Why did we evolve from BukTrips to BukProtocol?

Introduction to Innovation: The Genesis of Buk Trips

The seed of BukProtocol germinated in the 2021 NFT season when we started exploring how we could leverage NFTs for real-world utility rather than just accruing value as pixelated monkeys. Having worked in Enterprise roles in FinTech, Supply chain & travel, the Blockchain gave us a lens to understand how outdated and cumbersome operations in these industries are. As followers of Satoshi and the on-chain movement, we are lovers of liberty. And the more we went down the rabbit hole, the more we saw how shackled today's world is; and how the Blockchain could liberate it

So we went on a mission to bring liberty to industries which need it, and which we understand.

Surely everyone of you wanted to cancel a hotel stay or a flight at least once. Let’s face it, plans get changed, visas get canceled and well, eff-ups happen.

Roots of Revolution: The Early Vision of 2022

Back in 2022, when our co-founders had our initial brainstorms about what we were building, we saw the Blockchain as a panacea for several issues in the travel industry to begin with — given our backgrounds in Enterprise technology, use cases in the travel industry came naturally to us. The approach was to build solutions that bridge the gap between real-world time-sensitive assets (bookings, tickets, etc.) and the metaverse of NFTs riding on the blockchain. This foundational vision was a critical stepping stone in our evolution.

Confronting the Inefficiencies of Today

Probably more than once you’ve bought gym memberships and promised yourself to religiously follow through this time, only 1 week ahead realizing that you cannot find time for it and you’d rather sell it back. Or what about that timeshare resort membership which is always full when you need to book? Wouldn’t you want to sell it to someone with a different work calendar?

Every day in the U.S. alone, more than 221,000 hotel rooms are canceled and paid for, resulting in a market which sees $8.6 billion wasted annually on non-refundable hotel room cancellations.

Building the Foundation: Tokenization and Marketplaces

We knew something needed to change. And we wanted to bring these changes to reality by liberating people to resell assets they don’t use.

The assets which were not thought of as assets before.

We started with creating a booking platform where you could not just book but also resell, trade, and transfer bookings; and we started with hotels first. Through intense liaisoning in the real-world hospitality sector with brands like Hilton, Marriott, and aggregators like Expedia, booking.com; by Q1 2023, we were able to develop a proof-of-concept to establish the following:

- Hotel bookings can be tokenized in the form of NFTs with an appropriate back end and a well-oiled machinery to manage operations

- User experience can be tailored in a manner desirable to the end consumer, either in the form of a conventional booking engine or an unconventional marketplace

By Q3, we were also able to add Reselling, transfer, and cancellation in a seamless process, on-chain, for all the parties involved.

Expanding the Vision: Towards BukProtocol

With a generalized infrastructure in place for hotel rooms, we then set out to expand the concept to other dynamic RWA (dRWA) categories such as event/concert passes, movie tickets, airline reservations, and other categories with similar dynamics — “assets that expire” with time or lose value over time.

Time adds a critical dimension to RWA that has not been tapped into the crypto ecosystem yet. Addition of time gives completely new mechanisms to enable, monetize and create value both for enterprises and consumers. Imagine adding a dutch auction, reverse auction, bidding, etc added to day to day purchases, as relevant.

The Future Unfolds: BukProtocol and Beyond

By Q1 2024, we have developed a complete framework for the creation of a modular infrastructure or dRWA legos to build or enable the following -

- dApps dealing with dRWAs (for e.g., web3 booking portals like Travala; but with way more and cooler features)

- Niche & custom marketplaces for dRWAs (for e.g., last minute travel deals for web3 degens)

- Enable listing of dRWAs in existing marketplaces like Opensea, Blur, Rarible, etc.

- Enterprise solutions for conventional businesses like Marriott, Hilton, Expedia, booking.com, etc. to add innovative functionalities to transform the travel sector

What’s Next: The Continuing Journey

Clearly, the vision of Buk Trips has expanded manifold and taken the shape of a behemoth called BukProtocol. How did we do it? What does it entail? What to expect next? And a lot more… in our upcoming posts!

Stay connected, stay informed, and let’s innovate together. Follow us on our social channels to get the latest updates, dive into discussions, and be part of our growing community.

About BukProtocol

BukProtocol is creating liquid secondary markets for all assets that expire (dynamic RWAs like hotel bookings, event tickets, airlines etc.) by building a modular infrastructure for dApps & marketplaces dealing with d-RWAs. This adds liquidity, transparency, and newer revenue streams for underyling industries.

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