What is the blockchain-based co-ownership platform Antic?

Author: Paul Veradittakit, Partner at Pantera Capital

Compiled by: Amber, Foresight News

Antic is an insertable layer that allows businesses or teams to have a shopping experience similar to that of ordinary consumers when making purchases. The project came into the spotlight in September this year and has completed a seed round financing totaling $7 million, with participation from Pantera, Seven Seven Six, Sheva Capital, Sound Ventures, Shrug, Rainfall, Dapper Labs, and several angel investors.

The Value of Antic

Antic is creating a new economic entity: "group customers." Although the concept of "co-ownership" has not yet officially become mainstream, the emerging ownership designs and the increasing popularity of community-led initiatives are accelerating the spread of this concept. It is worth mentioning that the co-ownership referred to here is not limited to Web3 assets; non-crypto-related businesses can also benefit from this new structure.

By integrating a "group purchase" option on the platform, Antic effectively lowers the entry barrier for specific assets and optimizes the experience. The shared ownership model can also form a natural community, as this group of people collectively owns "shares" of an asset, which directly fosters community cohesion. Fractional (now known as Tessera) is a great example, as they shared ownership of a single NFT, allowing a group of people to jointly buy and own an NFT. This model has many potential applications in both the Web2 and Web3 worlds.

Antic provides a seamless "buy together" solution, source: Antic

Since the product officially launched in late September, Antic has attracted interest from multiple companies across various fields, including Web3, gaming, collectibles, and entertainment. Many applications hope to integrate Antic's "group purchase" feature to attract more users, generate more revenue, and unlock different social interactions.

Antic's proposed co-ownership currently focuses on three types of assets: co-ownership of digital assets, co-ownership of intellectual property, and the joint maintenance of funding pool execution mechanisms such as crowdfunding.

The emphasis is on creating a B2B2C checkout mechanism for users, making the purchase of any type of asset simple and supporting collaborative completion. Part of Antic's user-centric mission is to abstract most blockchain-native interfaces and provide users with the lightest payment settlement experience. In simple terms, almost all platforms that facilitate asset trading can integrate Antic's infrastructure to enable users to "group purchase" and "co-own." Blockchain technology enables programmable collaboration that traditional tech stacks cannot achieve, and Antic leverages this to reduce friction in group purchases.

Antic covers applications in both gaming entertainment and e-commerce, source: Antic

Antic's Architecture

Antic's operation is based on the assumption that users are willing to make purchases together with others who have already established relationships, rather than relying on trustless solutions commonly used in most decentralized protocols today. Based on existing collaborations, Antic can provide added value to a broader market and help businesses further expand their existing user base.

Antic's infrastructure is built on Ethereum and Polygon (EVM compatible), allowing integration with many different types of on-chain and off-chain applications. For Web2 giants like Netflix, Antic can also provide embedded co-ownership mechanisms as a subscription payment option for users. For Web3-native platforms like NFT marketplaces, users can choose to allow others to participate in their asset purchases.

There are also interesting applications in the gaming sector: Web3 games can now add in-game purchases on their platforms. Nowadays, gaming has achieved true community-driven engagement, and adding elements of co-ownership will further unlock the value of existing platforms. Platforms involving IP can also benefit from the shared ownership model: by fairly distributing credits and allowing audiences to co-own IP, they can further expand the influence of the IP and create more value. Moreover, users can utilize this tool to invest in financial assets with different ownership weights for different contributors.

Antic provides interesting applications for fintech and e-commerce businesses. Source: Antic

Forbes points out that attempts at co-ownership mechanisms are currently mainly concentrated in the crypto space (shared virtual property ownership, fractional NFTs, financial DAOs, etc.). However, many consumer-facing non-crypto products and experiences lack "group purchase" options, forcing users to seek out or temporarily use some disorganized and non-standard ways to "share" (for example, someone logging into their friend's Netflix account whenever they want to stream).

Therefore, using Antic is distinct from purely on-chain mechanisms like participating in financial/investment DAOs. For financial DAOs, in most cases, users must first deposit funds and then decide what assets to purchase. In many other protocols, shared ownership involves an additional tokenization process to distribute assets among users. Antic's core protocol prints multi-signatures based on predetermined purposes, allowing a pre-defined group of users to seamlessly participate in purchases. Companies can then easily integrate Antic's API into their platforms to support shared ownership.

Antic's smart contracts have been audited by Quantstamp.

Using Antic's API makes it easy to implement co-ownership features, source: Antic

Antic's Team

Antic's founder and CEO, Tal Dadia, previously served as Vice President of Blockchain Products and Engineering at JPMorgan. He also worked as a blockchain research engineer at COTI Group and has held various responsibilities in business development and backend engineering. He has an academic research background in decentralized governance and cryptographic identity. The Vice President of R&D, Adi Elimelech, has over 14 years of entrepreneurial experience and is dedicated to driving Antic's product-oriented growth. The Antic team has now expanded to 14 members and is in a phase of rapid expansion.

Antic's Future Development Plans

Antic plans to expand its EVM-based infrastructure to Solana and Flow. Antic will also reach out to more companies to join the product's closed testing, currently negotiating with companies in entertainment, art, gaming, collectibles, and payments to bring Antic technology to a broader market. By abstracting the blockchain component and allowing users to co-own almost anything, Antic aims to bring the concepts of "group purchase" and "co-ownership" into the mainstream, making more coordinated and flexible purchasing options a universal standard for Web2 and Web3 platforms.