Gaston Rua-Acosta
Gaston Acosta-Rua, co-founder and developer of PegasusDLT and its subsidiary Jayloto, leverages blockchain technology to help real-world businesses
When you hear the abbreviation NFT, what comes to mind? Perhaps of one of those cartoon monkeys from the viral Bored Ape Yacht Club. Or maybe you’ve heard about The Metaverse, the immersive “Internet of the Future” powered by NFT technology. Maybe you’ve seen NFT news in passing and the concept feels confusing and intimidating.
If you fall into the third category, you aren’t alone. This definition from Coinbase may be helpful:
NFTs (or “non-fungible tokens”) are a special kind of crypto asset in which each token is unique—as opposed to “fungible” assets like bitcoin and dollar bills, which are all worth the same amount. Because every NFT is unique, they can be used to authenticate ownership of digital assets like artworks, recordings and virtual real estate. (Coinbase, “What is a NFT?”)
When Gaston Acosta-Rua (BSBA 2022) learned about NFTs, he saw a business opportunity. He’s the co-founder and technical project manager for PegasusDLT, a family-owned self-funded startup.
“We offer several types of blockchain consultations and software solutions for businesses. One of our main products is a blockchain-based ecosystem that leverages NFTs—particularly, NFTs that represent special events,” Acosta-Rua said. “I have been following development and mining ethereum since 2016. For a while, I have been thinking about how smart contracts could be used for business utility.”
A smart contract is “an agreement between two people in the form of computer code. [Smart contracts] run on the blockchain, so they are stored on a public database and cannot be changed” (Bitdegree, “What is a Smart Contract and How Does it Work?”). These contracts can be strategically used for marketing and data analytics purposes. But not all businesses have leveraged blockchain possibilities.
Many businesses avoid NFTs because of high “gas fees”—fees necessary not just for buying a non-fungible token, but also for creating and selling them. Gas is “the unit that measures the amount of computational power required to perform a transaction on the blockchain” (Garg, “What are Gas Fees for NFTs?”).
“Our sovereign blockchain uses a proprietary consensus algorithm that requires little gas. Currently, we pay this gas cost and require zero gas for the end user. For the Annie Phillips Entrepreneurship@DU Speaker Series event, there was a dynamic QR code attendees could scan at our table. When scanned, an NFT was added to their digital wallet. Attendees who did not get an NFT in-person were airdropped one shortly afterward that validated the NFT-holder attended the event. Through the minting and distribution of this class of NFT, businesses can track who attended their events. They can also use the platform as a means of communicating with their customers,” said Acosta-Rua.
One of Acosta-Rua’s first projects at PegasusDLT was creating a cold storage protocol for securely storing several types of cryptocurrencies. According to Investopedia, cold storage is “a way of holding cryptocurrency tokens offline. By using cold storage, cryptocurrency investors aim to prevent hackers from being able to access their holdings via traditional means.”
“We named our project the Pegasus Protocol. In our opinion, it still represents the most secure way to store crypto,” Acosta-Rua said.
Recently, PegasusDLT successfully built an NFT-based loyalty system for a multi-state company in the pet-services industry. And the company has advised several other companies on their projects.
Under the umbrella of PegasusDLT is Jayloto. The subsidiary collaborates with companies in the cannabis industry, helping dispensaries, growers and manufactures create reliable loyalty programs.
“We did an NFT drop with a small-batch grower on February 4. Anyone who came to the booth at the shop between 6 and 8 p.m. that day got a free NFT. The brand can connect with their customers in new ways and collect valuable analytics on customers’ habits. They can incentivize their customers through promotions, meetups and other marketing strategies. The bottom line is we are providing visibility for growers and product manufacturers,” he said.
Acosta-Rua has been involved in blockchain and crypto technology for quite some time. He has met developers of several open-source projects in the ethereum space, including Santiago Palladino, lead developer of OpenZeppelin.
“Ethereum is one of the most prominent open-source blockchains with smart contract functionality. Santiago Palladino and OpenZeppelin basically provided the main reliable library of ethereum token standards for developers. He is a major figure and one of the top smart contract developers,” said Acosta-Rua.
In case you’re not convinced of the wealth potential in NFTs, look no further than Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah, co-founders of OpenSea. Acosta-Rua knew them before their company blew up in the marketplace.
“OpenSea is one of the main NFT marketplaces. The company is valued at $14 billion. Alex and Devin are each worth about $2.2 billion. In 2018, I was picking their brains about how I could white-label their marketplace code. I met them in person at ETHDenver 2018. They were both incredibly kind and helpful. They continue to be a major inspiration to me, mainly because they stuck to their mission, despite a lot of haters telling them their marketplace had no real longevity. It has been fascinating to watch these developers come up,” said Acosta-Rua.
With increasing publicity around NFTs, it’s only a matter of time before startups like PegasusDLT and Jayloto could become household names.