Malaysians are big fans of Coldplay as they are the band artist who asked us to look up the stars, look how they shine for you and giving hope to everything you do!

But when it’s your turn to buy the ticket, it was all RED instead! Tickets sold out in 3 hours and you cry thinking buying the tickets is so easy, but nobody said it was easy.

Then, once it took you back to start, another hope kicks in. Someone is starting to sell Coldplay tickets in the secondary markets. Just when you’re about to spring up from your bed and click “Instant Buy”, you are shocked by the price that was listed by the seller: IT WAS RM3,088 (USD$ 675) for a seat that was originally cost only RM228 (~$50)!

So what’s going on? For crypto people like us, we all know it too well. Minting NFTs at a very early stage and then resell them in a marketplace at least 10x the minting price has been the most popular way for investors and traders to flip NFTs for profits. The Coldplay tickets fiasco in Malaysia are exactly like those newly minted NFTs that has been flipped to sky-high prices.

Now, the Malaysian government plans to crack down on these scalpers, but they don’t have a plan on how to do so. Luckily for them, I do have some suggestions that can help mitigate bad actors from abusing any concert ticketing system.

1. Limit to 1 person = 1 ticket policy

This solution only helps to limit the scalpers from buying multiple tickets at once and providing a fairer chance for others to get in the action. The traditional method to implement this is to have each buyer to perform KYC by giving up identification & proof of address before they are allowed to buy the ticket, so that the same person will not create multiple accounts to purchase those tickets.

This solution is not ideal as sensitive information may be leaked on the web, thus increasing the chances of identity theft & scams. Thus, a better way is to have your ID stored inside your private crypto wallet, create a hash that uses zero-knowledge proofs to prove that you have all the correct information necessary to be eligible to buy the tickets without revealing any sensitive information to the website, such as your name, IC number, residential address, date of birth, etc.

For example, in Coldplay concert’s case, the organizer creates the website for users to purchase the tickets. The difference is that instead of users having to register for an account by typing the name, date of birth, IC and so on, they can implement a feature asking users to connect their crypto wallet to the platform. The platform will need to verify if the necessary information is present inside the wallet by checking the hash that represents the ID or other sensitive information inside the wallet.

Hash is basiclaly a fixed length of an alphanumerical code that can represent any amount of information inside, so long as the platform verifies that this hash is valid to the rules of eligibility, you’ll be granted to purchase the ticket without revealing any sensitive information to the organizer.

You can refer to my previous article about how self-sovereign identity works.

2. Mint the tickets as an NFT

I’m sure many of you should know about Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) by now, but I’ll link an introductory article here if you’re new to this term. Represent tickets as NFTs is not a novel idea anymore, as many platforms in the crypto space are either building or already built a platform that does that, such as SeatlabNFT (NFT ticketing on NEAR protocol) and the other 9 platforms listed here.

So here’s my thought of how this idea will work on the Coldplay concert ticket example:

1. Users will need to have a private crypto wallet (Metamask, etc.)

2. Connect the wallet to the platform. The platform will verify if this wallet is a unique person (not a bot) and already bought the Coldplay ticket NFT.

3. Once verified that it’s not a bot or has not buy the Coldplay ticket NFT, the person will be eligible to buy the ticket NFT.

4. To purchase the NFT, one needs to prepare more tokens in the wallet in addition to the ticket NFT price to cover the minting & transaction fees.

5. Once initiated the purchase, the buyer will need to approve the transaction and pay the necessary price & fees to process the payment.

6. After the transaction is confirmed, the Coldplay ticket NFT will be sent to the buyer’s wallet, together with a QR code generated. This QR code will be needed for scanning at the stadium entrance to be allowed entry into the concert.

The advantage of using an NFT to buy concert tickets is that your ticket is tied uniquely to your wallet containing your ID, to which you also own the private key to your wallet, so the ticket is truly yours to own. In contrast to the legacy ticketing system, your online ticket is kept at their database system that is linked to your identity, which poses centralization & security risks.

3. Blockchain-powered ticketing platform

There’s many advantages for an NFT ticketing platform powered by blockchain, such as:

• A list of Coldplay NFT holders by wallet address and their transaction histories. This will prove that no wallet shall hold more than 1 NFT, and all wallets are unique to a single person. The NFT will be invalid to use if there is more than 1 NFT in the same wallet. Users may also trace their own public address in the website to verify their address is listed as one of the NFT holder.

• NFTs can be verified with a token ID. This ID will prove that the NFT ticket is issued by the verified organizer and not issued by some malicious actor. Furthermore, the ticketing system is also able to detect the NFT token ID is correct before granting entry for the user to prevent any user trying to sneak into the concert with a fake NFT. Not to mention that you don’t need to expose your Identification Card (IC) together with your ticket to the event organizers to prevent the loss or misuse of your IC as a verifiable NFT is sufficient enough.

• Ticket NFT holders may also enjoy special privileges such as discounts to Coldplay merchandise according to your NFT tier. You can implement higher discounts for higher ticket NFT tiers.

• The ticketing system can trace the transactions in the blockchain to see if the NFT ticket from the wallet address is transacted again to another wallet address. If more than 1 transaction is detected for the particular NFT ticket, the ticketing system may revoke permission for secondary wallet holders to use the NFT for entry into the concert.

   

4. Soulbound NFTs

Many people know how NFT generally works, but fewer people also know that there’s actually a thing called Soulbound NFTs. It was previously first discussed back in January 2022 by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin that Soulbound tokens are described as non-transferrable digital tokens that represent social identity in a decentralized society.

It was conceptualized to be used to represent one’s identity according to his/her experiences & achievements, such as you can tie in your education, or employement histories into your account.

Though no discussion has been raised, I believed Soulbound NFTs are very suitable to be used as concert ticket NFTs that are non-transferrable which will also “engrave” that NFT as a living proof that you have the concert ticket that will also not be stolen by anyone even though it’s hacked.

Key Takeaways

By utilizing blockchain & NFT technologies, concert organizers will be able to create a fairer, more secure and highly transparent concert ticketing system that prevents scalpers and create more equal opportunities for users to buy concert tickets.

This can be done by leveraging a “1 person = 1 ticket” policy, together with implementing NFT technology & blockchain traceability for their unique advantages in providing transparency and fair distribution of tickets to the buyers. Additionally, the concept of soulbound NFTs, representing personal experiences and achievements, could be explored to create non-transferable concert ticket NFTs that can be kept as a souvenir for life and eliminate scalpers for good.

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