Could NFT technology help improve legal documents?
Legal Documents as NFTs
This is post number 6 in my "What is an NFT?" series here in the LBI world. The first post was a sort of general overview of NFTs as a whole for noobs, the second post was a deep dive into how vIRL NFTs can be used for commerce, the third post was an overview of how musicians can sell music as NFTs, the fourth was some ways that blendable NFTs can be used for various things, and the fifth was a look at NFTs being used in DeFi. If you wanna learn more about NFT technology and some of the use cases, I encourage you to take a peak at those posts.
As always, the goal here is to highlight some things that can be done with NFTs aside from just profile picture JPEGs. The technology has a ton of use cases that are being overlooked by people trying to get rich flipping over-hyped collectibles. Today, we're here to look at how NFTs could be used to replace or enhance legal documents.
On a daily basis, people deal with all kinds of legal documents such as titles to cars, deeds to houses, and other various documents that typically require notary. I've always looked at this as a very flawed system because these documents are faked all the time. Not only that, they can be physically lost or damaged and the process to get them replaced is an act of congress. I've personally had to have a title to a car replaced and it was a living nightmare. What would happen if we eliminated paper from the equation and put these documents on the blockchain?
I know you might be thinking "some of that stuff can already be digital", which is a totally fair statement. I know some states in the U.S. have digital driver's licenses and such. What I'm talking about here is eliminating the need for a physical document while still having that document 100% verifiable. Sure you can have digital driver's licenses but what stops someone from finding a way to make fake ones? That's where the blockchain side comes in. If the document is an NFT on whatever blockchain (Hive, for example), it can be verified publicly by viewing the asset on a block explorer.
Those well versed in NFT technology will probably say "but you could transfer your ID to someone else's wallet or have your identity stolen". I know, there's all these factors. The truth is, that people have their identities stolen every single day. Having your driver's license on the blockchain as an NFT that is bound to your wallet would eliminate this as well. Forgot your wallet at home? No problem. Odds are you have your phone which can access your wallet so when you get pulled over, the officer can verify who you are.
Imagine if the title to your car was an NFT on the blockchain. How much easier would it be to sell your car? Literally just transfer the NFT to the new owner's wallet and bam. You're mostly done. I'm sure there would still have to be something that runs through the department of motor vehicles that transfers your ownership... But this eliminates the need for a bunch of unnecessary paper and finding someone to notarized the bill of sale and whatnot.
There's no need for a notary to say the document is legitimate when it's all on chain. It can be verified by anyone at any time just by looking at the block explorer. I know I already mentioned this but, no more applying for a lost title when the title gets damaged or misplaced. It lives in your crypto wallet just like your precious shit coins. To prevent theft of the title, it could be bound to your wallet unless a key is used to unlock it, most likely the agency that handles transportation.
I read a post not too long ago by @esmeesmith where she talked about blockchain being used for death and birth certificates. I honestly love this idea. Believe it or not, there's a black market for fake death and birth certificates. These things get faked all the time for whatever reason. Blockchain and NFT technology could make that impossible, or highly unlikely as it would all be public record and not privately managed.
A couple months ago, I wrote about the new Alfa Romeo Tonale having built in NFT tech. This can be used for a number of things such as recording maintenance, recalls, and much more. It could also be used for recording accidents, owner history, and even repairs. No more taking a gamble at that used car lot and possibly getting yourself a nice shiny lemon. Verify everything on the blockchain.
What are some other ways you could see NFT technology change the way we do things? Let's talk about it.
Post written by: @l337m45732 aka NiftyPhill.
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I always think of Hive accounts as original NFTs.
Social standing in the community and the ability to earn off that, is certainly utility.
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Wow, @forexbrokr , I went to read the @edicted post you linked to hereabove, and it's brilliant! Hive accounts as NFTs, being transferable, purchasable and sellable... I guess it could partly solve the big abandoned accounts issue (how many times have I wanted to get in touch with a Hiver, after having been thrilled by one of their articles, to find out the last time they were active here was 2 or 3 years ago?...).
Have you seen that in BBS Network (bbsnetwork.io) they have converted all their posts into NFTs? Imo it's a promising approach, although for what I've seen it's not yet implemented there in a very fertile way.
Yep, I agree. Hive accounts are basically NFTs.
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A dope contribution, @l337m45732 & @lbi-token !!
I'm not sure it's also the case in the US, but in some (or most?) Latin American countries faking house deeds and all real estate related official documents is very frequent, with lawyers being paid to perform or cover up those scams, so in that field in particular NFTized legal titles would be a groundbreaking change!
In many other cases, like the driver's licenses you mention, it'd be "life easing" too, although there could be an aspect to focus much more on, considering the current "state of the NFT enabled blockchains": privacy. As far as I've seen, apart from Secret Network, handling in a privacy protected fashion our NFT transactions, from creating templates to transferring & selling those NFTs, isn't on the agenda. I've been dreaming for almost 2 years of - at least - a "CoinJoin" equivalent for the Wax blockchain, and I hope some devs are coding in that direction, but I've no information about it.
Going back to the driver's license example: when a law enforcement officer will check if we own an up-to-date driver's license, in today's Wax design, he or she could also access our whole wallet, i.e. all our NFT assets and, in the future, all our NFTized legal documents, titles, etc. In that respect, for the moment I prefer using a paper one ;-)
I remember someone talking about an "NFT Link to Sovietwomble's pictures". You buy the "link" and you don't even own the picture or even the site. If the site goes down, your investment is gone.
It's like having an investment on the bus driver's lunch. Something happened to the driver or bus, your investment is gone.
Yes and no. It depends how the file the NFT is linked to is hosted.
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Hehe, it reminds me of the dTube controversy, that made us find out that to host files (videos, in that case) on IPFS was NOT free of charge, and that dTube hadn't planned to pay for that - or hadn't been able to - so that all videos were deleted after a 3 months time span (mine were). Let's just imagine YouTube or Odysee doing that, lol.
@konaqua , that same question came to my mind recently, when I saw that a bunch of Wax NFTs I had bought had vanished from my wallet, cause they were minted by discontinued projects - borderline ones with exit scam practices - and that apparently AtomicHub decided to prohibit them. So, in such a case, it gives the impression that NFTs are ours... until a centralized platform (here, AtomicHub) decides they're not anymore? I'll have to dig that, to check if there are other dimensions to that story.
I think it's important to take not of where the files are hosted for sure. Hsrd to tell what's legit and what isn't.
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You are an NFT
You are an NFT
Everyone is an NFT!
It’s funny but also true. The use cases are wndless
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haha this is exactly what popped into my head writing it! The fact that there's people that still don't see the value in NFT tech kinda blows my mind. I mean, there's still people that think XRP is the new Bitcoin so I guess it isn't really that surprising lol
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NFT technology is so awesome. You can owned something that is yours and originally. But I have to research more to fully understand the functionality !
If the NFTs have use cases then I am all for it. In this case, the NFTs don't really have any monetary value and we obviously don't want people to be trading them recklessly. So I think there needs a lot of thought about the structure and how everything will work out before even putting them onto the blockchain.
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Me at the notary: "I would like some bored apes, or other shenanigans with my serious, legally binding NFT document thingy, please"
I have not thought of NFT's in this way before, thanks for sharing!!
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