3D-TOKEN: 3D Printing Cryptocurrency on the Blockchain

It’s official: the inevitable has happened. The blockchain hype has reached 3D printing, for better or for worse. Perhaps this is an ode to the advancement of 3D printing in the last few years, it is now considered a technology worthy of decentralizing. ICO’s (Initial Coin Offering) have been given a bad name in recent times due to the huge amount of scams, so we will tread carefully as we explain this one. This is perhaps the first serious 3D printing cryptocurrency.

The idea behind 3D-TOKEN, is integrating blockchain technology to create a global, decentralized ‘Just-In-Time Factory’ of local 3D printers around the world. This is perhaps a similar business model to 3D Hubs, the online 3D printing service. 3D-TOKEN was a project that came out of the Italian ‘Politecnico di Torino’ University, and aims to bring decentralized additive manufacturing worldwide.

Their thought process is this: there were over 270,000 desktop 3D printers available back in 2015, which has grown significantly since then. 3D-TOKEN believe if they can tap into this network of 3D printers, they can manage a ‘network hub’ of these 3D printers on the blockchain.