# Introduction
Uniqe is currently under development. This whitepaper reflects our current thinking and will be updated without versioning as and when the product evolves.
# Why ?
In emerging technologies of decentralized markets, social platforms, owned contents and other web 3.0 products, some entities such as researchers, journalists, content creators or NFT artists need their works to be recognized as their own. They don’t want to see impersonators copying or modifying their work, and want to stay in control of what they have produced.
In addition, they often have communities on web 2.0 social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or Instagram, where people follow them and their works. They are recognized and trusted on these platforms and these are their social proof. Users need tools to help them trust what they are buying, reading or watching.
On the other hand, NFTs marketplaces need tools to help them fight against fake collections created by impersonators, identify real creators and give trust to their users.
# What is Uniqe ?
Uniqe helps anyone to identify the creator of a digital piece of work such as video, music, picture or article thanks to a social proof. It can help people or other applications to help fight fakes and promote real checked content.
Uniqe lets content creators link their ethereum addresses to their already known social media accounts like Twitter or Reddit. Thus, they can prove they are in control of the same address as the one where their contents are created from.
NFTs marketplaces or other decentralized content platforms can help their users to identify creators by integrating a widget on their user interface.
Anyone can check for social proof linked to an ethereum address, so they are able to trust the content they watch or buy.
# Overview of the Uniqe protocol
Uniqe delivers an NFT encapsulating data that proves a social media account (like a Twitter, Reddit or Github account) is controlled by the owner.
With this NFT minting and control mechanisms, Uniqe is designed to be
- Permissionless: there is no central entity moderating or in decision of delivering the certification
- Verifiable: certification can be verified on chain by anyone or any other application
- Compatible: NFTs respect ERC-721 standards and can be easily integrated with other platforms
- Interoperable: you can extend Uniqe NFTs to match your needs
- User centric: only the user decides and controls the creation or destruction of its NFT proof
- Secured: Uniqe is based on robust frameworks and technologies
- Intuitive: users can create their own proof in seconds and platforms can easily embed our widget or develop their own.
# What are the main Uniqe components?
# The NFT
Uniqe is based on ethereum standard token ERC-721, mostly known as NFT.
By design, NFT are unique and unalterable objects that can be owned. They can contain various data, including images, metadata or identification information. The standardization eases integration in decentralized applications and various metaverse environments.
Uniqe NFTs contain all the social proof metadata and can be destroyed at any moment by its owner. No other user data is stored on the chain or anywhere else.
For trusting purposes, Uniqe NFTs are not sellable or transferable.
# The decentralized application
Uniqe provides an intuitive front-end application to the users to connect their wallet, to create and post their social proof, and to mint their own Uniqe NFTs. Users can also destroy their already minted NFT.
# The checking page
For checking purposes, Uniqe also provides a front-end interface to search and share already minted Uniqe NFTs for a particular address.
# The widget
For NFT marketplace, decentralized social media platform or any other web3 application, Uniqe provides a simple widget easily embeddable in your HTML application.
# How does Uniqe work?
Users open the Uniqe decentralized application and create their NFT in 5 simple steps:
- Connect to their ethereum wallet
- Sign a message with their private key
- Post this signed message on a social media
- Copy the post’s URL and paste it on Uniqe application
- The NFT is minted on the user address