How to understand the homogenized "NFT"?

 

Introduction

Recently, after appearing on the famous American comedy show "Saturday Night Live", NFT (non-homogeneous token) out of the circle is already a certainty. This is big news in helping creators earn income! Driven by the NFT boom, blockchain technology will also be further widely implemented.

However, the "NFT" concept also has a serious problem, which fortunately can be solved. Let's take a look at the following example: the favorite of science fiction fans-UFO.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/22/us-government-ufo-report-sightings

Just like those "unexplainable" UFO bizarre phenomena, NFTs also have the "unexplainable" mystery of homogenization . For example, is the TAPE token issued by RAC "NFT"? Is Unisocks "NFT"? "NFTs" are issued in limited quantities, but they seem to be interchangeable with each other. Is this a contradiction? Is the fungible ERC1155 token "NFT"?

This article will explore these questions and then give gentle answers, hoping to solve the doubts of NFT fans (including myself) and open up a new path of exploration.

"Homogenization" in "non-homogenization"

Grammy Award winner and famous musician RAC is one of the explorers in the field of NFT. At the beginning of 2020, he issued $TAPE, a total of 100 tape tokens. One TAPE token can be exchanged for a physical tape of RAC's "BOY" album. At present, the transaction price of a TAPE token is 4200 US dollars, which has become the most expensive cassette tape ever.

You want to say that it is a "NFT" token, right? However, one TAPE token can replace any other TAPE token, and each TAPE token is interchangeable. This is exactly in line with the definition of homogenization (not "non-homogeneity"). In addition, the TAPE token adopts the homogenization token standard ERC20 (note that this is not "non-homogeneity"). You can even split a TAPE token for trading. So is TAPE token really "NFT"? 🤔

RAC's "BOY" album physical tape

Then look at the token $SOCKS of the limited edition socks Unisocks. There are 500 $SOCKS tokens in total. Each $SOCKS token can be exchanged for a pair of physical socks. The current transaction price of a $SOCKS token is 86,000 USD, the highest in history is 164,000 USD. A pair of socks sold for the price of a Tesla! Mike Demarais claims to be the $SOCKS Socks Party.

My opinion on Unisocks is: in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Faberge egg sculpture was once a rare artwork loved by the Russian royal family, with only 69 pieces in the world. In view of the fanatical pursuit of meme in the cryptocurrency world, Unisocks can be called a rare artwork loved by the cryptocurrency community in the 21st century. In other words, Unisocks is the Faberge egg sculpture in the world of cryptocurrency.

You want to say that it is a "NFT" token, right? However, SOCKS tokens also use the homogenized token standard ERC 20 (rather than the non-homogeneous token standard). 🤔

Let's take a look at "Limited Edition NFT". For example, NBA star Damian Lillard's wonderful slam dunk moment NFT. There are 6 versions of this NFT, and each version may have a unique serial number, but the serial number is not very important, and it does not even appear on the graphical user interface. Each of these NFTs can be exchanged for the other, and they are interchangeable. Hey, this also belongs to homogeneity.

You think again about the ERC1155 token standard. If you only mint one token, it is non-homogeneous because there is only one. However, if you mint a second token, it immediately becomes homogenized.

Looking for a solution

So, are TAPE tokens and SOCKS tokens NFT? [0] How should we view "Limited Edition NFT" and ERC1155? There seems to be some contradiction in this.

I have a way, inspired by the previous "blockchain" concept. From 2014 to 2015, with the rise of the concept of "blockchain", many people began to argue about what kind of system can be defined as a "blockchain". The Bitcoin Church of God says that "only Bitcoin is a blockchain". Others have given a broad definition, such as "a chain consisting of many blocks (block N stores the hash value of block N-1)" or "a replicable database that is not controlled by anyone (using BFT) , PoW or PoS and other consensus protocols)” [1].

These controversies did not reach the final result, but disappeared as the "blockchain" was regarded as a field. The definition of blockchain is formed! Without a strong boost, it was just formed.

Now "blockchain" has two meanings:

1. From a technical perspective , the blockchain is a database-like tool composed of a series of blocks, which can be replicated.

2. The field or sport where the technology is applied .

The recognition of (2) has eased people's debates, and has a great empowering significance, and has spawned many new ideas about (1).

"AI" is the same. In the past, there were fierce debates among technology fans (including myself) about the definition of “AI”. However, with the development and growth of the AI ​​field, AI also has two meanings [2]: one refers to the technical definition (controversial!) and the other refers to the field .

A gentle solution

"Blockchain" and "AI" have both technical definitions and domain definitions. "NFT" can do the same! In addition to the technical definition, "NFT" can also refer to the sub-fields of the blockchain. After research, we found that NFT represents two sub-fields: one refers to the creative part; the other refers to the non-homogeneous part. We put these three definitions together:

The triple definition of NFT

Let us elaborate on these three definitions.

NFT Definition 1: The technical standard used to create a unique token

The only token standard is only used to create non-fungible tokens. ERC721 is the most widely known example. This definition is not limited to Ethernet Square token on the standard, the standard is also applicable to the token on the token or other bit block chain.

Please note that I deliberately did not use the term "non-homogenization" because it would cause confusion.

ERC1155 also meets this definition, at least for those unique ERC1155 tokens.

NFT Definition 2: The creative subfield of blockchain

This field includes all digital art, physical art, photos, music, etc. on the blockchain. In general, all creative products with intellectual property (IP) belong to this field.

This means that NFT may adopt the "Unique Token" standard, but it is not necessary to do so. NFT can adopt ERC20 token standard, or any other token standard.

Next, answer a few core questions:

• The $TAPE token (music) meets the definition.

• $SOCKS (Entity Art) meets the definition.

• "Limited Edition NFT" meets the definition.

• Non-unique ERC1155 tokens also meet the definition.

NFT definition three: the only token standard subfield of the blockchain

The third definition includes non-creative blockchain applications that use the ERC721 token standard, such as real estate and (Centrifuge) financial supply chains. This definition can also include creative applications that adopt the ERC721 token standard, which partially overlaps with (2), which is okay!