smART Mint: DIY evolving NFTs

[IMPACT]

Summary

Ever since July 2021 during our first auction (artano.io/auction), we realized the potential of ever-evolving NFTs that transcend the regular jpg, gif or mp4 format.

After months of high demand for infinite NFTs, we want to scale and introduce programmable NFTs, coined infinite NFTs or iNFTs, to a non-technical, wider audience, by creating the first programmable NFT minting solution for people with zero programming knowledge on Cardano.

How will it work?

We have already minted iNFTs using time as a parameter. Some of our NFTs age with time, while others loop in day/night cycles using our renderer (see our examples below).

Programmable NFTs have already shown great potential to expand the Cardano community, since we already established connections in the art and fashion industry with people who are very interested in the next iteration of NFTs.

Examples of previous successful iNFTs on Artano

Limitless iNFT - an auction ran during London Fashion Week with Viktoria Modesta, Modern Mirror and Samuel Goodyear, changes in day/night cycles (https://artano.io/bazaar/nfts/da1e85c2-856e-4e94-b4de-62baff318d9c)

This NFT was featured by Vogue Business as an NFT to watch in February 2022 (https://twitter.com/maghanmcd/status/1496192656044666885)

Emotion Stream by Jean-Michel Bihorel - a world renown CGI artist, dropped an aging and de-aging iNFT collection on Artano. See attachment below. (https://artano.io/bazaar/users/de2158a7-45d6-448f-885a-7f081b16b9a0)

Arise by Alexia Rubod - a Hollywood-based CGI artist who worked for clients like Dreamworks, changes in day/night cycles. See attachment below (https://artano.io/auction/nfts/6a44863f-5186-4680-a680-897607628b9a).

PigeonHODL - a bigger collection of 111 iNFTs that have an “initial” and “final” state -> meaning that once they're changed they will never go back to their previous form again. See attachment below (https://artano.io/bazaar/collections/8b1dd3d4-2bc9-4bba-80ae-c28e785adf3d).

Current solution and potential expansions

Currently the code to execute the behavior of a programmable NFT is in its metadata. The logic always follows the NFT, and it's the renderer's responsibility to display it correctly.

The minter should include, but not be limited to:

• Linking a Cardano wallet to the minter (CCvault, Nami for example)
• Batch uploading and minting
• Setting of royalties and making sure they work on all marketplaces
• Linking a file (jpg, gif, mp4) with the change parameter (time/price)
• In case of time-based iNFTs - the user decides whether the NFT is aging, looping or has a finite state.
• In case of price-based iNFTs - setting the price at which the NFT transforms
• Linking the art to the parameters (one piece should have one parameter, say 1.png at 13:00 UTC, but 2.png at 14:00 UTC)
• Make the solution fast, scalable, decrease loading times as much as possible

We want to expand the current iNFT functionality to:

• NFTs that transform with other blockchain parameters (address change for example)
• NFTs that react to external data via oracles (this can be anything, such as the price of ADA, deforestation rates in the Amazon rainforest or any other external data)

Conclusion

Given the current experience of our team, including 8+ months of working directly with IOG as part of the Plutus developer program, specifically on the NFT case for the mainnet, we believe that our team can successfully deliver an MVP version of the Programmable NFT (iNFT) minter within 2 months, introducing time and price as the first two parameters.

We hope to collaborate with Charli3 to create iNFT-specific oracles. If the iNFT minter is a success, we will expand it into NFTs that react to offchain data and collaborate with NGOs, universities and other startups to continue improving this solution.

Since the start of 2021, the NFT ecosystem on the Cardano blockchain has been growing at an impressive rate. However, in order to attract artists who are currently minting on other chains, the Cardano community needs to offer competitive solutions that have not been implemented on other chains.

We believe that iNFTs would be a significant point of differentiation and would help in attracting talented artists around the globe to achieve their creative vision on Cardano by changing the way they communicate with their audience and at the same time assuring that the collectors of a project and their investment in it is not under risk due to an open PolicyID. Instead of keeping an open PolicyID, burning and minting tokens to update metadata to evolve the NFT, the logic of the change could be embedded in the metadata itself.

Main concern: Speed of delivery -> the pace of delivery could be either too quick or too slow. In case of slow delivery, we will hire an additional full-stack developer to work on the minting solution. In case we finish early, we will start integrating other blockchain parameters and/or oracles.

CIP change: There are concerns with changing the CIP-25 standard for programmable NFTs, in case of change mid-development, it could set us back by 1-2 weeks, but we will adapt to the new standard as soon as it's been pulled.

Design/Usability: even though we will try to make the minting process as simple as possible for non-developer users, we might run into potential problems with how artists interact with the minting machine. We will run a UX test and survey at Week 2-3 and Week 6 to check the progress and get feedback.

[FEASIBILITY]

MONTH ONE

Week 1:

• Early planning phase
• start working on wallet integration
• start design for time-based minting

Week 2:

• Finish design for time-based minting
• Finish wallet integration
• Start working on batching

Week 3:

• QA: release wallet integration
• Finish batching
• Create time-based parameter (loop), start design for price-based minter
• QA: release batching
• (optional) assess the need for a UX survey of wallet integration + batching

Week 4:

• Finish looping and finite iNFTs
• Finish working on design for price-based minter

MONTH TWO

Week 5:

• Finish all types of time-based iNFTs (loop, aging, finite - see below for examples)
• QA: release time-based iNFT

Week 6:

• Start working on price-based programmable NFTs
• (optional) assess the need for another UX survey

Week 7:

• Continue working on price-based iNFT
• QA: follow up on development efforts

Week 8:

• QA: finalize product
• If time permits - start working on address-changing iNFT minter

MONTH THREE AND BEYOND

• Track adoption numbers (goal: up to 10+ daily iNFTs minted)
• Finish address-changing minter
• Start working on collaborations in the space (particularly with Charli3)
• Create awareness about Cardano through iNFTs to external parties, including art galleries, museums, academia and high fashion brands.

Backend developer (Kotlin, Docker/Docker Swarm + DB): $45/hr. x 40 hrs x 4w x 2 mo = $14400

Front-end developer (React): $40/hr. x 40 hrs/mo x 4w x 2 mo = $12800

Blockchain developer: $50/hr. x 40 hrs/mo x 4w x 2 mo = $16000

Part-time designer: $35/hr. x 20 hrs/mo x 4w x 2 mo = $5600

Project manager: $50/hr. x 40 hrs/mo x 4w x 2 mo = $16000

Part-time marketing: $25/hr x 20 hrs/mo x 4w x 2 mo = $4000

Artano Core team

• Mateja Sela: Product lead and full-stack developer..
• Marija Skiljevic: COO, Financial and Business Analyst
• Sandip Pandey: full-stack and blockchain developer (Experience in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano development, built multiple solutions like X, Y, Z).
• Shristi Shrestha: Backend developer.
• Sudip Bhattarai: blockchain Developer (Plutus, built NFT on mainnet solutions)
• Edgar Morant: Designer lead
• Miladin Stojadinovic: Marketing lead
• Melita Turkovic: Marketing associate

Advisors

• Jerome Chailloux: AI pioneer, art-science associate.

[AUDITABILITY]

• We have already delivered a full-functioning marketplace and minting solution, however we will measure success for our new iNFT minting solution through the number of requests to incorporate iNFTs into collections on Artano (meaning the number of minted iNFTs).

• Two user experience surveys with the artists to understand their needs and how we would make our solution the easiest for creatives to use.

• Following the detailed timeline outlined above.

Completing the iNFT minting service that includes time and NFT price parameters.

Attracting at least 100 new artists to the Cardano blockchain through this functionality.

There is no relationship between our previous proposals, since they had a more generalized scope of creating a new marketplace:

Fund3 proposal (unfunded): https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/333726

Fund5 proposal (unfunded): https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/351682