A couple exchanged NFT vows on the Blockchain

Two people who had crossed paths several times in the past, only became one when Anil Narasipuram slid into Shruti Nair’s Instagram direct message. As the world went into lockdown in 2020, romance bloomed via social media between the two. A few months later, Narasipuram proposed at Nair’s parents’ house and she said yes.

They got married recently in an intimate digital ceremony by blockchain.

“The record of our wedding is permanent, immutable and public. The blockchain ledger is tamper-proof. No one in the world can change the fact that it is recorded on the blockchain, which is a sign of our commitment to each other. [It] is a very powerful statement about our marriage itself,” Narasipuram said.

At the centre of the couple’s ceremony was a smart contract supported on the Ethereum blockchain along with the couple’s vows, which were minted as an NFT or a non-fungible token. The NFT featured a picture of the bride’s engagement ring along with the couple’s embedded vows. The token was then exchanged as a digital transaction on the online marketplace OpenSea.

They can be used to represent physical assets such as artwork, music and real estate. In Narasipuram and Nair’s case, it represented the couple’s vows and rings. “We can think of the NFT as a digital ring or as a metaphor,” said Narasipuram.

Prior to the ceremony, the couple officially registered their marriage in a courthouse. Still decked out in their traditional matrimonial attire, the couple opened up their digital wallets on their laptops while their family and friends attended the 15-minute ceremony via Google Meet.

Narasipuram’s cousin Anoop Pakki officiated the wedding as their digital priest and created the NFT ahead of time under the name of “Ekatvam”, which means “oneness” in Sanskrit. Pakki blessed the couple as they read out their vows, and then transferred the token to the couple who exchanged it in their digital wallets. Pakki then pronounced them as married under “the power vested [in him] by Ethereum.”

Source: Agencies