Social media, virtual fashion and NFTs: The Berlin crypto project LUKSO wants to become the blockchain for creatives and has taken an important step in this direction. For the mainnet is now live.

After five years of hard work, crypto startup LUKSO launched its mainnet on May 23. This is the beginning for the development of applications on the Layer 1 blockchain from the capital. However, LUKSO's mainnet aims to appeal to the creative scene and look beyond the usual focus on financial applications in the blockchain sector. The Berlin-based project focuses on use cases such as social media, digital fashion and NFTs.

"The idea of LUKSO is to be the blockchain outside of the financial world, with less of a financial focus and more towards the creative economy," he said. told co-founder and former Ethereum developer Fabian Vogelsteller to CoinDesk.

Marjorie Hernandez, another LUKSO co-founder, has also founded a start-up dedicated to "phygital" fashion. This means a mix of physical and digital. For example, with LUKSO's infrastructure, a pair of sneakers would be as NFT can be additionally anchored on the blockchain.

LUKSO: Actually Ethereum, only different

An "Ethereum veteran," Fabian Vogelsteller is known for developing the ERC20 token standard. With LUKSO, Hernandez and he have created a new ecosystem to realize their vision of an industry-specific blockchain for the creative industries.

However, this required a new network in addition to Ethereum. "LUKSO is technically just like Ethereum," Vogelsteller told CoinDesk. Vogelsteller, however, has spent the past four years developing a series of new token standards, mainly running on an "on-chain account system" called "universal profiles."

They are "interoperable blockchain-based profiles that enable verifiable identities in the digital world," according to the project's website. This should give users full control over their data, identity and virtual assets. The goal is to make blockchain applications easier to help them achieve mass adoption.

"The missing piece that we need in the blockchain space, and the reason why it hasn't really come to adoption yet, and I don't just mean market adoption but people actually using networks and blockchains. Is that using it has been extremely difficult," Vogelsteller said.

To implement 20 different token standards, new smart contracts must also be supported. This requires a new layer 1 blockchain, which has been ready with LUKSO for several days.