Despite the speculation in the cryptocurrency market, OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer believes that the NFT space will continue to grow and innovate;
Gaming and physical-backed NFTs are emerging trends, with OpenSea partnering with Courtyard, Parallel, and Revolving Games;
OpenSea focuses on user experience, attracting new users through immersive trailers, onboarding training, and practically supported NFTs.
In an exclusive interview with BeInCrypto, OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer discussed the current state of NFTs and the future of digital marketplaces.
Amid speculation about the decline of NFTs, Finzer offered a clear vision for continued growth and innovation.
The rise of gaming and physical-backed NFTs
Finzer stressed that NFTs are not dead, and in fact, gaming and physically-backed NFTs are areas of growing interest among market participants.
To this end, OpenSea is working with Courtyard on a project involving Pokémon cards and is collaborating with leading game developers like Parallel and Revolving Games.
“We’re seeing a variety of use cases emerging on OpenSea, and ensuring OpenSea is the home for all types of NFTs is critical to attracting the next wave of collectors,” Finzer told BeInCrypto.
OpenSea has also revamped its collection pages to give creators richer, customizable pages to tell the story of their projects, and this adaptability extends to all types of NFTs, whether they are profile pictures, games, or physical objects.
Finzer said the platform is committed to evolving with new utility trends, ensuring the marketplace remains one of the best places to buy, sell, and collect NFTs.
Currently, OpenSea is focused on improving the gaming user experience. The company has launched immersive game trailer videos and new redeemable standards to enhance the core user experience. These features are designed to deepen OpenSea's verticalization in specific NFT fields.
“Gaming is a great example where it’s important to highlight gameplay through video,” Finzer said.
The massive gaming industry is expected to drive NFT adoption, and as more gamers own NFTs for the first time, a smooth onboarding experience becomes crucial.
Finzer noted that it’s important for players to experience a game before purchasing an NFT pass, which would require richer merchandise, and he also highlighted the potential for interoperability, where items or status earned in one game could unlock experiences in another with the help of open digital ecosystem standards.
The road to adding one million NFT users
The recent rise in the cryptocurrency market has spurred innovation, and improvements in infrastructure have made NFT trading more attractive and cost-effective, and Finzer believes that these developments are critical to attracting the next wave of users.
“We believe these investments are an important foundation for attracting the next million users,” he said.
For example, OpenSea’s new cold-start onboarding experience simplifies wallet creation and expands the use of fiat payments. The only thing a user needs is an email to create an OpenSea account with a self-hosted wallet. This integration allows users to seamlessly buy, sell, send, and receive digital assets and NFTs, which is a key step for new entrants into the crypto ecosystem.
Finzer also expressed his admiration for Parallel, a leader in the Web3 gaming space, and emphasized that their project is fascinating and ambitious, and he believes that the expansion of utility NFTs is critical to the development of the industry.
“If our space is to continue to grow and expand beyond the core neighborhood, we need to continue to see more of the collections come to life through real-world utility,” he said.
Despite the turbulence in the NFT market, Finzer remains optimistic about its future and hopes to continue building new features and opportunities to ensure it remains a leader in the NFT space.
“As new utility emerges, we will improve the marketplace to offer better goods and bring the utility behind NFTs to life,” he affirmed.
Finzer’s insights dispel the notion that NFTs are dead, instead, these digital assets are constantly evolving, with new use cases, improved infrastructure, and innovative features driving the space forward.
Super Punk World is forced to sever ties with CryptoPunks, leaving blue-chip NFT IP developers in a dilemma
In the early morning of May 31, the "Super Punk World" NFT series initiated by digital artist Nina Chanel Abney completed its airdrop and opened trading on Magic Eden. The 500 NFTs in the series were randomly airdropped for free to the holders of its first PFP NFT series "Super CoolWorld".
As of 10:00 on May 31, the floor price of the Super Punk World series was 0.85 ETH, with a total of 470 holders.
As a project based on the CryptoPunks series and developed in cooperation with the official, "Super Punk World" was initially highly anticipated by the community, but after it caused related controversy, it had to be separated from CryptoPunks, and only its name still retained traces of punk.
"The Root of All Evil": "Punk in Residence" Artist-in-Residence Program
In February of this year, Yuga Labs launched an artist residency program called "Punk in Residence". Officials said that the program is committed to advocating innovation and expression in digital art, aiming to absorb and expand the new voices of the next generation of artists and collectors in the web3 field. Artists participating in "Punk in Residence" will conduct artistic experiments and creations around "What does punk mean to you".
Yuga Labs also announced Nina Chanel Abney as the first artist to participate in the program and presented her with Punk #72, which later became her Twitter avatar and is still used today.
Abney is known for her artistic concept of identity exploration. Her works also cover many topics such as race, gender, pop culture, sexuality and politics. In the field of digital art, Abney is more known for her "Super Cool World" NFT series launched in July 2022.
The PFP series, which has a total of 5,080 units and features a colorful graphic and collage-like approach to design, has seen a total trading volume of over 9,100 ETH as of May 31, with a floor price of around 0.1 ETH.
The plan to use CryptoPunks IP for digital art creation did not initially receive much attention and discussion from the outside world, and the community was mostly supportive and supportive. As a leading blue-chip NFT, the community has always had high hopes for the first artist collaboration based on CryptoPunk IP.
When CryptoPunk first revealed the Super Punk World series in mid-May, it raised expectations further by saying it utilized the 3D medium to reimagine the viewing experience of Abney’s art from a punk perspective.
However, when Abney returned with a work that combined her unique personal style and CryptoPunks characteristics after more than three months of work, it immediately caused an uproar in the entire NFT field, especially among CryptoPunks holders, where she was almost unanimously ridiculed and criticized.
"Crisis PR": Super Punk World is no longer punk
On May 21, Beijing time, CryptoPunks officially unveiled the "true face" of the Super Punk World series, and its official Twitter account released a video showcasing multiple NFTs in the series.
In terms of artistic concept, CryptoPunks claims that the series blurs the boundaries of race and gender, reflecting the identities of the virtual and real worlds. When seeing the paper figures with unique looks and dress, with only curves in the hips, spinning in place, the community members who had been expecting endlessly felt like a bucket of cold water was poured over their heads, while the crowds who came "for the reputation" couldn't stop laughing.
In addition to the lack of sincerity in the design of the work and the artistic style that is difficult to be accepted by the public, the artistic concept and values of Super Punk World are also unacceptable to many "old punks", who directly point out that the series is too "woke".
The word "woke" originally meant a high level of awareness and concern about social injustice. It was used to describe people who were highly sensitive to issues such as racism, sexism, and the rights of sexual minorities such as LGBTQ and social justice. Because this word is often overused or misinterpreted, it is now also used to accuse others of being overly politically correct.
However, the most significant feature of punk spirit is rebellion and anti-authority, emphasizing unfettered freedom and independence. Groups who believe in punk culture often question and challenge social and political authority, oppose mainstream culture and traditional values, and then succumb to " This kind of conventional political correctness that blurs the boundaries of race and gender is so unpunk.
Based on the above two reasons, Super Punk World will not only dilute the original value of CryptoPunks, but may even destroy the most important cultural concepts and core of the punk IP. The community was outraged, and some CryptoPunks holders sold them in anger after the Dutch auction information was released.
Seeing that the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, CryptoPunks immediately canceled the Dutch auction of "Super Punk World" and instead conducted a random airdrop to the holders of Abney's original work Super Cool World.
Yuga Labs also solemnly stated that it will no longer contact Cryptopunks, which will be completely decentralized and stored on the blockchain. CryptoPunks did not release any information about the Super Punk World series, but Yuga Labs followed up instead.
In fact, Nina Chanel Abney has long been an acclaimed artist, and Super Punk World's slightly rough and simple art style is a perfect combination of the characteristics of Cryptopunks and Super CoolWorld.
The criticism of its exploration of Cryptopunks may be more due to the failure to communicate properly with the community. Today is different from the past. With the development of PFP art, the standards and requirements of the community are getting higher and higher. In addition, Yuga Labs may also have shortcomings in its marketing methods.
After the vigorous NFT craze subsided, the bear market in the NFT field became even more severe. OpenSea, once a top market, has dropped from 187,000 users in June 2022 to less than 10,000 today. The market value of a memecoin upstart PEPE has surpassed the sum of the market values of the top 30 NFT projects.
After the test of time, the remaining blue-chip NFTs are all precious masterpieces. The damage caused to the brand by the Azuki Elementals incident last year and the criticism of CryptoPunks this time show that being too conservative and innovative in ideas are difficult to be tolerated by the community.
For these high-quality NFT series, project owners may only be able to follow the example of CryptoPunks and regard them as cultural heritage, making them completely decentralized. At present, in the exploration of the NFT field, for these blue-chip projects, taking stillness as movement is both a choice and a dilemma.
Understanding ERC-7401 in one article, a new chapter in the nested NFT standard
With the rapid development of digital assets and blockchain technology, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have become an important form of assets, widely used in many fields such as art, games, and collectibles.
With the diversification of market demand, traditional NFT standards such as ERC-721 and ERC-1155 can no longer fully meet the needs of users, especially in terms of flexibility and interactivity. In order to meet these challenges, a variety of innovative protocol standards have flooded into the market. This article mainly explores ERC-7401 because of its introduction of the nested NFT concept, which opens up new possibilities for the functionality and flexibility of NFT.
What is ERC-7401?
ERC-7401, or Parent-Managed Nested Non-Fungible Token, was originally named ERC-6059 but was later revised and given a new number after much community commentary.
The standard was proposed in 2022 and was finalized in September 2023. Its future applications remain to be seen, but it will bring improved functionality. Its core innovation is to allow one NFT (parent NFT) to contain one or more other NFTs (child NFTs), thus opening the door to managing and interacting multi-level assets.
This standard extends the basic NFT standard to allow nesting and parent-child relationships between NFTs. In simpler terms, NFTs can own and manage other NFTs, creating a hierarchy of tokens.
This structure allows users to manage and trade their digital assets more flexibly, while also providing more possibilities for the creation and use of NFTs. Compared with other standards, ERC-7401 is designed with more emphasis on scalability and interactivity, and is intended to meet more complex application needs.
Concept and Innovation of ERC-7401
We are used to the fact that only user wallets or smart contracts can own NFTs, but it is also possible to "nest" non-fungible things in each other. The technical implementation of the ERC-7401 standard is based on the following core points:
Multi-level nesting: supports unlimited levels of NFT nesting. Each parent NFT can contain multiple child NFTs, and these child NFTs themselves can become parent NFTs of other NFTs. This multi-level structure not only provides great flexibility for the combination and splitting of assets, but also allows the implementation of more complex asset relationships and management strategies.
Asset management flexibility: Users who own the parent NFT can freely manage the child NFTs within it, including but not limited to adding, removing or replacing them. This is particularly important when managing complex asset collections such as art collections or multiple equipment in a game.
Interoperability across collections: Parent NFTs and child NFTs can belong to different NFT collections, which provides great flexibility for cross-brand or cross-platform collaboration. For example, an NFT for a movie series can contain limited edition artwork NFTs from multiple different artists.
Diversification of application scenarios
The actual application scenarios of ERC-7401 are extensive and diverse, including but not limited to the following aspects:
Game industry: Game developers can use ERC-7401 to design more complex in-game economic systems. For example, a character NFT (parent NFT) can contain multiple equipment NFTs (child NFTs), which can be updated or traded individually, thereby increasing the strategy of the game and the player's sense of participation. It not only makes asset management more centralized, but also allows the character's abilities and appearance to be adjusted by trading child NFTs.
Art and Collections: Artists can create collective NFTs (parent NFTs) containing multiple works to provide a holistic or decentralized collection method, which not only makes it easier for artists to manage and sell their works, but also provides collectors with more choices and flexibility.
Community management: The ERC-7401 standard also has important applications in community management. Through ERC-7401, the community can create a parent community NFT that contains multiple sub-communities or activities. For example, a large community can serve as a parent NFT, and different activities, meetings, and sub-communities within it as sub-NFTs. In this way, community managers can more conveniently manage and organize community activities and enhance community participation and cohesion.
Identity and Certificates: In terms of digital identity authentication, an individual or organization can issue a parent NFT that contains multiple certifications or qualification certificates, each of which is stored as a child NFT, making it easier to manage and verify an individual’s multiple identities or qualifications.
The impact of ERC-7401 on the NFT ecosystem
1. Increase the value and liquidity of NFT
By introducing a nested structure, the ERC-7401 standard can enhance the overall value and liquidity of NFTs. The value of a parent NFT containing multiple child NFTs is often higher than the sum of the individual NFTs. In addition, the unified management and trading of nested NFTs can greatly improve the liquidity of NFTs and promote market activity.
2. Stimulate innovation
The ERC-7401 standard provides developers and creators with more room for innovation. Through nested structures, developers can design more complex and rich digital assets, inspiring more creativity and applications. For example, in games, developers can design game assets with multiple levels and complex relationships, thereby enhancing the depth and fun of the game.
3. Optimize user experience
The introduction of the ERC-7401 standard can greatly optimize the user experience. Through unified management and trading of nested NFTs, users can manage and trade their digital assets more conveniently. In addition, the nested structure can more intuitively display the hierarchy and relationship of digital assets, enhancing user understanding and operating experience.
4. Promote standardization process
The launch of ERC-7401 marks the further advancement of the NFT standardization process. By introducing a nested structure, ERC-7401 provides a new direction and ideas for the standardization of NFT, and promotes the normalization and standardization of NFT technology and applications. It not only helps to improve the technical level of NFT, but also enhances market trust and recognition.
Technical implementation and challenges
The technical challenge of implementing the ERC-7401 standard lies mainly in how to efficiently process and store large amounts of nested information. In addition, the security of smart contracts is also an important consideration, because complex interactions and nesting may increase the risk of smart contracts being attacked. Developers need to optimize the performance and cost of contracts while ensuring contract security and functionality.
Prospects and Outlook
As the NFT market continues to develop, the introduction of the ERC-7401 standard has undoubtedly brought new vitality and possibilities to the market. It not only provides users with more flexibility and choices, but also opens the door to innovative applications for developers.
In the future, we can foresee that ERC-7401 will exert its unique influence in more fields, promoting the further integration and innovation of digital assets and blockchain technology. With the promotion and application of this standard, the future NFT market will be more diversified and dynamic, providing users and developers with a richer and deeper digital asset experience.
Have blue-chip NFT projects achieved their original roadmaps?
Which NFT projects actually implemented their original roadmaps? I looked up the information and came to the following conclusions:
BAYC, score: 9/10
The team achieved most of its initial goals: exclusive merchandise, an interactive club website, and Mutant Apes.
Until early 2021, their promises were pretty simple.
Pudgy Penguins, score: 7/10
Before Luca Netz and the new team took over, Cole's team had already released several roadmap projects, including: peripheral products, airdrops, and charity auctions.
Looking back now, some of these were already fulfilled before the new team took over.
They launched their first batch of merchandise, which, while not exclusive to holders, was at least completed, including mugs, hoodies, T-shirts and stickers, while airdrops and charity auctions were limited at the time and could not be considered completed.
Azuki, score: 7/10
Azuki chose to use a "mind map" instead of a roadmap.
Initially they announced:
Provides 3D experience for holders
Exclusive streetwear, including skateboards and toys
Real-life events
Connecting the physical and digital worlds
BEAN Tokens and DAOs
Looking back, some of these have become reality.
Azuki has launched exclusive merchandise on several occasions and is known for their IRL (in real life) events, and they have also merged the digital and physical in innovative ways through PBT.
However, the 3D heads and BEAN were not delivered.
Doodles, score: 10/10
Doodles has completed the initial roadmap, here is an old image I found:
Soon after the mint, they purchased their main mascot for 100 ETH;
They have added ETH to the vault;
They acquired the Golden Wolf production studio;
They have partnerships with a lot of big brands.
Degods, score: 6/10
I found a long-ago Google doc where Frank (?) discusses the pros and cons of certain roadmap ideas, including: DePalace, Merch, DeGods Welcome, DeOath.
It's fun to read:
The exclusive, “DeGods Welcome” (at least in terms of a strong social presence) was actually realized, while other ideas were abandoned.
An old Notion page documents some of this:
Moonbirds, score: 4/10
Moonbirds was advertised as a "practical" PFP with commercial rights for the holder, however this promise disappeared after their infamous move to a CC0 license.
Beyond that, Moonbirds’ direction has changed significantly since the roadmap was released: “Project Highrise” was never released.
However, Moonbirds did release Milestones for staking “nesting”.
CloneX, score: 9/10
RTFKT completed most of the initial roadmap for CloneX, including 3D files for holders, forging events, and airdrops.
Thinking about the results
The actual implementation of the roadmap may not be in line with everyone's expectations. From the current point of view, the floor price of each NFT seems to have nothing to do with the degree of implementation of their initial roadmap.
The initial routes of BAYC and CloneX were relatively simple, and they basically delivered on their promises, but CloneX's floor price plummeted. BAYC later tried to deliver more than the initial roadmap: APE tokens, metaverse games, and building new chains, but it still couldn't stop the decline in the floor price.
But at the same time, Fat Penguin, which did not fulfill many of its initial promises, has performed well thanks to the promotion of its IP after the new team took over, the listing of its children's toys on Walmart, and the frequent receipt of airdrops.
Some even believe that the PFP NFT project "makes more mistakes the more it does" and "artworks don't need a project behind them to empower them." For example, the CryptoPunks, which will cooperate to launch a new series of Punk IP and airdrop it to holders, has been widely criticized by the community - "The project owner Yuga Labs ruined CryptoPunks, they can't even do anything right."
Three years have passed since the NFT explosion and the bubble-filled 2021. Where will more mature projects and more rational participants lead this track? Let's wait and see.
#cryptopunks #BAYC #azuki $BTC $ETH $BNB
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