This week we look into the Non-Fungible Token craze that has taken blockchain by storm. I chat with Patrick from NFT-maker.io who has created an easy way to mint NFTs on Cardano. We touch on copyright issues and his catalyst proposal to take his platform further.

News

Ethereum hard forks with the Berlin Update.

  • EIP-2565: ModExp Gas Cost
    • reduce the cost of the ModExp precompile. This will help calculate the gas prices.
  • EIP-2929: Gas cost increases for state access opcodes
    • will ‘increase’ certain gas costs when used for the first time in a transaction.;
  • EIP-2718: Typed Transaction Envelope
    • will introduce a new transaction module that will support multiple transactions;
  • EIP-2930: Optional access lists
    • will transaction type with optional access lists. This particular EIP will help alleviate some of the newly imposed gas prices from EIP-2929.

You can read more about Ethereum's Berlin Update from their official announcement or from Yahoo Finance's article about the upgrade.

We have a full write up of potential impact and community reaction to the Ethereum hard fork and progression to Ethereum 2.0.

Cryptocurrency Prices Drop as Bitcoin's Hashrate Drops Due to Blackout

Over the weekend we saw a massive drop in the cryptocurrency markets and rumours in regards to what the cause could have been. The most plausible that I've discovered related to Bitcoins Hashrate which dropped due to a blackout in Xinjiang province in China. There is a direct correlation to the hash rate which is produced to validate and Bitcoins price.

It's concerning to see who correlated they area and how centralised mining operations are for Bitcoin. Something that Cardano doesn't have an issue with since thousands of stake pool operators around the world are setting up relays around the world on low power infrastructure.

Bitcoins hash rate drop in 2017

 

What Is An NFT (Non Fungible Token)

NFT stands for non-fungible token. It is a type of unique digital asset created on the blockchain and has its ownership managed on the blockchain. The majority of the NFTs created are digital but there are use cases for physical NFTs such as unique collectables and even domain names.

In the physical art world, specialists will appraise an art piece to determine if it is authentic. In the crypto space, this is done automatically with the data that is linked from the minted NFT and what wallet it is stored in on the blockchain. The owner of the wallet is the owner of the NFT and has access to sell or transfer the asset to another person's wallet.

With the Mary hard fork at the beginning of March on Cardano, we saw tokens or coins along with Non Fungible Tokens start to appear. If you look at the website Cardano Assets, we can see all of the assets that have been minted on Cardano. Over 1,164,760 tokens have been minted on Cardano at the time of writing the show notes.

How Are NFTs Stored

You can find NFTs stored on various blockchains including Ethereum, VeChain and of course Cardano. When a token is minted on the blockchain, only one unique token is minted and recorded. That token can then be stored in a wallet address which again, can be seen and verified on the blockchain.

Can You Trade NFTs?

Yes, you can transfer the ownership of a NFT in the same way you can transfer cryptocurrency tokens from one wallet address to another. Use a wallet app such as Metamask for Ethereum or Daedalus for Cardano, view the NFT that you want to transfer and start the sending process to another wallet address.

How To Sell Your NFTs on Cardano

Cardano currently doesn't have smart contracts which makes it a little harder to automatically transfer assets. You could send ADA directly to an owner of an NFT that you are buying from but there are no guarantees that the owner will release the NFT to you.

Upcoming platforms such as https://www.cnft.io/ will allow you to resell your NFTs to others that may wish to purchase them. Unfortunately, we will have to wait for smart contracts to appear later this year to ensure assets are moved safely and smoothly.

For the time being, there is a CNFT Discord server where you can participate in channel auctions and allow an escrow service to provide the transfer of ADA for the digital asset that you may be wanting to sell.

There have been many NFT pre-sales on Cardano lately. Some have been highly successful, some have been plagued with issues. Many of these issues smart contracts can solve.

Interview with Patrick Tobler from NFT-maker.io

Patrick joins me on the podcast to talk about non fungible tokens and the artwork that is being sold on the Cardano network.

We talk about what NFTs are and how NFTs differ on Cardano compared to Ethereum based NFTs with Smart Contracts and high fees.

We find out how to create a NFT and the features that can be added to the NFT via its metadata and how the NFT-Maker.io website makes that process so much easier.

Patrick talks about his Catalyst proposal and where that will take his project next. The funding will help with the faster development of the project but won't stop it if it doesn't happen.

You can follow Patrick on Twitter and you can create an NFT on his website NFT-Maker.io.