Companies have entered the market to search for BTC, and big players have DeFi platforms. So what options do ordinary users have? The answer is NFT!
Most people always follow their feelings. Some people say that DeFi in 2020 will be crazy and outdated, but if you look at the data, you will know that DeFi today is a hundred times more popular than last year. And this year has only passed two. Therefore, we can’t judge the trend of blockchain by “feeling”. Any industry has a cyclical effect. If you want to keep up with the pace of this emerging field, you must pay attention to the iconic ones. An event of progressive significance. Drive the entire industry to break through the real circle and start the next stage.
Beginning in 2021, this qualitative change is taking place in the NFT field. Here will take you through reviewing events in the NFT field in the past two months that have the significance of a weathervane, and analyze the meaning behind them, so that everyone will not miss a new round of events. Advantage train.
The underlying technology of the blockchain
The blockchain is essentially a special database structure, a time-stamped information ledger. The innovation of the blockchain lies in its distributed ledger, that is to say, it exists in many interrelated copies, eliminating the need for the central authority to commission the link, and does not need to rely on museums, governments, banks and other institutions as entrustable Custodian.
In addition, a financial structure has been established on the distributed ledger of the blockchain to reward and incentivize people to keep the copy of the ledger updated. By solving the problems on the blockchain, users can get cryptocurrency, Bitcoin and other currencies in return. Therefore, it is not difficult to see that, fundamentally, blockchain is a knowledge technology. Of course, this technology is still being adjusted, with many risks and challenges.
From a methodological point of view, it is difficult to evaluate whether blockchain is a static technology, not only because it is the epitome of complex interdisciplinary dynamics such as art management, but also because blockchain is a new technology that has just emerged. There is no supporting social science research method. Although empirical research on blockchain has emerged in the financial field, surveys, statistics, and analysis in the art field tend to describe past adoption or current attitudes. But there is no doubt that this technology has the potential to make earth-shaking changes in the field of art.
Next, this article will conduct an in-depth analysis of how blockchain technology empowers art, the impact of entrepreneurship in the field of digital art, and the challenges it faces.
Although many people think that Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper and the introduction of the Bitcoin blockchain introduced blockchain technology, in fact, Bitcoin has appeared earlier. There are eight footnotes in Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper. There are three footnotes written by Stuart Haber and Scott Stornetta. The blockchain time stamp structure mentioned in them is 20 years earlier than the publication of the white paper.
After Satoshi Nakamoto introduced a mining mechanism, a wave of cryptocurrencies was ushered in. In 2014, Vitalik Buterin introduced the Ethereum protocol, a smart contract structure that allows tokenization. Unlike the original blockchain protocol Bitcoin (which requires users to master more functional mechanisms), Ethereum has introduced a simpler interface and introduced a token structure to exercise financial functions. Ethereum has also made some of Bitcoin’s scripting languages universal, allowing it to run on multiple types of programs.
Over time, some of these procedures — smart contracts — have become standardized, such as ERC-20 (Homogeneous Token Protocol) and ERC-721 (Non-Homogeneous Token Protocol). Non-homogeneous tokens are the foundation of digital collectibles, such as Cryptokitties, which enables each artwork to reflect its unique characteristics.
Although blockchain technology is still developing, it is likely to have far-reaching effects like other technological revolutions that have triggered large-scale changes in society. In the near future, the development of blockchain may have a profound impact on art historians, artists, protectors, collectors, distributors, museums, cultural assets and creative industry ecosystems in a relatively short period of time.
How does blockchain reshape digital art?
The core applications of blockchain in the art field include provenance verification, authenticity records, digital scarcity of new media and generative art, fragmented ownership and shared ownership, and new forms of copyright records. Smart contracts based on Ethereum also bring more investment options-introducing innovative intellectual property structures.
In traditional art, in order to prepare an art exhibition, galleries need to spend a lot of time researching the provenance of works. The cost of review is included in the gallery fee structure such as commissions. But the blockchain technology brings far more than the cost reduction, and its provenance can even determine whether the work can be successfully sold.
In the future, the blockchain can solve the problems of lack of documentary records and the need for proof of ownership, making full use of the potential power of unalterable and decentralized records. If the blockchain database becomes a property registration office that can prove the legal ownership, then the legal ownership of the work cannot be separated from the proof of the provenance of the blockchain.
This also means that without the blockchain recording the transfer, the ownership of the artwork cannot be transferred. Even if the market wants a work to be sold “off-chain”, the next-level market has the right to decide whether to recognize the right to sell the work.
The most important thing is that blockchain records can not only play the role of proof, but also serve as a trusted source database. Blockchain records do not have to immediately prove the authenticity of the work, and can also include information reviewed by human experts.
For example, Verisart, established in 2015, provides a reliable database for proof of works of art; Artory, an Ethereum company, provides collectors with authoritative certificates for blockchain encryption; Codex Protocol uses BidDex tokens to store information released by collectors .
Verisart, Artory, and Codex are now facing the problem of managing the “blockchain air gap”, which is the difference between blockchain works and physical artworks. In order to link the two, various companies have begun a variety of explorations, including physical labeling, DNA analysis, fingerprint recording and so on. Some blockchain digital artwork applications may be able to solve these problems.
Another core challenge for digital art transactions handled by blockchain is how to create limited editions of reproducible works. The art world is a field that values novelty, scarcity, and originality. It is closely related to the value of the work, and copy and paste is obviously causing damage.
In addition to achieving digital scarcity through versions, blockchain also allows fragmented or shared ownership of individual artworks. From a collector’s point of view, fragmenting the ownership of a single artwork can diversify the ways in which works are held. From an artist’s point of view, selling tokens or retaining equity can achieve the effect of obtaining resale copyright fees, which is very different from the traditional art trading market.
Although these blockchain applications will provide new ways to prove copyright and reflect the collaborative nature of creation, these applications are still speculative in nature; at the same time, these applications will drastically subvert certain investment and rights management methods.
NFT becoming mainstream
The blockchain world is online, and NFT also started online, but unlike the past, there have been many celebrities and billionaires who have moved to the NFT ecosystem this year. With their blessings, the popularity of NFT searches instantly exploded.
Mark Cuban started from scratch and is worth 4.2 billion U.S. dollars. He has played baseball cards and collected stamps just a few hours later. He is very aware of scarce and limited items. When he was tired of buying BTC, he began to turn his attention to NFT. Currently he is not only collecting NFTs himself, but also issuing his own NFTs on Rarible, limited to 10 pieces, one of which was successfully sold at auction for 35 ETH.
Logan Paul loves the Pikachu collector card. Although he is a boxer, he is more famous in the Pikachu collector circle today. Last year he spent 200,000 US dollars on Pikachu cards, and this year he spent another 2 million US dollars on Pikachu cards. These cards have not been opened yet. The unpacking live broadcast event is expected to be held on February 27 this year. But before that, he Also participated in the NFT ecology, through Bondly to make personal NFT, his NFT series sales brought in 5 million US dollars in revenue.
Chamath Palihapitiya is a venture capitalist worth 1 billion US dollars. His foresight allowed him to start acquiring BTC in 2012. In an interview with TV recently, he said that he is collecting valuable NFTs and will announce it to the world in the near future. People know that he is very optimistic about the prospects of NFT, saying that NFT is a new field of digital assets.
CROSS
As the hottest rookie in the NFT field, CROSS recently opened a blind box game called mystery Box to improve the quality and functions of the platform’s NFT. The first phase of mystery Box will launch 4 pairs of joint Chinese Year of the Ox NFTs that cooperate with well-known projects in the circle. Each work is equipped with a blind box, but only one blind box contains 0.5 BTC equivalent CVT Bonus. Within the specified time, after the winning user obtains the NFT works, they can choose to auction again, or they can choose to open the blind box to see if they have won the prize. It is expected to hold a period every two weeks, and each period will provide at least 0.5 BTC equivalent CVT bonus, so that CROSS liquidity and financial attributes can be superimposed. For the successful blind box works, 10% of the proceeds from the auction will be donated to domestic and overseas charities for charitable purposes.
On January 13, CROSS officially launched the Huobi ecological chain Heco, and was in the top three of the Heco popularity list 3 days before the launch. Users can go to the Heco project tracking platform Defibox to view the data;
On February 1, CROSS v1.0 updated the mobile terminal and Chinese and Korean, and adapted the DApp channel of huobi wallet and BitKeep wallet. The number of users increased by 10,000 the next day. At this time, CROSS only went online for three weeks;
On February 5th, the number of user addresses on the CROSS platform exceeded 100,000, the number of 24-hour website hits was 260,000+, and the number of access wallets was 20,000+. The online day happened to be the fourth week of the launch. Because of the influx of 100,000 users, the number of NFT issuances and auctions has increased by 370% compared to the previous three weeks.
On February 07, the number of user addresses on the CROSS platform exceeded 150,000;
On February 9th, the number of user addresses on the CROSS platform exceeded 200,000. At the same time, the Hi Go Red Envelope Week event jointly organized with Heco set a record high of 11,000 bids on the same day;
On February 13, the CROSS platform was officially launched for one month, and the number of user addresses reached 230,000.
The Future
Blockchain has just arrived, but its vitality is extraordinary, and the speed of advancing development and problem solving is beyond the reach of many technologies. In addition to subverting the art market, blockchain technology may also use art to open up other investment methods.
Non-homogeneous tokens can make collectibles investment like art investment. If CROSS can be accepted by more people as works of art, museums and other public-facing art entities may subvert the public’s perception of the value of art. When these works enter the market, they will learn from the front-runners in this field and gain artistic rebirth.
