[Short #175] A Tale of 2 QR Codes Pt. 2: CODES by Jason Cline
PLUS: 🔒My friend got hacked, stay safe!
I wanted to do A Tale of 2 QR Codes in one piece, but I went too hard on Limit Break’s Super Bowl commercial. 😂 As a result, I split this into a two-parter.
CODES by Jason Cline
I recently came across Jason Cline during the Open Edition craze that has slowed down in the past couple of weeks.
Who’s Jason Cline?
He’s a content creator that has grown his TikTok audience to 4 million. Taking a brief look at his TikTok page, it’s clear that he is not afraid to experiment with different themes. For example, he’s been testing out a series of TikTok explainers of viral or interesting videos. Prior to that, had a series of TikToks about things caught on camera.
He’s also experimented with NFTs. For example, he launched Crypto Marcs, a collection inspired by CryptoPunks and Marc Andreessen (specifically his head).
What caught my eye though was Jason’s most recent collection, CODES. The Open Edition collection concluded with a total of 2,536 minted and 656 holders.
CODES revolves around the fact that QR codes are dynamic. One code can take users to a specific destination that changes over time.
What has Jason done with CODES since the mint concluded?
Gift Cards
One of the first experiments Jason ran was updating the destination of QR code to a $50 Starbucks gift card. Unsurprisingly, the code was used up in minutes.
Someone replied noting that the gift card was publicly available, leaving holders with a lower chance of redeeming the reward.
Jason noted this, and IMO he did this on purpose 😉
Content
Earlier today, Jason went on a livestream episode with a fellow content creator, with the code updated to take scanners to the stream.
Token-gated rewards
On Valentine’s Day, Jason updated the collection’s metadata to be V-Day themed and took scanners to a token-gated landing page. Holders of 2 or more CODES were able to connect their wallet and see what was behind the curtain.
What was waiting for qualified holders? More giftcards!
Fandango, Chipotle, Amazon, Starbucks, Doordash. There was something for all the quick scanners.
One CODE, many possibilities
Jason shows how QR codes enhanced with web3 mechanics can create a one-to-many model.
In the span of a few days, his collection has illustrated several use cases for these NFT QR Codes.
With Jason’s content creator brain buzzing, there seems to be more in store.
How can you expand on this concept?
Taking a step back, CODES has three variables:
The Source (QR Code)
The Interaction (Scan)
The Destination (Landing page with giftcard)
You can layer on additional layers to the variables. Some examples of what this could look like:
Update the metadata for each NFT
Instead of updating the metadata of every CODE to the same QR Code, you can update each individual NFT’s metadata to a unique QR Code. Each QR code leads to a different variant of the same destination.
Hide and Seek
Only one CODE is unique in the whole collection. Whoever finds and scans it wins the prize.
This can be a mini-game that’s played while other activations are applied to the rest of the collection.
Extend the interaction model
The interaction doesn’t have to be a single scan. The scan could lead to a quiz about Jason’s TikTok content, and if the scanner gets enough questions right, it takes the user to the destination with a reward.
Update the source dynamically
There could be a token-gated game where Jason chooses a random number between 1 and 100, tied to the number of scans of the CODE. Each holder can only scan once and the metadata updates every time the CODE is scanned.
Once the QR Code reaches the magic number, the lucky scanner receives a reward.
This is somewhat similar to radio stations that surprise caller number X and they win a prize.
Putting it all together
We’re able to combine the variables to build simple and complex models:
So what happens when a collection with thousands of holders participate? 👀
Naturally, security will be an important consideration, but things could get pretty interesting.
My friend got hacked
As tax season approaches, there will be new scams that pop up.
My friend Lyle unfortunately encountered one that involved an article leveraging the credibility of another company.
He details the experience more here.
Stay safe and be vigilant.
See you next week!
Gm Gm, Really loving this piece and the work you do. I also run a web3 news substack for underrepresented creators called Facesofweb3. Would you be open to a recommendation exchange? Our subscribers need to be able to find each other!
Great job, once again!
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing this use case