, is a special column for us to observe and analyze projects in the Polkadot ecosystem from the perspective of different ecological niches. Polkadot is a highly scalable project that can accommodate many ecological niches,
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Polkadot Ecological Observation, is a special column for us to observe and analyze projects in the Polkadot ecosystem from the perspective of different ecological niches. Polkadot is a highly scalable project that can accommodate many ecological niches,background. Only by having a clearer understanding of Polkadots ecological development, as an investor, participant or developer, can we better grasp the dividends of Polkadots ecological development. (This article will inevitably involve projects, and it is only used as an expression of opinions in the article, not as any other suggestions.)
background
From Encryption Kitties in 2017 to NBA Top Shot in 2021,The change of NFT can be described as another growth curve in the encryption world, and what is surprising is that NFTs out of the circle this year seems to have suddenly changed from no one cares about it to a deserted alley. From artworks, to music, to copyrights, and even some luxury goods, NFTs are unprecedented. The gesture appeared in the public eye.
And last week, CNN and Fox Broadcasting began experiments in the NFT field. An NFT featuring CNNs Fortune Moments That Changed Us chronicles noteworthy moments in history being recorded on the Flow blockchain. And Fox Broadcasting, in partnership with its subsidiary BentoBox Entertainment, has launched a $100 million fund.
The momentum of NFT is sweeping all walks of life, and currently the NFT on Ethereum is the most dazzlingAfter all, more than 80% of NFT works have appeared on Ethereum, which is also the charm of ERC721. After all, the earliest NFT was born from this standard, and it will inevitably attract the attention of latecomers.
Although the blockchain industry already has a public chain like Flow that focuses on the NFT track, other public chains will still enter this track. After all, in the days of big water and big fish, no one can be sure that they must Can be the last player who jumps the carp over the dragons gate.
Of course, as the current hot Polkadot ecology, NFT has also swept through many projects, and in this article we will focus on explaining for youConstruction and development of NFT in Polkadot ecology, for your understanding and learning.
What exactly are NFTs?
What are NFTs?
What are NFTs?
As we all know, a token is a smart contract built on the existing blockchain, and NFT is also a type of token, which is the abbreviation of Non-Fungible Token, that is, a non-homogeneous token. Different from Fungible Token (homogeneous token),NFT is non-tamperable, indivisible, irreplaceable and unique。
Our common Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polkadot, etc. are all Fungible Tokens, and the same kind of tokens can replace each other and be split.
Here we give the most straightforward example. If a person named Alice has 5 DOTs, there is no difference between the 5 DOTs. Alice can give 0.5 DOT to Bob, or give him any DOT when Bob buys 1 DOT from her. These undifferentiated and divisible DOTs are Fungible Tokens.
That is to say,
That is to say,NFT is actually a programmable token with traceable and confirmed rights, non-divisible, non-tamperable and valuable. This type of token has unique data and attributes, just like the stamps collected by philatelists, each has different charm and value, and cannot be split (tearing is invalid).
The origin of NFT
The emergence of NFT is not a coincidence. As early as 2013, some artists tried to use Bitcoin transaction scripts in the form of ASCII character paintings. In order to seek the benefits brought by blockchain technologyThe advantages of non-tampering, decentralization, security and privacy protection, to change the predicament that the art field faced at that time, while the brokers were sitting on mountains of gold and silver, but the artists were poor, and to solve a series of troubles caused by piracy.
However, due to the limitations of the technology at the time, such applications were not developed. Until 2017,Ethereum launched the token standard ERC721, so that each ERC721-based standard under the smart contract has an independent number of type uint256, so that they can have unique properties and correspond to unique items.
Larva Labs, who quickly believed that the token standard ERC721 can power most digital art and collectibles, developed a set of pixel avatar projects called CryptoPunks, with a total of 10,000, which will be claimed by those who have Ethereum wallets. So far, 9446 CryptoPunks have been circulated in the secondary market, and CryptoPunks #7804 has sold for a high price of 7.57 million US dollars.
Just 6 months after the release of CryptoPunks, the small game Cryptokitties developed by Dapper Labs quickly became popular, setting off a craze for Cryptokitties and detonating the entire NFT market.
Since then, more and more NFTs have entered our field of vision, whether it is the NFT works of Beeple, a digital artist who is talked about by everyone, Every Day: The First 5000 Days was sold at Christies, a world-renowned auction house, for 450 million The sky-high price of RMB, or NBA TOP SHOT, turned the star card from a niche game into a national carnival.
And whether it is the NFT for Good one-stop open digital art charity donation platform promoted by Binance, or the Ethernity Chain, which aims to build the worlds largest NFT identity verification library and provide funds for charitable organizations.
NFT is no longer just a concept, but has truly become a part of our lives。
What is the significance of NFT
So what is the significance of NFT?
The meaning of NFT is actually taken apart, we can write another long article, here we will briefly talk about one of our main understandings of NFT.
To be clear, many friends may think that NFT is only a small section compared to the entire blockchain field, and compared with DeFi, its volume is far behind.
But in our opinion, NFT is actually a big direction, how big is it?NFT can compete with FT, and DeFi is only a part of the FT field. NFT+FT is like Tai Chi Yin Yang,Only the combination of the two is the expression of all values in the complete digital world, and this is the greatest significance of NFT. Therefore, for NFT, everyone can enjoy it, and its future value is unlimited.
The development and classification of NFT
Without accumulating steps, there is no way to reach a thousand miles, the development of NFT is not achieved overnight. From 2017 to the present, after a long period of standard evolution and category differentiation, it is now a thriving scene. In order to let everyone have a more comprehensive understanding of NFT, we only give a brief description of the evolution and classification of NFT standards.
Standard Evolution of NFT
As mentioned above,The emergence of NFT stems from the launch of the token standard ERC721. ERC is the abbreviation of Ethereum Request for Comments, which is the standard proposal submitted by Ethereum developers. The following number represents the serial number. After public deliberation, it will become an improvement proposal of Ethereum and one of the general standards of Ethereum.
NFT originated from EIP-721 (Ethereum Implementation Proposal 721) at the end of 2017. This standard is also the first standard for NFT on Ethereum. It was created and released by Dieter Shirley, CTO of CryptoKitties, the most popular NFT project in 2017. Yes, he invented ERC721 and created the most popular NFT project based on it. One of the projects that can be described as brilliant.certainly,。
certainly,ERC721 is not perfect, it is limited to building NFT and has certain limitations, For building complex NFT-based games, ERC721 is obviously not good enough, so more and more standards that are inclined to NFT are constantly being proposed. ERC1155 released by Enjin in 2019 is another well-known NFT standard.
ERC1155 seems to have opened up the top masters of the two lines of Ren and Du, enabling NFT and FT to coexist in this standard and transform each other, while also bringing a new concept of semi-homogeneous tokens.ERC1155 supports localization of all metadata languages, making all tokens universal, instead of only supporting one language like ERC721, and a smart contract can accommodate countless types of tokens without causing data waste, it can also support batch transmission of multiple token IDs in a single transaction, and in the legacy Metadata, ID replacement, and many other things have been improved.
ERC1155 is like an evolution of ERC721, more powerful and efficient.
However, it is not only the token standard of Ethereum that can build NFT. Polkadot also launched the RMRK specification for building NFT, and the birth of the RMRK specification opened the door to a new world of NFT.
In addition to the most basic functions of sending, minting, burning, listing, and purchasing, the RMRK specification brings a new interaction mode. Namely EQUIP/UNEQUIP (equip child NFT into parent slot), SET (set custom value on NFT), RESADD (add new resource to NFT as issuer of set), REACCEPT (accept new resource added to Existing NFTs). And it makes it possible to nest NFT, multi-resource NFT, conditionally render NFT and NFT DAO.
The RMRK specification makes the NFT in the hands of users no longer just a pass, but becomes the basis for building the metaverse. Users can create NFTs that own other NFTs, and allow specific NFTs to display different states and visual effects under different conditions. It is even possible for the same NFT to be recognized by Audible, Kindle, and Opensea in different states such as audio and video. It is also possible to decompose homogeneous tokens according to the NFT, and the community determines the state and circulation of a certain NFT.
And we also believe thatIn the future, there will be more advanced NFT standards, and it will inject a steady stream of vitality into NFT.
Development of NFT ecology
At the same time, the entire NFT ecosystem has also started from the very beginningA single game NFT and art NFT have developed into multiple directions such as public chains, DApps, and assets.ecosystem.
The origin of NFT comes from Ethereum. There is no doubt that the most active and oldest NFT public chain is still Ethereum. More than 70% of the projects are developed on Ethereum. However, its high Gas fee is not friendly to high-frequency transactions. User experience Poor user experience is not good for retaining and expanding new users. So we have multiple NFT public chains such as Flow, Wax, and Efinity.
Among them, Efinity is a Polkadot-based scalable NFT cross-chain network built by Enjin, namelyIt guarantees the improvement of throughput and transaction speed, and also ensures the interaction and communication between NFTs based on different public chains.It provides a good platform for the development of NFT.
NFT-related DApps are no longer limited to game NFTs. DApps in the NFT ecosystem have made great progress in art NFTs, game NFTs, NFT platforms, and even the combination of NFTs and DeFi. And gradually lead the entire encryption field.
Plasm, a solution based on Polkadot Layer 2, launched the first NFT game DApp PolkaPet, which sold out 800 copies within 4 minutes, and built an NFT community in the Plasm ecosystem.It greatly reduces the transaction cost of NFT, realizes the cross-chain of NFT and enhances its ease of use.Plasm can bind wallets to Twitter, greatly lowering the threshold for users.
The asset direction that NFT first developed has gradually matured. Rook Perfumes, a British perfume company, created Perfume DAO. Participants can participate in the creation of perfumes by purchasing NFT; Porsche Digital subsidiary Forward 31 launched Fanzone, an NFT start-up company, and released German football team player cards to expand support for football leagues; TechCrunch founder , Cryptocurrency investor Michael Arrington sold his apartment in Kiev, Ukraine under the name of NFT.
No matter in the short term or in the medium and long term, the NFT ecology is still developing.Developers and creators will create a steady stream of new NFT use cases beyond imagination。
The development of Polkadot NFT
At present, the NFT of Polkadot ecology has just started, and each project party is still in the state of staking the land, exploring different fields of NFT respectively.Some are innovative to the NFT standard, some want to create an NFT market, some build an NFT public chain, and some create a virtual world based on NFTTo obtain the official Grant (subsidy), we can briefly understand what kind of exploration NFT projects in the Polkadot ecosystem are currently doing.
Bit.Country
Bit.Country is a decentralized Eternal Metaverse. Users can create their own Bit Country, Blocks, Subdivison and Items as encrypted collectibles and non-homogeneous tokens (NFTs). In this world, users will have their own trading market, NFTs, community tokens, fan economy and 3D virtual world. In the era of decentralized Web3.0, anyone can create their own metaverse, community and economy on the blockchain network as their own small metaworld (Bit Country).
Unique Network
Unique Network is an NFT public chain designed based on Polkadot and Kusama. Through an open-source component library, anyone can customize the NFT minting scheme, and avoids problems such as high gas fees on Ethereum.
RareLink Network
The RareLink protocol creates an infrastructure for dynamic NFTs, enabling cross-chain transfers and powering new decentralized finance (DeFi) applications. Dynamic NFTs are permanent smart contracts that use oracles to communicate and react to external data and systems. Oracles allow NFTs to use external data/systems as a mechanism for minting/burning NFTs, peer-to-peer transactions, and checking status, which can respond to real-world events.
NFTMart
NFTMart is a fully scalable, decentralized, cross-chain trading platform based on an independent public chain. It is also the first professional decentralized NFT trading market with an independent main chain.
DNFT Protocol
DNFT Protocol is a Substrate-based cross-chain decentralized NFT asset network, dedicated to creating a new generation of NFT protocols. It aims to create a decentralized NFT and game center to provide support for cross-chain applications of Polkadot and Substrate ecology.
CryptoGraph
CryptoGraph is a one-of-a-kind digital collectible created by icons and artists, and always supporting good deeds. At the heart of the Cryptograph platform is the desire to incentivize creators and support philanthropy in a model that permanently aligns the interests of creators, collectors, and our platform.
Starry Network
A functional NFT protocol. The Starry protocol now includes batch minting/transfers of NFTs, composable tokens (Graph Tokens), divisible NFTs, and Moloch DAO with added NFT tributes. It is the first project on Polkadot to support batch minting, the first project to support combinable tokens, the first project to support sharding tokens, and the first project to fully support Moloch DAO.
DEGO Finance
DEGO is the Lego building block of the decentralized world. Through the diversified combination of NFT+DeFi, an ideal decentralized financial ecology is built. DEGO adopts the concept of modular combination design, combining various elements of the product to form a general-purpose module with specific functions, and by combining with other modules to create a new system with multiple functions and performances, like Lego blocks to achieve 1+1>2 effect, and produce infinite possibilities.
Gamepower
Gamepower is the first fully decentralized game publishing platform built on Kusama and Polkadot. Discover new games with the freedom to trade users digital games and acquire rare collectibles with real-world value.
Of course, except for the above projects that have received official Grant support. There are also some NFT projects that have not obtained the official Grant, some of which have not passed the official review, and some projects do not need to obtain the blessing of Grant. Efinity is a project worthy of attention among the latter.
The future development trend of NFT
The development of native assets on the chain (metaverse direction)
Metaverse, which is called Metaverse in English, originated from the science fiction novel Avalanche written by writer Neal Stephenson. It describes a world in which people interact with various software in three-dimensional space with avatars.
According to Wikipedia, the metaverse refers toA collective virtual shared space created by the aggregation of a virtual augmented physical reality and a physically persistent virtual space, including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the Internet, connected by a persistent, shared 3D virtual space to a perceivable virtual universe. If you find it complicated, you might as well simply understand it as a universe composed of virtual spaces.
The term Metaverse is composed of Meta and Universe, which means beyond and universe respectively. We can understand that there is only one universe in reality, but in virtual space, we can Create countless different virtual universes, which is the Metaverse beyond the real universe. So,The Metaverse Is Considered the Future of the Internet。
However, according to this description,The metaverse is not limited to the blockchain, and existing Internet technologies can also be used to build parts of the metaverse. In fact, in terms of the Internet, some capital has already made the first step and started investing in the Metaverse field. Just in March this year, Roblox, a sandbox game platform, was the first to"Metaverse"The banner of Roblox was inserted on the New York Stock Exchange, and on the first day of listing, it broke through 40 billion US dollars, instantly detonating the capital circle, and behind Roblox is the figure of Tencent, a global game giant. Subsequently,Many game manufacturers and game-related industries have also announced their entry into the blue ocean of the Metaverse, Nvidia, the well-known game company Epic Games, Facebook, Microsoft, ByteDance and other giants were not to be outdone, and soon Metaverse became a favorite of capital.
However, a lawsuit between Tencent and the DD373 game trading platform in May this year has aroused our thinking. We will not go into who is right and who is wrong in this lawsuit, mainly because of what Tencent said in its defense, The ownership of the game account does not belong to the player, but to the game manufacturer.”sparked extensive discussionso,
so,The decentralized metaverse is the direction with the most development potential in the future, because everyone hopes that the time we spend in the virtual space is meaningful and valuable just like in the movie Ready Player One, and the virtual assets we obtain should also be valuable and belong to us.
Naturally,The technology that can carry decentralized virtual assets is the cryptocurrency and NFT of the native assets on the chain. Although the development of the metaverse is still very early, some projects that combine the properties of the metaverse, such as 3D virtual space display, native NFT assets, and token economy design, are gradually exploring new possibilities. As some technologies related to the Metaverse, such as AR/VR, smart devices, and 5G, gradually mature, and more creators and capital accumulate in this field,The decentralized metaverse will definitely lead a new waveAt that time, NFT and cryptocurrency will once again put on Chinese costumes and stand on the stage of history。
The development of off-chain entity integration
In addition to the NFT on the chain, the non-homogeneity attribute of NFT has also attracted the attention of many traditional enterprises, and they have tried toUsing its own influence combined with NFT to obtain new growth points。
NBA Top Shot belongs to the old business model on the chain, and can enjoy the convenience brought by the blockchain. NBA Top Shot is an NFT-based application. It is a blockchain-based digital collection game launched by NBA officials and Dapper Labs, the team behind Crypto Kitties. Users can buy, sell and collect officially authorized digital collections. It contains iconic moments from various players.
And this app can quickly gain dozens or even millions of users, and it can have a monthly turnover of hundreds of millions of dollars in February and March of 2021, because it has a foundation. The NBA has physical star cards before, which itself has a huge mass base. The NBA Top Shot this time is equivalent to turning the physical cards with patterns into digital collectibles with videos. Compared with only pictures, the stars iconic Moments are clearly more collectible,And NFT has many advantages over physical cards. Physical card transactions must be done offline. This alone limits its liquidity. On the other hand, NFT can do itAnyone in the world can trade anytime, anywhere, and there are almost no thresholds at the transaction level。
Secondly, physical cards are easy to counterfeit, and how to identify the authenticity is a time-consuming and laborious technical task. It even gave birth to a professional market collection platform like Beckett Media, which has been operating for nearly 40 years. It can be seen that such demand and market cannot be underestimated. butNFT can be easily verified on the chain, so there is no such anti-counterfeiting problem。
And just after being on-chain, the old business model lowered the transaction threshold, anti-counterfeiting costs, and released liquidity. This is the truth of NBA Top Shot. From this it can be seen thatThe old business model is on the chain, and you can get the advantages of NFT, so as to rejuvenate the second spring, it belongs to a set of solutions that have been proven feasible, and it is worth learning and exploring for existing traditional enterprises. For example, it can be further extended to sell some rights or certificates as NFTs. We can even see VIP qualifications sold as NFTs, or rented, or rights such as Buffett’s dinner qualifications as NFTs. We can use One day a certain star will be sold out, and the fan economy will be played, and so on.
Of course, this is only a small application direction of off-chain entity enterprises combined with NFT. After all, this is just the renovation of the old city, and it has not yet involved the field of traditional enterprises using NFT to explore new business models. Due to space limitations, we will not expand too much here. NFT is a large field, and we will Continuously analyzing and decomposing, we can look forward to our follow-up interpretation of NFT.
Both affect each other
If the NFT assets on the chain can be regarded as an expression of decentralization, and the NFT combined with off-chain entities can be regarded as an extension of centralization, then we need to face up to a point of view that,We must look at the development of technology and business inclusively, not eitherpostscript
postscript
Although NFT has experienced a slight cooling after the hype of the past six months,but thisIt will not affect the development of NFT in other industries, We see that more and more traditional companies have begun to set foot in the NFT market. Whether it is traditional retail companies or Internet technology companies, they have extended their interest hands to the NFT market.
At this stage, NFT on Ethereum is the most well-known, but the cross-chain problem of NFT also plagues the development of the industry. In addition to cross-chain projects like Polkadot, other public chains are also exploring the cross-chain of NFT The problem is that this article does not discuss it, but this direction also deserves our attention.
As for who can become the dark horse or king of the NFT track in the Polkadot ecosystem, it is actually still very early. After all, Polkadot has just begun, which requires us to spend more time observing and practicing.Perhaps more unique NFT projects or products will be born in the Polkadot ecosystem, This is the possible change Polkadot ecology can bring to NFT.
, reply Join the group and add friends to the group.
In view of the endless emergence of Polkadot ecological projects, but the inferior projects and scam projects are full of them, it is worthy of vigilance. On the other hand, it is difficult for groups only on the Polkadot project side to understand the whole picture of the entire ecological development of Polkadot, and miss many opportunities.
Therefore, we decided to establish a Polkadot ecological group, which can openly discuss all Polkadot ecological projects. Everyone can objectively share their views on each project, understand the development of each Polkadot project, and exchange information to seize opportunities together.
Pay attention to the official account"Polkadot Ecological Research Institute", reply Join the group and add friends to the group.
