Rentfuse’s founder, Michael Fabozzi, joined Neo Global Development’s AMA series, Neo Live, on Tuesday, Oct. 19. The NFT renting protocol project is among numerous other N3 Early Adoption Program projects that have recently joined Neo Live.

In the AMA, Fabozzi shared how he entered the ecosystem through the Neo Frontier Launchpad hackathon, information about the three-person team, his vision for bringing the sharing economy to blockchain, ways in which the protocol will enable NFT renting, a Rentfuse game, and more.

The team aims to launch the core Rentfuse smart contracts on Neo N3 TestNet by the end of 2021 and on MainNet in Q1 2021.

A transcript of the AMA can be found below:


John Ricci (Neo Telegram Admin): Hello, I would like to thank the members of the Neo community for joining me today for this AMA event. We will start our first session with Michael Fabozzi, briefly introducing himself and his role with Rentfuse.

Michael Fabozzi (Rentfuse Founder): Hi everyone! I am Michael, the founder of Rentfuse. My role at Rentfuse is to lead the team and develop the core code behind the protocol. Thank you for the invitation, I’m very happy to be here to talk with you about Rentfuse!

Q1: What is Rentfuse? Could you provide us with some details about the project?

Michael: Rentfuse is an application protocol layer that enables the renting of Neo N3 NFTs. Owners can lend NFTs to generate revenues, and borrowers can rent NFTs to use them temporarily.

The protocol enables two ways to rent an NFT: with a Fused rent or via an Escrowed rent.

A Fused rent doesn’t involve NFT ownership changes. This removes the risks of having an asset not returned and the entry barriers of collaterals, but it can be used only with dApps that implement the protocol.

On the other hand, an Escrowed rent involves a change of ownership of the NFT. The borrower must deposit a collateral to rent a NFT. Then, if the NFT is returned in time, the collateral is given back, otherwise the lender can claim it. This type of rent can be used with any dApp.

Q2: Can you share the roadmap and Rentfuse’s vision over the next five years?

Michael: We plan to deploy core Rentfuse smart contracts to the TestNet by the end of 2021. This milestone will allow us to test the system extensively for the month and deploy it on the MainNet by Q1 2022.

Later on, the next step will be distributing the Rentfuse native token (REFU) and improving the ecosystem by fostering collaborations with other projects. Then, we plan to release a game called Fu][Se in 2023 that will leverage the usage of the protocol as its base game mechanic.

In the next five years, we aim to become the standard for NFTs renting on the blockchain. But we plan much more than that. We would like to build and support the creation of more and more applications that integrate Rentfuse to handle renting-related operations, working with digital use cases and life-related ones like real estate or items renting.

Q3: What is your knowledge in the field, and what makes you an ideal team to make this project a success?

Michael: We, as Rentfuse Labs, are a team of three people passionate about building things and started doing it many years ago.

I’m a Research and Development Software Engineer that worked on different kind of projects, from mobile and web applications to cryptocurrencies algorithmic trading bots.

Mattia is a Software developer with more than ten years of coding experience that collaborated on creating several enterprise applications.

And, Kevin is a Digital Illustrator and former brand manager assistant with multiple artworks produced and commissioned. We’ve been following the blockchain industry since 2018, and we’ve already worked on some little projects on the Ethereum and Solana blockchains.

Now we aim to make Rentfuse the standard NFT renting solution on the Neo N3 blockchain, and we are determined to keep our promise.

Q4: What benefits has N3 provided to this project? Why do you choose Neo N3?

Michael: I participated in the Neo N3 Launchpad hackathon alone with an idea. I finished it with a team and a validated project ready to be brought to life.

I think that one of the main points that make Neo N3 a good choice is the fact that it’s really developer-friendly. You can come from any software-related background and build and deploy an application on the blockchain. Moreover, it has extremely low fees and a friendly community that can help you kick off your next dream project.

Q5: How do you see your project fitting into the ecosystem? Have you begun working with any other ecosystem projects or communities?

Michael: Rentfuse fits the ecosystem in multiple ways depending on the side to which you observe it.

From a user point of view, Rentfuse can be seen as a way to earn profits from stale NFTs and as a possibility to get and use NFTs for the desired time by spending less than buying them.

From a dApp developer’s point of view, Rentfuse can be seen as an extension for NFTs related projects that want to boost their in-app economy and community engagement. Furthermore, it can be used as the building block of dApps that leverage it to build rental systems, like real estate management or items renting dApps.

We are already in touch with other wonderful projects that are building on Neo N3, and we plan to proceed with further collaborations in the months to come.

Q6: Can you list one to three killer features of Rentfuse that put it ahead of its competitors? What is Rentfuse’s competitive advantage?

Michael: First, the Fused rent protocol. This feature will allow ownership of safe NFT rentals so that users won’t need to be worried about their assets not being returned.

Second, the Escrowed rent protocol will allow Rentfuse to be integrated and used with any dApp you can imagine.

Another interesting thing that we will provide is native NFTs that allow special offers for users and the possibility to mint new ones for users.

Q7: What is Rentfuse’s most ambitious goal, or ultimate vision in the blockchain industry?

Michael: Our vision is to bring the sharing economy to life on the blockchain. This means enabling everyone the possibility to share digital assets easily and to earn revenue from them. But, we don’t want to be limited to the digital world, we envision a future where NFTs are used for art or game items and to represent real-life things, like cars or apartments, and Rentfuse can be the medium of their sharing process.

Q8: What strategy will you implement to bring non-crypto-natives into your ecosystem? How do you keep a balance between developing the technology and also improving the value of your token?

Michael: More and more people are starting to learn more about NFTs. Just think about the incredible launch of the Coinbase NFT platform and that more than one million people registered for it.

NFT use cases are growing, and as the adoption increases, our strategy would be to give users a new and profitable way to interact with them. The token’s value will reside in the value it provides to the users and the ecosystem and how it fits with it, enabling the growth of communities and systems built upon it.

Q9: Many projects like to speak about the “long-term vision and mission,” but what are your short-term objectives? What are you focusing on right now?

Michael: Having a long-term vision is important because it gives you the direction to go, and our is to become the standard NFT renting solution on the blockchain. But the short-term objectives are the ones that will lead you there, and we are very focused on those at the moment.

In fact, we are working really hard to build the core protocol contracts in a stable and reliable way, so that we can start to test integrations with other projects and further improve the protocol. In this way, we’ll deploy a secure solution on MainNet to which every other piece can be built.

Q10: What is Rentfuse’s roadmap, and how do you plan onboarding users and gaining more adoption?

Michael: We are strictly following it. We are coding the smart contracts that will be the core of Rentfuse while developing a stress-test game to test the two main protocols that we want to offer to our users. This will allow us to find any critical things before launch.

In parallel, we are working on branding and artwork to create our unique Native NFTs that will give their owners or renters special offers on the platform. We plan to onboard more users by collaborating with the other fantastic projects building on the Neo blockchain and benefit from our collaboration, not only projects related but primarily community-related.

John: We would like to thank everyone for joining us today for the Rentfuse AMA. A lot of great questions from the Neo community.  We would like to thank Michael Fabozzi from Rentfuse. It was a pleasure having you with us today. We are looking forward to all the great things to come from Rentfuse.

Michael: Thank you all. It was a pleasure to meet you. We are looking forward to seeing you rent your first NFT on Rentfuse!

Note: Some edits have been made for formatting and readability.

The full Neo Live AMA can be found at the link below:
https://t.me/NEO_EN/181397