INTRODUCTION

In this week's lecture by professor @imagen, he taught about different NFT markets and their features, as well as Etherscan, a block explorer for the Ethereum blockchain.

NFTs(Non-Fungible Tokens) have been a major source of interest and concern to many cryptocurrency enthusiasts and investors, as well as even normal folk who have no knowledge about cryptocurrency whatsoever. This is because they provide new opportunities and benefits that even major companies like the NBA have recognized.

I have answered the questions of the homework assignment below.

1.) Describe in depth the Nifty Gateway platform Who are its founders? What market or target is it aimed at?

^{Nifty Gateway}

Nifty Gateway is an NFT market place owned by Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange platform owned by the Winklevoss twins; Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss . It is a platform for the sale and acquisition of digital art and other collectibles in the form of Non-fungible tokens that was (coincidentally) founded by another set of twins in 2018; Duncan and Griffin Cock Foster, and was eventually sold to Gemini, as Gemini's first acquisition. The name Nifty seems to be a play on the acronym "NFT" and NFTs advertised on the market place are even referred to as Nifties (which could just be someone saying NFT really fast.)

This platform was set up to allow users to buy, sell, resell and trade NFTs, and has a "simple mission." "To make Nifties accessible to everyone" and they have designed their platform with this in mind, with prices being displayed in USD, and Nifty gateway being one of the NFT marketplaces where one can buy NFTs without cryptocurrency, through the use of bank cards. This, of course, can be a little expensive, however, it brings NFTs to their target audience, which is "everyone."

^{Most popular Nifties on Nifty Gateway with their prices displayed in USD}

The NFTs found on Nifty gateway are submitted to scrutinization and curation by teams of experienced personnel, known as Nifty teams. Added to the fact that in order to create and/or sell Nifties (as NFTs are so fondly referred to on the platform), one must fill out a questionnaire and be interviewed, this makes the NFTs on Nifty gateway high-grade and exclusive. However, this also makes sale of NFTs on the platform somewhat tedious.

Nifty gateway lists, and has sold, NFTs by popular NFT artists ranging from Beeple to FEWOCiOUS and many more. These NFTs can be digital art, music, short clips, and much more, and can be bought by different methods, including but not limited to auctioning, draw method, and basket sales.

Just like other NFT marketplaces, whenever an NFT is resold, 10% of the sale commission goes back to the NFT creator. This is after the original sale of the NFT by the creator. With this, NFT creators can continue to earn from their work.

It is important to note that Nifty gateway is a custodial NFT marketplace i.e. It is centralized and users have to store their NFTs on the platform in the Omnibus wallet¹. This has led to many raised eyebrows in the cryptocurrency sphere, especially as there was an incident of hacking of the accounts of some users in March 2021². However, this was due to the user's error in not enabling 2-factor authentication and carelessness in the handling of their keys. The security of the platform itself was not breached, and the transactions conducted by the hackers were reversed.

The Nifty gateway platform has gained a lot of popularity since its creation in 2018, and has even gained a partnership with British-founded American auction house, Sotheby's effective from March 2021.

2.) What are ERC-1155 tokens? How do they differ from ERC-20 and ERC-721 tokens?

^Source:

ERC-1155 tokens are cryptocurrency tokens founded on the Ethereum blockchain which facilitates deployment of smart contracts. To understand this, we must first understand what ERC tokens are.

ERC (Ethereum Request for Comments) tokens are tokens built on their respective standards on the Ethereum blockchain. ERC standards are basic formulations/templates of a list of rules which all tokens based on that standard must adhere to. There are quite a few well known ERC standards, including the ERC-20 and ERC-721, but now we will take a look at the ERC-1155 tokens and see what makes them different from these other ERC standards.

ERC-1155 tokens are a new type of standard tokens built on the ethereum blockchain, that are able to support both fungible, and non-fungible tokens. This token standard was developed by the devlopers of Enjin, a blockchain-based gaming platform, and is often referred to as "the next generation multi-token standard*." This is because of a few features ERC-1155 tokens possess that gives them an advantage over the more popular ERC-20 (used for most fungible tokens) and ERC-721(used for most NFTs).

Some of these features that make ERC-1155 tokens different from ERC-721, and ERC-20 tokens, and gives them an advantage over those two standards include:

1. Lower transaction cost: Gas fees for minting NFTs using ERC-721 can become quite expensive, especially when one needs to mint a good number of them. This is because one can only mint one NFT at a time with ERC-721. However, ERC-1155 cuts down gas fees by more than 90% by allowing one to mint more than one non-fungible token at a time, just like one can with an ERC-20 token.
2. Failed transaction reaction: With ERC-20 tokens, one of the major limitations is the loss of tokens due to user error. Whenever ERC-20 tokens are transferred to an invalid address, rather than return to their original store, they get trapped within the smart contract, and are, in essence, lost forever. However, with ERC-1155 tokens, when they are transferred to an invalid address, they will be returned to their original storage.
3. Incompatibility: ERC-20 and ERC-721 tokens are incompatible with one another. Most DApps make use of these two types of token, and because they are not compatible with one another, development of the DApps is more complex. ERC-1155 tokens become the easier to use option because they can act as both fungible, and non-fungible tokens under the same smart contract.

3.) Login to Etherscan. Please indicate the number of ERC-1155 tokens in existence at the time of writing your assignment. Indicate the first 5 tokens by volume of transactions in the last 24 hours. Indicate the Hash of the last transaction carried out and the identification of the token as well as its smart contract. Show Screenshots.

Etherscan is a blockchain explorer, which is "a tool that people use to view all cryptocurrency transactions online.^Source:"

---

In order to log in to Etherscan, we must first go to Etherscan:

• This is the homepage of the website. To log in, we then click on the "Sign in" button at the top right corner of this webpage.

• We are then directed to the page below, where we have to fill in our username and password to log in to the platform.

• For someone who has not registered on the platform, they would have to click on the sign up link at the bottom in order to sign up, and also fill in their details.

• After filling in the details needed, one would have to accept the terms and conditions and complete the captcha, then click on "Create an account". After doing that, a verification email will be sent to the person's email, and after verification, one can then login.

• After logging in, we are taken to an overview of our account, as shown above.

---

To check the number of ERC-1155 tokens available at the time of writing:

• Hover over the Tokens option at the top right area of the homepage.

• A drop down menu is displayed. Click on the "ERC1155 Top Tokens" option. This takes you to the webpage below.

• On this webpage we can see that the total number of ERC1155 tokens at the time of writing is 18,389. We can also see a table containing the top tokens according to 24hr trading volume. Among these the top 5 are:

S/N	Token	Transfers (24H)	Transfers (7D)
1	OpenSea Shared Storefront (OPENSTORE)	17,752	97,372
2	Zapper NFT V2	1,631	1,635
3	Zapper NFT (ZPR_NFT)	1,317	4 ,942
4	Rekt Anniversary Tickets	1,112	1,112
5	Rarible (RARI)	914	5,824

---

To see the last ERC-1155 transaction:

• Hover over the Tokens option at the top right area of the homepage.

• A drop down menu is displayed. Click on the "View ERC1155 Transfers" option. This takes you to the webpage below.

• We can see the last transaction conducted at the top of the page. Clicking on the transaction takes us to the page below that shows us the details of the transaction.

• Some of the details of the transaction are:
  • Hash: 0x64e44d6e73942bb4c792ea11085dce82c6affae39037a76ca433c7eefc94ac53
  • Block: 13287335
  • Contract ID: 0x7be8076f4ea4a4ad08075c2508e481d6c946d12b (OpenSea).

4.) Enter the Enjin wallet. Describe the functions that it presents in its user interface. Enter the Marketplace: indicate the number of items for sale, indicate the first 3 items on the list and their description. Show Screenshots.

• To get the Enjin wallet, i go to the Enjin website.

• Scrolling down, we are shown links to download the Enjin wallet from the Google Play Store for Android phones, or the Apple App Store for iPhones.

• After downloading the wallet, opening it, we are shown this page.

• I click on "Open Wallet"

• I click on "Create Wallet" which brings up the Terms and Conditions pop up.

• After clicking on "I AGREE", we are directed to create a password. I couldn't take screenshots of that because of security reasons. Then we are taken to the page where we can select the coins we want to use in the wallet.

• After clicking on "Create Wallet", we are asked if we want to backup the wallet. I skip this.

• What we then see is the Main Wallet

• On this page of the app, we can see the different coins we have in our wallet, and the value of those tokens. Below the top toolbar, we can also see the combined value of our wallet, either in BTC or in our selected currency.
• In the top toolbar, at the top right we can see some icons, the first being that for contacts, the second icon for adding more token types to our wallets. and the final being the Options menu.
• At the left side of the top toolbar, we can see a sign indicating the "Main Wallet" which, when clicked on, pops up an option to view your wallets, and to create a new wallet. Beside that at the farthest left corner, we can see the three line menu.
• On clicking on this three line menu, we see the following:

• In the Assets page, we can see our list of owned collectibles.

• With the "Scan QR" option, we can scan QR codes to import wallets.
• In the Exchange page, we can swap tokens using different networks.

• When we click on the marketplace we are directed out of the app. I will explore the marketplace later.
• In the DAppspage, we can see a number of DApps that we can accesss on the Enjin wallet.

• The Linked Projects page shows us the projects we have linked to our wallet

• The Contact Support option takes us out of the wallet app to the support page of the wallet.

• And finally we have the settings.

---

• In the Enjin Marketplace, as we can see below, the number of items on sale at the time of writing this is 17,475

We can also see the top items on sale. These are:

1. Tears of Serenity
2. Nestables Founders Token
3. Origin

Tears of Serenity

Here's the full description:

We can also see some more information by scrolling down

Nestables Founders Token

Origin

5.) In your personal opinion, what is the future of the NFT Markets? Give reasons for your answer.

NFT markets have blown up in recent times. This has been because of the recent increase in interest of many individuals towards NFTs, including many celebrities and influential people. The future of NFT markets is then dependent on mass adoption of NFTs.

NFTs are becoming more popular because they have brought new options to the table for creators and consumers alike. For example, within the music industry, NFTs have been able to eliminate the middleman (which is one of the goals of cryptocurrency and decentralization at large), in the sale and publicisation of musical works from artistes. They can now sell their songs or compositions as NFTs, and will even earn 10% on every resale. This also applies to the visual art scene, with the elimination of conventional art galleries and so on.

^Source:

NFTs in the gaming industry also give gamers extra benefits, than in normal centralized gaming platforms, with players being able to directly own their skins, characters, and other in-game items, as well as potentially transfer, and use, them cross-game. With all these benefits increasing mass adoption of NFTs, the marketplaces have continued to increase in use as well, and have had to develop to fit user demand more effectively as well. A good example being Nifty gateway allowing users to buy NFTs without cryptocurrency, Rarible developing their user interface to be more welcoming, and even platforms that allow creators to mint NFTs without prior coding knowledge.

In my opinion, the world, as we know it, is evolving, and NFTs - and their marketplaces - are a part of that evolution. It would be wise to be a part of that evolution. Remember, The Trend is Your Friend. Thanks!

NB: All images were either taken from the respective websites, or designed by me using Canva.