The Current State of Non-Fungible Tokens and Plans for Integration [IMO]

“IMO” is an upcoming publication by The Creative Crypto that looks to illustrate and integrate the emerging work surrounding creativity in the blockchain space. This article series will explore our processes of ideation and creation over the next several months. Read more about the full scope of the project here.

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Let’s Get NFTY In Here

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have always had a special place on The Creative Crypto, marking one of the most significant and most used developments in the blockchain space. Put simply, NFTs are scarce digital assets that can be verified by a blockchain. There are already a number of protocols in use, mostly on the Ethereum blockchain, and current projects are only beginning to scratch the surface with the first ever technology that unmistakably proves ownership.

We began exploring these types of tokens months back when we invited resident NFT expert Brian Flynn to contribute his weekly newsletters as main articles on the magazine (example). After our first introduction into the category during the flare-up of CryptoKitties, we began to understand the more diverse use cases of these assets for games, collectibles, puzzles, and much more. A large part of the IMO initiative is to experiment with the possibilities of NFTs thus far and project more scenarios for use.

If you’ve been in the crypto space for a little while, you’ve probably bumped into an NFT or two whether you’re a collector or not. CryptoKitties set the world on fire back in late 2017, and that blaze has led to the diverse popularity of dozens of other collectibles including Axie Infinity and Everdragons. The rolling snowball is now massive with platforms integrating multiple NFTS (i.e. OpenSea) and new NFTs even being nestled under existing ones (KittyHats). The types of collectibles and games are diversifying by the day and methods for appreciating their value are smoothing out.

To this date, much of the focus has been to create compelling digital assets or tokenize existing ones such as digital art or even physical items. Here are some of the main ‘techniques’ for tokenizing the development of IMO -

• Creating scarce copies of custom art. IMO will be filled with unique artistic work, created only for the book and for its readers. Naturally, we want to take advantage of the NFT marketplaces to share each creative element in diverse ways. We won’t just be throwing all of our art and design components onto one marketplace. Instead, we’ll look at the qualities and nature of several of them to list the varying elements of the book. Readers can collect rare and high-quality copies of work contained in IMO.

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• Tokenizing ‘collectible’ content. New platforms are beginning to allow the creation of unique NFTs derived from particular things and data. For example, Marblecards creates unique algorithmic patterns to make NFTs from specific website addresses. By tokenizing subsections of content, we’ll be able to gamify the collecting and assembly of chapters to play with revealing levels of material.

• Tokenizing the physical book. Certain companies like Blockchain Art Collective are making it easy to tokenize physical things onto the blockchain, taking something that had no relation to the technology and giving it a unique identity and verifiable ownership. Platforms like Codex further increase the value and liquidity of those assets by registering the limited special-edition copies onto their system.

• Treasure hunts. Coin Artist made quite a name for herself when she created a puzzle that took 3 years to solve and ultimately appreciated to a $50,000 prize. This concept has inspired us to create stores of value, hidden under treasure hunts and puzzling tasks to capture to potential of using wallets and keys creatively. We’ll be producing not only IMO as a stand alone volume, but tools to explore the book itself and discover the hidden items inside.

We’ll be exploring each of these use-cases and more (because of course, we can’t just reveal all of ideas at once ;) ) as we brew up ways to tokenize the entire experience of a blockchain-based creative book. For more information on NFTs, we highly recommend reading this recent article by @decentraland.

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