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| Kim Ji-yeon, chief strategy officer at Lambda256, speaks during an interview at the company's headquarters in Seoul, Aug. 2. Courtesy of Lambda256 |
By Lee Min-hyung
Barunson E&A, the producer of the Oscar-winning film, "Parasite" (2019), is embarking on a fresh journey by building a sustainable movie community ― powered by blockchain and non-fungible tokens (NFT). But the focus is less on generating financial gains or jumping on the once-prevalent NFT hype.
The project is jointly driven by Barunson E&A and Lambda256, a blockchain affiliate of Korea's dominant crypto exchange operator, Dunamu. Both sides split their roles for the project. The Parasite producer focuses on content operation, while Lambda256 offers technological support when issuing NFTs for the Movie MemberZ (MMZ) community.
The intention of the service is to establish a state-of-the-art online movie platform for Korean viewers. Users who sign up for a paid "alpha membership" can receive MMZ's Mobi NFT. This is a kind of membership certificate, allowing them to take part in voting and suggest new movie events while participating in the community.
Kim Ji-yeon, chief strategy officer at Lambda256, said the company and Barunson decided to launch the platform because of the current global popularity of Korean content.
"Even if the community targets local users for the time being, this is a fresh spot for in-depth discussion on Korean movies," Kim Ji-yeon, chief strategy officer at Lambda256, said in a recent interview.
Both companies opened a beta service for MMZ in June. Kim said the service is still in its infancy and requires more time to attract users for activation but expressed confidence that moviegoers will be able to encounter unique experiences by joining the community.
"We hold diverse movie-related events in MMZ regularly and irregularly, but one key difference from other communities is the NFT experience that users can enjoy," Kim said. The Mobi NFT, distributed to each paid user, represents themselves in the MMZ community, just like game characters, according to her.
The rise of the IT industry in the early 2000s led her to develop an interest in the tech sector. She then spent more than a decade as a service strategy specialist at major IT companies here before moving to CJ ENM. After ending her career as a chief digital business officer at the CJ affiliate, she joined Lambda256 in March 2022.
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| A poster of Oscar-winning film "Parasite" is seen above. Lambda256 is teaming up with Barunson E&A, the producer of the film, for their NFT-powered movie community, MMZ. Courtesy of Barunson E&A |
She underscored that MMZ does not adopt a revenue-first strategy.
Back in 2020 and 2021, NFTs made headlines in line with then-booming asset market sentiment. NFT trading was all the rage with growing investor attention to cryptocurrencies and blockchain. However, with the start of a bear market last year, most NFT projects lost the attention of investors.
This was because most of the NFT-related projects placed a top priority on generating profit, according to her.
"We take a completely different approach to the ongoing MMZ project, as NFTs in our community are not something traded for revenues, but a tool for users to identify themselves and take part in the community activities," she said.
"Each Mobi NFT holders exchange their ideas on certain movies and exercise their right to vote for projects. For instance, they will be able to even create a movie together in the future by taking advantage of Barunson's know-how."
Barunson and Lambda256, however, are also considering expansion of revenue streams for the platform as well. As the project is focusing on the movie industry, they are still in talks to expand more partnerships with not just movie producers, but distributors.
"Aside from the paid membership revenue, we have plans to generate more revenue from not just community-driven businesses ― such as movie festivals ― but from movie-related partner companies such as goods sellers, theaters and other entertainment industry players. But this is a longer-term plan. The top priority for us now is to widen the user base and bring the MMZ community onto a stable growth track."
Era of Web 3.0
She stressed the importance of "participation" in the era of Web 3.0.
"Regardless of industrial differences between entertainment and IT sectors, the focus in the world of Web 3.0. is to try something new and creative by engaging in more social exchanges," she said. "We wanted to create something related with movies under the latest technological environment, and this was the beginning of the MMZ project, regardless of our partnership with Barunson."
MMZ plans to hold an event celebrating the 20th anniversary of Bong Joon-ho's "Memories of Murder" (2003) in August, focusing on exchanges with users.
"MMZ will place its focus on talking with users this year, and gradually expand its activities to other parts, including film funding by using blockchain and NFT technologies," she said.
