Editor’s note: Jim asked us to publish his concerns with current NFT standards, and offers up solutions that existing and upcoming projects, including his own, can implement. His letter appears below.
Something has been bothering me for the last ~18 months. I think about it every. single. day. What's that, you ask? That the amazing art associated with pretty much all existing NFTs is not stored on the blockchain.
Like everyone else who’s amassed a collection of NFTs, I’m relying on the dapp creators and OpenSea to host this image data and the metadata as well. In many cases, the only thing on the blockchain is the token itself, with an external link to the image/metadata. Guess what happens when the company stops hosting that data? Can you guess?
See, when I bought my first hundred-or-so CryptoKitties, I thought I was buying a token that lived entirely on Ethereum; the token, the metadata, and the art; and I wasn't entirely wrong to assume this. The metadata for a kitty is on-chain, and the breeding of new kitties happens on-chain as well. The only thing missing in the case of CryptoKitties is the art; they host those images and serve them to us.
Like I mentioned above, when I discovered this, ~18 months ago, it bothered me, on a fundamental level. And it has every. day. since. For me, the value proposition of NFTs as both digital art and collectibles is derived from the immutability of the tokens and information associated with them. If we’re not storing this information with the same degree of immutability, we're not doing it right.
While it isn't practical to store large image files on-chain right now, many projects do have art that could be stored on-chain if the approach was prioritized in the design. I can't ding projects whose associated art is enormous; that’s just not something that can be pulled off today with the state of storage on Ethereum. I'm guessing they get a pass for another six months to a year, while immutable storage options have time to emerge and begin to mature. So even those projects must be thinking about this future, even if it isn't possible at the moment.
But, but, the lack of effort by smaller projects whose art could go on-chain with intent and smart design; those projects don't get a pass. Punting to IPFS as a storage solution is bad practice. IPFS is practical for mapping the hash of the image for the future when on-chain storage will be possible, but being used for other reasons is ill-advised.
I like what SuperRare is doing here with IPFS - they host their own IPFS node and have their images hashed on IPFS, and plan to move those to a permanent storage solution when a practical one emerges. They have designed their NFT image data for the future of having the art on-chain, and I appreciate that.
And while this has been bothering me for a year-and-a-half, my team and I have been spending the last six months building a generative-art-NFT-dapp that puts the art and metadata on-chain: Avastars. Our NFTs will be complete, always. The art, the metadata, and the token. Art+Metadata=NFT. Coming February 7th.
You heard it here first, on the Nifty Report!
When not busy writing cheques to his developers, Jim can be found on Twitter @dappwizard or on Discord @Jim#4444 where he’ll gladly take a break from shilling his CryptoKitties to chat with you about anything NFT-related. Sign-up at avastars.io to be kept in the loop on project developments.
If you have comments on this topic that you’d like to share, feel free to add to the discussion that was started in an earlier post, “Are your NFTs actually on the blockchain?”