5%, monthly release
Private Round Investors	5%	12	13.6% TGE, 7.2% monthly release
Strategic Partners	10%	12	10% TGE, 7.5% monthly release
Public Round Investors	2%	6	25% TGE, 12.5% monthly release

FOCUS token utility

The whole platform will be an ecosystem that will use the FOCUS token as a device for ‘participating and sharing revenue’ Moreover, the FOCUS token will also be used for accessing membership tiers, perks and other utility features..

FOCUS token Staking and Platform Revenue Share

One of the main distinguishing feartures of Focus Market is the importance it places on its stakeholders (community). When formulating the project, we spoke with a lot of key players in the photography industry to understand the needs and pain points that the industry as a whole suffers. We created Focus Market as a way to democratise photography and allow all stakeholders to benefit from its success.

All holders of FOCUS tokens will be able to stake their tokens on the platform to earn a share of platform revenue. The platform revenue will be generated from the transaction fees of the three marketplace components (namely, Open Marketplace, Curated Marketplace and the Stock Image Library).

Using custom staking smart contracts, 50% of these revenues will automatically be distributed from the platform wallet into the stakers wallets.

As long as the FOCUS tokens are staked on the platform, there is claim procedure as the process is fully automated.

Ethereum Gas fees and Arbitrum

The gas fees are the transaction fees that are paid to ‘miners’ on the Ethereum network. Currently (Q4 2022) the gas fees for Ethereum are relatively high which can potentially cause friction on the platform. Therefore we have decided to use Arbitrum as a facility to reduce gas costs and facilitate smooth and economical transactions across the platform (gas fees on Arbitrum are usually between USD$0.001 and USD$0.01)

By using Arbitrum as a tool to facilitate cheap transactions we will need to ‘bridge over’ the ETH (the currency of the Ethereum network) and FOCUS tokens to the Arbitrum network.

FOCUS MARKET LTD

Focus Market Ltd is a London based company that is the entity behind this project. The long term aim is to establish Focus Market Ltd as a serious competitor to the established stock photo companies such as Shutter Stock or Getty Images.

MEDIUM TERM ROADMAP

The medium term roadmap reflects the immediate aims for Focus Market.

We expect phase 1 to be completed around Q1 (2023) with the implementation of the Open Marketplace and Stock Photo Library and FOCUS token staking. We are also expecting to undertake an IDO with a listing (LP provision) on Uniswap and other DEXes.

Phase 2 will expect a big push into the Curated Marketplace with the onboarding of professional photo artists, brands and celebrities with large fanbases.

Phase 3 will be focused on transitioning into the ‘metaverse’ using AR, VR and XR technologies as they become available and mainstream. This phase will be the longest and will focus on making the experience being part of the Focus Market community as immersive as possible while still keeping to the broad aim of monetising photo assets.