EOS NFT Standard: Realizing NFT Metadata Decentralized Storage
https://github.com/DefiboxTeam/NFT-Standard-on-EOS
EOS Newborn
EOS ecosystem in recent years is not good despite its high performance. EOS has the potential be a perfect hub for NFT in terms of its performance. For EOS holders to seek a breakthrough in the bottleneck, we have to step on the wave of NFT to attract more assets and traffic inflows, so that the EOS ecosystem can grow.
As we all know, due to various reasons, the current EOS ecosystem is as poor like a desert. According DappRadar rankings, the EOS ecosystem currently has 373 applications. However, the only remaining active projects are Defibox, DFS, PIZZA, OGX are all DeFi like project. There are no GameFi+NFT projects here. And GameFi + NFT will be very important.
EOS NFT Standard
Although the NFT is the most popular track in cryptoworld, EOS does not have a unified and complete NFT standard yet. This constrains the NFT development on EOS. In order to solve the problem, Defibox, as the initiator, has developed an NFT standard together with the help of other block producers, Pink.gg the original author of AtomicAssets and major wallets. Compared with the Ethereum ERC721 standard, EOS NFT Standard has the following highlights and advantages:
1. “True” NFT, attribute on-chain + decentralized storage
Although the popularity of NFT has not diminished, the current technical flaws still exist. In addition to the liquidity problem of NFT, the storage of metadata is one of them. Actually the mainstream NFTs such as CryptoPunks and CryptoKitties based on the ERC721 protocol standard do not store metadata on the chain.
This is due to the high cost of Ethereum data storage, so the content and metadata of the NFT are stored separately from the NFT smart contract itself. You purchase an NFT and the NFT token itself exists on the blockchain. However, because data in the NFT, especially large files such as videos cannot be stored in the current blockchain systems. The media related to tokens such as pictures and videos are usually stored off-chain in a separate server.
This means the NFT is only partly decentralized: NFT token data on chain while media data in the NFT is stored off-chain. The storage of data off-chain and its display effect is completely relying on centralized servers. If the NFT relies on the metadata of the HTTP URL, it means that the NFT holder cannot really own the NFT at all, because once the server is shut down, the NFT that the user has purchased with a lot of money may not be displayed normally. Therefore, the two most basic attributes of NFT’s are lost here: permanent preservation and tamper proof.
The EOS NFT Standard is to solve the problem of centralized storage of NFT metadata. Unlike Ethereum, on EOS we can store metadata on the chain and upload all the attributes of the NFT (even pictures and videos) on the chain. This is because EOS itself has table data and table structure, all elements can be stored in a table, and everything can be found out in the table. Once the user submits the data to the chain, the data on the chain will be permanently stored due to the tamper proof nature of the blockchain. The permanent storage and uniqueness of metadata are realized, which largely guarantees the NFT’s Asset security and scarcity. The NFT purchased by the user is the “true NFT”. Your NFT will always be in your hands and has nothing to do with the server!
2. Access to attributes, realizing NFT fragmentation reorganization
On Ethereum, since the metadata and content of the NFT can only be stored in off-chain server and only a string of Token ID appears on the chain, the smart contract cannot read any attributes of the NFT. The different hairstyles and skin colors in CryptoPunks, no matter how creative and artistic, are just a series of numbers for smart contracts that cannot be read, because these pictures are only kept in the off-chain server.
Because smart contracts are not able to read attributes, this makes it difficult to split and reorganize NFTs. If each NFT avatar is a whole and able to be be fragmented, we are not able to combine two NFTs with different props, accessories, and characteristics into a brand new NFT.
But with our EOS NFT Standard, NFT metadata can be stored on the chain and smart contracts can also retrieve the attributes of each NFT. We can fragment and reorganize the NFT. Every piece of equipment, clothing and facial feature are attributes, which can be made into NFT and stored on chain and make combinations.
When the fragmentation is realized, NFTs for game battles are possible. Because the smart contract can read the different weapons and other combat info carried by each NFT character. It is basically impossible to develop a combat NFT on Ethereum because its high transaction fees.
3. Low transaction fees, reducing the cost of NFT asset issuance
For current NFT markets, they are being criticized for “not enough decentralization” and expensive fees. As the top NFT trading platform, OpenSea will collect a 2.5% transaction fee every time a transaction is made. As the price of Ethereum is getting higher and higher, the entry price is now very high! The cost of selling a work is 300 USD+! In other words, your NFT may not be worth much, but you have to pay nearly 0.1 ETH as a transaction fee.
EOS has always been known for its “low transaction fee”. Now EOS has applied its advantage in the NFT market. EOS NFT has the characteristics of high security, low transaction costs and fast speed. This reduces the cost of NFT asset issuance and very friendly to “newcomers”.
4. Support RAM optimization reduce resource cost
On the EOS mainnet, storing all the metadata of the NFT on the chain will consume RAM resource. We adopt the solution of “atomic assets”. We put all the attributes in the attribute map to reduce the consumption of RAM resource. Basically we achieves a low RAM state by compressing the data on the chain. For example, the attribute Hello is converted into data such as 0101 through the compression protocol protobuf. The data representing “Hello” on chain is 0101, and 0101 can be decoded to get “Hello”. In this way, RAM resource optimization is achieved
The Expectation
EOS currently does not have a unified and complete NFT standard, and NFT is an important track for the future blockchain development. The current hot concepts such as digital art, GameFi, meta universe all require a unified and complete NFT standard. As the initiator of the EOS NFT Standard, Defibox has jointly developed an NFT standard with EOS Nation, Atomichub and major wallets. This is to build a solid Infrastructure for the future NFT development on EOS.
WAX has the same structure as EOS and is compatible with EOS. The cost of migrating WAX project to the mainnet EOS is very low. They can migrate or open up a channel between WAX and EOS for cross-chain. Since there was no NFT standard before, the migration of WAX projects is hard. Now with our NFT standard, all WAX project team can migrate projects based on the NFT standard to easily. As the initiator of the EOS NFT standard, Defibox is going to have cooperation and strategic investment with the WAX project teams. Defibox will provide DeFi (decentralized finance) services and the game project team will develop game. This will achieve a prosperous GameFi on EOS.
At present, some leading DeFi projects outside EOS have already develop their own the NFT, such as Pancake on BSC, and they attracted a lot of attention. Defibox also plans to enter the NFT field based on the EOS NFT standard. It is planned to develop the NFTBOX series, combining NFT, DeFi, and DAO for more creative plays and attract attention from cryptoworld.