Beyond CryptoKitties: pushing future usages of ERC-721 and NFT

NFTs, and the New ERC-721: exploring new application with Non-Fungible Tokens

Any goods or services capable of being represented in software can serve as a digital asset on a blockchain. These assets are then classified as fungible or non-fungible.

 

What is a NFT?

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) are a special type of tokens where each one represents something unique and thus the tokens are not interchangeable. Fungibility is a characteristic of an item (a token in this case) determining whether it can be completely interchangeable for an exchange or utility. Thus, a fungible object is something (for exemple one bitcoin) that can be replaced by another equal part or quantity in paying a debt or settling an account.

Non-Fungible Tokens are used to create verifiable digital scarcity.

The ERC-721 is the standard interface for Non-Fungible Tokens. In other words, ERC-721 is a set of rules to make your NFT easy for other people/apps/contracts to interface with. But don’t forget that you can have a NFT which is not ERC-721 compliant, but is still a perfectly valid and working NFT. This is the case with the recently appeared ERC-1155 standard.

NFTs are unique and distinctive tokens that you can mainly find on the Ethereum blockchain in the form of ERC-721 tokens, giving them individual identities and properties.

The dawn of Cryptokitties

Towards the end of 2017, NFTs made a sensational entrance in the blockchain world, notably with the success of cryptokitties. Each one is a unique collectible item, with its own serial number, which can be compared to its DNA card. It unleashed an unprecedented interest for NFTs, that even went so far as to clog the Ethereum network. Indeed, the cryptokitties market alone generated 12 million dollars in two weeks after its launch, and 25 million dollars in total. Some rare cryptokitties were even sold for 250 ETH.

The strength of NFTs resides in the fact that each token is unique and cannot be mistaken for another one– unlike bitcoins, for example, which are interchangeable with one another.

As mentioned in a medium story “dGames are the gateway dApp” published by Experimental, specialized in building blockchain-based games:

The dGame market is growing and attracting more users by the day.

Beyond Cryptokitties: future usages of ERC-721

Most of the time when people think about ERC-721 or NFT, they refer to the most notably successful CryptoKitties as the standard has been used as the backbone of this crypto-collectible online game. But there are many other usability applications for ERC-721 contracts.

ERC-721 can be used for software titles or software licences to guarantee anti-piracy, privacy and transferability, like Collabs.io.

Using ERC-721 smart contracts can also bring interesting opportunities for betting in real time on the outcome of a video game being live-streamed.

Gaming in general is an important field of experimentation and development for the uses of ERC-721 smart contracts in the future.

Digital Art has already entered the game and showed an important usage of ERC-721. Digital art auctions were the first application and still are the first thought of non-fungible token standards. As mentioned last May in our Monthly News, the auctions organized by Christie’s revealed the appeal of the public for crypto-collectibles. Several digital art assets were sold during this event, the high point being the sale of the ‘Celestial Cyber Dimension’, an ERC721 CryptoKitty piece of art, for $140,000.

Crypto-Collectibles are more than a passing craze. It is easy to see the reason why, especially when you look at the potential of the crypto-collectible technology, including: securing digital ownership, protecting intellectual property, tracking digital assets and overall creating real world value.

Auctionity will describe soon how Non-Fungible Tokens will have an important role in our development strategy. Stay tuned!