Tickets: NFTs with utility

Event tickets in the form of NFTs are the most direct implementation of a NFT as a utility token. While many collections promise all sorts of rewards or benefits, these perks are often vague or uncertain, creating a whole spectrum of different levels of utility. On one hand, you have utility-free art like EtherRocks, and on the other, you have for example Fellaz NFT tickets. Sure, you can treat these tickets as art or souvenirs, but it’s clear that their value is almost entirely based on their utility — that is, on the guaranteed ability to access a particular event or venue at a particular time.

Ultra Abu Dhabi is a two-day EDM (electronic dance music) festival, part of the Ultra Worldwide festivals that take place all around the world. Recently, they’ve partnered with Fellaz and seem to be experimenting with the Web3 ticketing ecosystem. Being in the UAE, I decided to give it a go and see how everything works in practice. The fact that I’m a big fan of large music events didn’t hurt.

The idea is that you purchase an NFT ticket, show it at the gate and exchange it for a wristband along with some Fellaz-related perks. In practice, this can be a bit complicated, even for someone used to crypto. 

Tickets were sold on Binance, but Fellaz also partnered with Xclusive, where you could mint the ticket yourself. All tickets minted were considered VIP, and there was no option to mint General Admission or GA+ tickets. To put things into perspective, early bird GA tickets purchased online using a debit card cost $130, while pre-door tickets cost $150. Despite the higher price point, opting for a Fellaz NFT ticket came with several perks, including access to dedicated waiting lines, VIP sections and bathrooms, merch and drink coupons, and even a chance to win a meet and greet with the artists, so the price-to-value ratio was quite good. 

The sale on Binance ended on the 3rd of March, but the mint on Xclusive continued for another 24 hours. On Binance, the floor would sometimes dip below the official price of $260. I’m guessing some people bought these tickets not realizing it’s not a collection but a utility token. Some perhaps could not attend. After a bit of waiting and scouting, I managed to nab a ticket for $188! Definitely pleased with that.

This presents a future challenge. Assuming Web3 implementation becomes more popular and common, it will also make scalping much easier. It’s theoretically possible to buy out the entire pool of tickets via proxy accounts and then resell them at inflated prices. The only real solution would be whitelisting and prioritizing users who have a history of participating in events they bought tickets for. 

This is where things get a bit complicated. To use the NFT for admission, you must download the Favorlet wallet. The only issue is Binance doesn’t allow for withdrawals to Favorlet, so to get my NFT there, I had to first withdraw it to Metamask and then transfer it yet again to Favorlet using Metamask mobile. You also have to remember to use the BNB chain and you have to manually add your NFT in Metamask by entering the contract address and token ID. For a regular person who doesn’t know much about Web3, this literally is a showstopper.

Attending Ultra Abu Dhabi

After jumping through the hoops, I finally had Favorlet in my mobile along with the corresponding NFT ticket. It was time to party!

To obtain my wristband, I had to go visit the Fellaz booth, which was actually a tent. There I had to validate my NFT via a timed QR code and collect my wristband plus goodies. It was all pretty straightforward and quick. The moment the NFT is validated, certain properties change (or at least should change). This is done to prevent multiple people from attempting to enter using the same NFT.

Ultra Abu Dhabi had only two stages. It wasn’t a massive event, but for someone longing for a good electronic thumper, this was good enough. I’m not going to review the festival itself, but it had two stages, the line-up was decent and the crowd was enthusiastic. 

While waiting in line, I did see a bunch of other people using NFTs to claim their wristbands. However, when I got to the festival grounds, it was obvious we represented a tiny fraction of participants. Even at the Fellaz VIP section, which was meant to be open exclusively to NFT holders, I didn’t meet anyone interested in crypto. One person said he won a VIP upgrade, others simply bought it. Fellaz had their own tent at the festival next to the food trucks, so that’s where a lot of those non-crypto folks came from, but on the whole, the VIP viewing section was still embarrassingly empty.

Perhaps this is because NFT buyers are just like any other party-goer and prefer to be close to the stage and in the middle of the action. That makes sense, but if one was hoping to network or talk about crypto, they would be disappointed. 

Perks also turned out to be a bit hit-and-miss. Rewards that were supposed to be handed out on-chain were instead given out in the form of scratch cards. Not a very transparent or verifiable way to dole out rewards, to be honest. I was told that supposed meet-and-greets with artists also didn’t materialize. A $20 merchandise coupon turned out to be worth 20 AED instead, which is just over $5. Considering the cheapest shirts were retailing for $32, this “perk” felt a bit insulting. All those things made the VIP pass feel less special and less valuable than it could have been.

After the event

After the event was over, all ticket holders were airdropped a special souvenir NFT to mark the occasion. I have to admit, it looks quite cool.

Unfortunately, I cannot send this NFT to Binance as this particular souvenir token hasn’t been whitelisted. I guess it’s just meant to sit in Favorlet’s wallet forever. I am, however, not planning on keeping Farvolet on my phone, so I transferred it to my Metamask instead. Also, to my surprise, I was able to sell my used ticket for $46. This lowered the overall cost to around $142, which is pretty amazing. 

As somewhat of a crypto supporter, I found purchasing, transferring and validating the ticket much more fun than just buying it online at Ticketmaster. I understand this will not be the same for most. In fact, it will be the opposite. There’s still a lot of friction and too many obstacles for mass adoption. It also seems the interest is not there. Despite competitive pricing, most casual partygoers cannot be bothered with what still looks like a very exotic and convoluted way to purchase a ticket. 

Conclusion & Afterword [2026 Update]

The foundation was set, but the partnership between Fellaz and Ultra did not evolve into anything substantial. Neither Ultra Singapore nor Ultra Korea had NFT tickets available so I skipped those and waited to see if Fellaz could secure another event.

Fast forward to 2026 and Fellaz is still active promoting Web3 ownership within the music and entertainment industry but so far Abu Dhabi was the only NFT-enabled event that materialized.

Skeptics will say the tech, with its friction, wasn't good enough for wide adoption and that the crypto market has moved on. Proponents will say Abu Dhabi Ultra was simply ahead of its time.

I consider utility NFTs such as event tickets to be deconstructed. Meaning funding was primarily driven by hype rather than real-world dynamics. Perhaps Utility NFTs will make a comeback at some point, but given how the entire NFT market has stagnated, for now it remains unlikely.

Options are contracts regarding future price values. If the contract’s stipulated price is higher than current price we refer to those as “call” options, if it’s lower we call those “put” options. Similarly to how “longs” and “shorts” work on spot market.

So far, so good. But what’s this got to do with passive income? Seems like just another method for investing and trading. You make a prediction and hope it will come to fruition. Well yes, but not quite. Options operate under persistent bias, they’re not meant to be efficient . Investors make outlandish wagers often without even believing these predictions will ever come to pass. What they hope for instead is to trade these options when their value changes — long before their expiry date.

As a result, the options market can be pretty skewed and present good passive income opportunities for those who are actually willing to wait until the aforementioned expiry date. The idea is that we pick such an outlandish wager and without attempting to trade it, patiently wait until it expires. To further reduce risk we should make sure to only buy options for the amount that we actually have, a so-called “covered” call (as opposed to a “naked” call)

Lets look at one example.

Here we have a call option with strike price 400000. Now I am quite bullish on crypto, but 400k Bitcoin seems pretty bold to say the least.

Return on this particular option is miniscule (less than 1% annualized), so we should look for something that’s financially more attractive but still unlikely to happen. If you have some familiarity with options, you will know this isn’t an all-or-nothing bet. If by any chance Bitcoin reaches its strike price on 31st of Dec, you do not lose your investment, you simply agree to sell your Bitcoin for 400k. This makes calls a bit easier to wrap your head around than puts. Selling some of your bitcoin after a hypothetical 400k run wouldn’t be a bad idea anyway, so if you’re planning to realize your gains at some point then call options can be a win — win situation. This is also why covered calls are safer than naked options. You always have a full understanding of what the contract is and how much you’re investing.

USING OPTIONS FOR LIQUIDITY

Another use case which is not related to passive income is where you have to sell your Bitcoin for liquidity. Basically, for one reason or another, you need liquidity and have to sell Bitcoin at whatever price it currently sits at. Well in this case, since you already made up your mind and are selling anyway, you might instead take a call option at a current price, and grab a nice premium on top.

Let’s look at example above. In this example Bitcoin is trading at 92491. Call option with strike price of 90k sells for 0.1480 bitcoin and 95k for 0.1225 — not bad. That’s almost 15% and 12% extra. The downside is, that in order to withdraw all of the money you have to wait until the option expires (in this case around 6 months). What’s available to you is the amount you sold your options for, which in the above example would be 15% or around $13.8k for a 92k Bitcoin. Therefore it's not a passive income scenario. Depending on market behavior other strategies might prove more lucrative, but in certain circumstances it can be definitely beneficial. 

TUTORIAL [STEP BY STEP]

Ok so let’s make a call option!

First we go to our Deribit account. I’m assuming it’s already funded with whatever amount we’re comfortable with.

Next, we have to select the expiration date. In general, it’s best to select dates that are far away since these are less efficient and offer a sort of “premium for patience”. We’re looking for a wide range of less-than-realistic scenarios. In periods of prolonged greed we see call options getting extended and in times of prolonged fear it’s put options that become unbalanced. Regardless I would still recommend going with calls and not puts. However unlikely both 260k and 5k by the end of the year might seem, call options offers a peace of mind even as the price goes up, put option, on the other hand are more like a double whammy.

Let’s try this option.

240k by 25th September 2026. If by any chance Bitcoin reaches 240k, this is the amount you agree to sell your Bitcoin for. Otherwise you collect your BTC back + premium. As long as the call is covered, these are your two scenarios.

We click on the option (anywhere is fine) to bring up the trading menu

Here’s the tricky part. We have to click “Sell”. That’s because we are selling options using bitcoin as liquidity. We can see there’s 2.9 contracts available @ 0.0055. We put in quantity “1” which means a covered call for one full bitcoin. We can also try to change the offer from 0.0055 to 0.006 to gain a bit of leverage, but the order will not match immediately in such case, and will be put on the order book. We then press the Sell button.

A confirmation will pop up. It’s a good idea to review everything before confirming. 

That’s all. Notice -1.0 on the right, which indicates you now have exposure to a full bitcoin call option.

All there is to do now is to wait for it to expire so that you can collect your crypto + premium! 

RISKS!

As with everything that offers income, there are risks involved.

First and foremost Deribit is a custodial centralized platform. Not your keys, not your crypto. It is however the biggest platform of this kind. Quarterly expiry events cause massive Bitcoin contracts expirations that are worth billions of dollars (plus another good chunk worth of ETH, SOL and XRP contracts). Deribit is definitely the biggest of its kind.

Secondly there’s behavioural risk factors. While Deribit doesn’t encourage risk-taking (something a lot of trading platforms and exchanges unfortunately do) it also doesn’t have any mechanism that would prevent it. Instead of earning passive income investors can instead decide to pursue quick profit and buy risky options worth hundreds of bitcoin with a risk of losing all funds as soon as the price goes in the wrong direction. That’s because Deribit makes it possible to make naked option calls instead of covered ones as well as leverage your funds. Coupled with ultrashort timeframes in case of weekly or daily options this can very easily lead to bad decisions and loss of the entire stack.

OPTIONS VS STAKING VS PREDICTION MARKETS

In the examples given, income might seem small. Depending on the option we select and its likelihood, income can be as low as 1% to 5% annualized. Plenty DeFi platforms offer yield on Bitcoin that exceeds 6%. And then there's prediction markets which might also offer higher returns. So which is best?

In short, with higher returns, comes higher risk. Staking involves various vulnerabilities, the biggest one of which is when using liquidity pools. Bitcoin uses proof-of-work so to stake it it has to usually go through various workarounds which increase its vulnerability to bad actors, hacks, manipulation.

Prediction markets are an all or nothing bet, so obviously you either have to play extra safe and collect a similarly small annualized return or understand that in case of a black swan, your stack might be gone. Also, prediction platforms use stablecoins which creates a small but non-zero exposure to depegging risks. In case of Bitcoin options, one of the benefits is that they are settled in Bitcoin.

At the end of the day, all these methods are suitable, but for different scenarios. Staking might work best when done in a custodial manner, for example on Ethereum network which allows direct delegation into the protocol. Prediction markets can also give an edge if utilized successfully. For Bitcoin however, I consider Options to be the best choice.

That would be all. Happy earning!

El Salvador

My first chance to experience El Salvador was at this Dubai's Expo 2020. Their pavilion already emphasized Bitcoin back then. They also offered free coffee made from local beans. which might be the reason why most people seemed happy to spend some time there. 

Either way, when some time later an opportunity presented itself to visit El Salvador in person, and without much hesitation, I jumped on it.

To give readers a general idea, El Salvador is a Latin American country, so if you’ve ever been to one, you should feel right at home. Street vendors sell water not in bottles, but in plastic bags, colourful “chicken buses” drive between cities without any regard for safety and all the guards carry big, menacing shotguns. El Salvador is not as wealthy as Panama, but at the same time it’s faring better than neighbouring Nicaragua or Guatemala. In terms of GDP, it sits somewhere in the middle. 

Arrival & Chivo Installation

Right off the bat, I decided to avoid taxis and walk from the airport just to get a feel for what the country looks like. First impressions: it’s an evergreen land, lush with vegetation. 

After maybe two hours of hiking, I end up at a roundabout with a couple of hostels. Rooms are simple but cheap and with air conditioning. Life feels peachy again! 

The first thing I tried to do after checking in was install the official Bitcoin wallet “Chivo”, which is Spanish for cool. However, I quickly realised only nationals and residents are allowed to use it.

I shared my dismay with one of the boys working in the hotel. He proudly showed his Chivo wallet as if to prove that everything works fine. While this wasn’t my intention, I also noticed large transaction — a transfer of about $900.

I’m guessing it might have been some kind of remittance. El Salvador is known for having large numbers of its population rely on remittances. Some say it might constitute up to 50 per cent of its GDP.

Throughout my travels, I noticed how people walked up to Chivo ATMs to withdraw some cool cash. My guess is most were there to pick up their remittances in dollars rather than to buy or sell Bitcoin.

In general, almost everyone with a smartphone will also have Chivo, but most ignore the Bitcoin aspect entirely and just use Chivo to transact in dollars, similarly to how CashApp or Venmo work in the West. You want to pay $15 for your meal or your room? The owner will give you their phone number, and that’s all you need to know to transact. I tried asking for a QR code or Bitcoin Lightning address, but most were clueless. And even if I could somehow persuade them to look into the settings and find the address, my wallet would still not allow the transaction to go through due to some kind of lack of compatibility (I was using “The Wallet of Satoshi”). 

The Bitcoin Beach

I also decided to visit the now famous “Bitcoin Beach”, an area around El Zonte that kickstarted the country’s crypto adoption. 

It’s a pleasurable seaside region, dotted with resorts and surfing schools. You can see Bitcoin being referenced in many places, but it’s clear we’re past the hype. Bitcoin is testing new lows, excitement is gone and El Zonte is back to its main business — tourism and surfing. Old Bitcoin Beach t-shirts lie forgotten and neglected, now losing color. I even spotted two local villagers wearing them as they emerged from their work in the fields. It was clear neither of them had smartphones or any idea about crypto and just wore these shirts as their dirty clothes. 

I stayed in El Zonte for two days and during that time spotted only one crypto-related group. They wore “stack sats” shirts, which is a known maxi motto. The group walked around guarded by two shotgun-wearing officers dressed in blue uniforms. Not sure if they were real police or just security, but having guards follow you everywhere certainly attracted attention, making the whole group look very conspicuous. No way I would feel safer that way, quite the opposite.

As for El Zonte, the whole area is very picturesque. Lots of small coffee shops and restaurants where the time goes by slowly. Some of those businesses look very makeshift by Western standards, but for locals they are a way of life first and foremost.

I stopped in one restaurant to buy an energy drink. The lady that worked there tried to persuade me to stay and get something more substantial, perhaps a pizza? Unfortunately, I didn’t have cash on me, only a card. 

“We don’t accept cards”, she said. “You can pay with Bitcoin!” 

She seemed excited at the prospect and I almost felt stupid for not having any crypto ready. Honestly, I didn’t expect such a situation to occur, but there you have it. Small businesses might not have access to banking and consequently to Visa and Mastercard readers, but they do have smartphones and therefore, can accept Chivo wallet transfers without issue. That’s what a lot of articles about El Salvador seem to miss. If you go around asking “do you accept Bitcoin?” people will say no, but if you ask them about Chivo, they'll often say yes. In general, I didn’t get that feeling described in the media that Bitcoin has been completely forgotten. 

Off the beaten track

After leaving El Zonte, I travelled towards Sonsonate. It’s a typical run-of-the-mill city in the middle of El Salvador. There are no beaches, no volcanos and no international tourism. Locals glance at my bag and assume I might be doing some business or that I trade goods. Otherwise, there’s little reason for a gringo like me to be there. Still, I quickly develop a fondness for this city. It’s not perfect, but it’s raw, authentic and even cheaper than the other parts of El Salvador. You can get a glimpse of how it would feel to live as an expat here. 

In Sosonate, just like everywhere else, you would see official Chivo ATMs. There’s one by the shopping mall, one on the main square and a few others dotted around the city. They usually have some kind of staff on location to help citizens set up their Chivo wallets, answer questions and generally make it look like those ATMs do indeed double as some sort of unofficial bank. Chivo ATMs are also guarded, which means you can withdraw or deposit money only during what amounts to essentially working hours. So again, something akin to how a bank would operate rather than just an ATM for your Bitcoin wallet. 

After spending over a week in Sonsonate, I went further north to Santa Ana. It’s a well-known city, famous for its neighbouring volcano that goes by the same name. The city looks cleaner, neater and a bit more expensive. Beautiful churches adorn the streets. 

Bitcoin life

In total, I spent three weeks in El Salvador. Once I realized I could use Chivo ATMs to withdraw Bitcoin directly, without the need for a Chivo-compatible wallet, I started doing exactly that. It was cheaper than using my Visa and I also didn’t have to worry about any bank fees.

You can also find remnants of past innovations that arrived in the wake of passing the Bitcoin law in 2021. For example, I saw Strike Wallet stickers and QR codes scattered across various restaurants. The way Strike positioned itself was as a competitor to Chivo, together with a sign-up bonus of its own (unfortunately, again, only for Salvadorians). I’m not sure how successful Strike was or is but I expect not very. Most crypto-related projects have already been abandoned, but it was an interesting to see these artifacts nonetheless. 

Meanwhile, near El Zonte’s Bitcoin Beach, there’s a different project brewing. Excavators, loaders and dump trucks can be seen everywhere. It’s all part of a big push to create Surf City — a chain of modern, Western-style towns and cities catering to surfers and beach enthusiasts from all around the world. Nobody here talks about the volcano-powered Bitcoin bonds or the futuristic Bitcoin city. It’s all pie-in-the-sky speculation for now. Surf City, meanwhile, is already under construction and poised to be completed sooner rather than later.

Bitcoin no longer an official currency in El Salvador - my take

As of May 2025, Bitcoin is no longer the official currency but it continues to be recognized as legal tender. You can no longer pay taxes in Bitcoin, and the Fidebitcoin trust, which managed the governmental BTC-USD liquidity, has also been dismantled.

Having visited El Salvador much earlier than May 2025, I cannot comment on how fast or severe this wind down is, but overall I see this as a significant blow to Bitcoin adoption, both in the country and worldwide. When I was there, the initial hype may have faded, but things were far from terrible. Though few people were directly using Bitcoin, the Chivo wallet continued to see usage. This was due to the fact that its ATMs and the app itself were widely supported across the entire country and guaranteed by the government. Without that anchor Bitcoin usage will completely plummet.

Yes, people will be able to continue to buy or sell Bitcoin through exchanges, but I expect the volume will not be significantly greater than in any of its neighboring countries. Honduras has its free-city zone, Prospera, Nicaraguans use the USDT stablecoin to send and receive remittances. In this sense, El Salvador will become very much like any other Latin American country, only with potentially better regulation and being more crypto-friendly. That is still an advantage worth considering, but a far cry from the expectations laid out by the Bitcoin Law in 2021. Globally, this U-turn will be seen as a failed experiment, which does not help Bitcoin's proliferation.

Why you should visit El Salvador

Even with this setback in mind, I would still recommend visiting El Salvador without hesitation. It's a beautiful country in its own right. There are plenty of crypto safe havens all around the world and that's not what sets El Salvador apart. What El Salvador needs to leverage is what it already has: spectacular views, magnificent mountains, thick forests, idyllic beaches, great waves, tasty street food and cheerful locals. And yes, you can also use Bitcoin if you want to. Muy bonito.

One word of caution though. El Salvador is now safe, but it's still a developing country. To give an example here’s a basic motel.

It was only $8. Unfortunately, it didn’t come with a wall socket, so to charge my phone, I had to leave it at reception. Still, it had a ceiling fan and for some reason, I felt very peaceful there. I would give it 5 stars, but obviously, bathroom standards were quite low. Basically only cold water and no mirror.

An upgrade from the previous room. This is what $15 might get you.

Western-style hotels typically start around $35 but can go up to $100 or more. It’s nice to have a receptionist always present, ready to sort a room for you. Cheaper hotels usually require having to find the person in charge, either by calling displayed numbers or by banging on the door. 

Appendix: Chatting with Salvadorans

It seems locals have fallen in love with the Little Caesars Pizza franchise. After dark, the city square is littered with empty pizza boxes, all baring the Little Caesars logo. Seems the brand is pushing into the market aggressively by offering medium pizzas for $5. Until recently, having a pizza would set you back around 15 bucks, so it’s a newly discovered luxury that many could not afford before. Unfortunately, queues at Little Caesars were never-ending. Instead, I went to a local pizza shop called “OMG Pizza”. They sell by the slice, prices starting from $1. 

“Oh, You’ve been to U.S?”  asks the owner of OMG Pizza in fluent English. “I worked there for twenty years. Started in New York, then Vegas, Los Angeles.” 

“I see you support Nayib Bukele?” 

“Oh yes, I love this guy. I have his picture here”. He pointed to a picture of Nayib with his family hanging on the wall. “Before he came to power, we had so much trouble with the mafia. People would come to my restaurant, ask questions, is this my place, is this what I do and so, and so, and then come up with a number and tell me this is how much you have to pay us. And what could you do? You had to pay. But not anymore.”

“What about Bitcoin?”

“Before El Salvadore was only known for its crime rates, mafia and trafficking. Nobody really knew anything about us. Nowadays, if you say El Salvador, people think, oh, El Salvadore, you mean that Bitcoin country.” 

His attitude is quite representative. Most Salvadorans I encountered held their president in very high regard and only spoke in positives. In its capital, San Salvador, I met a tattoo artist who was quite supportive despite his business being impacted by Bukele’s policies. 

“Have you ever heard of MS-13?” he asks.

“Hm, no.”

“What? Really? I mean, well, it’s the most notorious gang in El Salvador, maybe in entire Latin America. Recently, Bukele banned certain symbols, tattoos that relate to gang membership.” 

“Like what?”

“Well, mostly numbers, number 13, gang hand gestures, clowns.” 

“Clowns? That sounds quite broad. Isn’t El Salvador committed to free speech, freedom of expression?”

“I mean, these are quite specific clown tattoos. Why would you get those if you’re not a gang member? I mean, tattooing was already quite taboo here, and now it’s even more so. Which is a shame, really. There’s so much great art and tattoo artists.” 

“I saw how Bukele decided to starve gang members that are already in locked prisons, by giving them very little food.” 

“Ha ha ha, yes I saw that as well, one tortilla a day, ha ha. I mean what can you do… country can’t move forward if it’s plagued by gangs and violence.”