# Introduction

# What is Versum?

Versum is an NFT platform and metaverse on the Tezos blockchain.

# Why is Versum different?

Our primary focus is on the art, user experience, and scalability.

First and foremost, we prioritize art. Our minimalistic UI was designed so that your eyes are drawn to the art — the platform is there, but you don’t see it. You can experience and engage with NFTs in a meaningful way without the noise that comes with a marketplace. Characteristic features are still available, such as artwork, blockchain, and sales information, but at Versum they’re hierarchical, with the art placed on top.

Secondly, our user experience reflects our aim to redefine the art experience within the NFT space. It is important for us to combine features of NFT platforms and social platforms to introduce a marketplace that focuses on organic discovery, decentralized storage, and accessibility.

We’ve implemented social features that strip the platform of unnecessary success metrics that take the focus away from the art, which give artists and collectors control of the content they see on their feed. Meanwhile we’re also providing the safety net of decentralized storage through IPFS, fully embracing Web3.

There is a lot of thinking around common issues that arise from a blockchain with low gas fees — from copyminter protection to restricting the number of token editions a wallet can have, we offer artists and collectors tools so they are in control.

Thirdly, we’ve applied scaling strategies in order for you to see more content, delivered faster. To host our frontend, we use NextJS. This allows us to inherit framework features such as infinite scalability, intelligent edge caching, atomic deploys, and immutable asset preservation. For more information, visit Vercel’s infrastructure page.

# How is Versum improving the user experience?

We aim to redefine the art experience within the NFT space. We’ve applied additional efficiencies and features to help achieve this, including:

Boards — Boards are a list or gallery of tokens that contribute to your personalized feed. Follow boards curated by other users or create your own to organize tokens you’ve discovered.

Personalized feeds — Like a token or follow an artist or a board to personalize your feed. Unlike other marketplaces where leaderboards and platform-curated content dominate homepages, you decide the content you want to see.

Multiple collections - Many different popular Tezos NFT collections are available on Versum and can be purchased, listed or sold in one place. New collections will be added on an ongoing basis. Listings include those from from Teia, Objkt.com & 8bidou marketplaces.

Web accessibility — One of our top objectives is for more users to have equal access to information and functionality. We follow a strict WAI-ARIA standard which ensures users with disabilities, including screen reader users, users who cannot use a mouse or a pointing device, and users with socio-economic restrictions on bandwidth and speed, can fully navigate on Versum.

Contextual routes — Explore different tokens without losing your original place on the feed. This feature loads new pages on top of existing content for easy navigation.

Seamless transition from any Tezos platform — Jump straight to enjoying the art. If you’re already part of the Tezos community, there’s no need to create a new account.

# How can I discover new content organically?

Your organic discovery is important to us. To put it simply, we won’t curate the content you consume. We’re giving you control of the content that you see in your feed through two social features: success metric removal and curation.

Traditional NFT platforms focus on an artist’s success metrics, or “counters” — such as the number of sales, views, likes, or followers — to determine whether to display their tokens or profiles to other artists and collectors. At Versum, this information won’t be necessary to curate your content. Instead, the artists and boards you follow and tokens you like help tailor your feed specifically to what you’d like to see.

We think counters do more harm than good. To encourage true organic discovery while keeping your mental wellbeing top of mind, we’ve removed these metrics. The objective is to remove the pressure that often comes with these success metrics on NFT and social platforms, ultimately avoiding immediate judgment of a token or a user.

For example, you can like a token, but there won’t be any count of how many likes it has, effectively removing the inherent metric of success or failure by judging a token by its number of likes or views. Similarly, you can follow other collectors or artists without seeing how many people follow their pages, again stripping any success metric by comparing users against their followers. The focus is solely between the collector and the art.

Another way to discover new content is through curation. On Versum, you can discover and create “boards” — a list or gallery of tokens — which contribute to your personalized feed. You can curate different types of boards such as photography boards, creative coding boards, monochrome boards, illustration boards, etc.

Boards can be private or public. Public boards can be followed by anyone, while private boards are only visible to you. Use them to organize your collection, or to create a wish list — anything you want.

We’ve implemented these social features because we think marketplaces have become too busy, with many barriers for collectors and artists who have no option but to consume the content curated for them. These are tools that give you control of the content you consume.

# Can I do collaborations with other artists?

Yes, Versum’s smart contracts are collaborative by default. You can add multiple co-creators and multiple benefactors on royalty splits.

# How does verification work?

Please read Verification page.

# What is Tezos?

Tezos is a decentralized open-source blockchain that can execute peer-to-peer transactions and serve as a platform for deploying smart contracts. The native cryptocurrency for the Tezos blockchain is the tez which has the symbol XTZ.

According to Tezos, it’s an “open-source community where the most innovative developers and creatives are exploring how #blockchain can unleash new opportunities across #Web3.”

# Why is Versum launching on Tezos first?

Our art-centric ideology reflects the Tezos community’s advocacy of artists and artworks.

In addition, Tezos is a liquid proof-of-stake blockchain (LPoS), and is renowned to be an energy-efficient alternative to more traditional Proof of Work blockchains.

We love digital art, but we don’t want it to come at the cost of our planet. We prefer to work with a blockchain that has a lower carbon footprint.

Also, the Tezos community is among the strongest and most exceptional in the blockchain ecosystem, which we’re proud to be a part of.