The "NFT atavism" triggered by Ordinals is not a return to idealism

From moving the BRC-20 Token issuance model to ETH's $FERC, to directly inserting the image-to-Base64 string into the Hex Data field of the ETH transaction to realize the ETHions of the Bitcoin NFT burning method, the "burning" method of the Bitcoin NFT has recently been adopted. The frequent transfer to ETH has attracted the attention of many players.

It seems that the idealistic aesthetics of Bitcoin NFT such as "unchangeable, fair, and decentralized" have been passed on to ETH by replicating the slightly clumsy NFT generation method formed by Bitcoin due to its characteristics. However, is this really a return to idealism?

ETH's "full chain" NFT

The ETH NFT ecology has developed to this day. As players, we may feel helpless about many problems, such as PUA based on the whitelist mechanism, "scientists" who took a large share during the public sale, lack of new narratives, and the project itself is tasteless. There is a flood of "earth dogs" who trade funds but have to fight, etc. But as a proven NFT ecology, ETH NFT has also had in-depth discussions on many issues, and the market has given answers.

"Unchangeable" or "full chain storage" seems to be a "technical issue", but it is actually a "market issue". This issue has been discussed a long time ago on ETH.

This is a tweet I found published 2 years ago. @dhof classified ETH "NFT on the whole chain" according to different implementation methods of "NFT on the whole chain". One-star is to store data in the data storage field calldata of ETH transactions, two-star is to store data through EVM opcode sstore and render data through external scripts, and the highest three-star is to store data through EVM opcode sstore Store the data and complete the rendering through the smart contract's built-in renderer to output svg images or other similar data URIs.

If we were to rate Ethion by this standard, Ethion would only get a one-star rating. As mentioned at the beginning of its official website, Ethion is implemented by storing data in the data storage field calldata of ETH transactions. Images are rendered through the off-chain index, and by making the index open source, the off-chain operations are also decentralized.

For ETH, "full-chain NFT" is nothing new. The names of several projects can quickly pop up in my mind-Autoglyphs, Larva Lads, Chain Runners, and OnChain Monkeys, which is also currently active in Bitcoin NFT.

Retrieve the tokenURI of Autoglyphs, you will find that it is a long string of characters. By segmenting and outputting the string, you will get a picture.

If you search the tokenURI of Larva Lads, you will also find that it is a long string, but the type definition is json, and the content is a base64 string. Larva Lads built a series of operations such as decoding and rendering into the contract to finally output SVG images.

Back to that tweet by @dhof. Under this tweet, I also saw a very interesting discussion:

@0xCardinalError expressed that he did not understand why @dhof was obsessed with full-chain storage. Full-chain storage is cool as an experiment, but it is more important for NFT to focus on "building a sustainable culture." He also said that solutions such as IPFS and Arweave have reduced the cost of NFT casting. This is actually the non-"technical problem" I mentioned earlier is actually a "market problem." Although IPFS and Arweave are stored outside the ETH chain, there is a possibility of data loss, but the ETH NFT market has given a choice with real money.

@WhenLambo6135 explained the meaning of "unchangeable" very well - allowing works of art to survive when the creator/project party disappears, just like Leonardo da Vinci does not need to keep painting the Mona Lisa to keep the The existence of Na Lisa only needs to ensure that the paintings are not lost and are properly kept. To some extent, this is also an understanding of blockchain from another angle—an information storage medium supported by modern technology and consensus. Compared with paper paintings, blockchain paintings do not require troublesome maintenance, only need the Internet and computers not to disappear, and people's belief in the blockchain network.

The "building a culture of sustainable development" mentioned by @0xCardinalError is the same as the indispensable contributors to the vigorous development of the ETH NFT ecology-art creators, who have been gradually accepted in one after another story of "making money like drinking water" We forget. The principle of Ethion is not new to ETH, but it has been promoted and speculated by others. Looking at it from the perspective of hype, it naturally has the famous "don't be biased" theory. But when we look at the market, most of the "new technology concepts" on Ethion and even Bitcoin are direct transfers of ETH Rock and CryptoPunks, and the most popular is still meme Token. For example, the so-called $ETHS issued by Ethion, the first imitation of BRC-20 Token, has no index, no trading market, and does not even have technical documents prepared by domo like BRC-20. When I was writing this article, I even saw a certain KOL posting a BRC-20 on BSC. I searched all over Twitter, and only this KOL was the source of the information. Its Mint tutorial is priced at $8...

Is this really a return to "idealism"?

"Development" depends on "intervention in the market"?

The main narrative of $FERC, which transferred the BRC-20 Token issuance model to ETH, is "fairness and decentralization". However, on June 19th, @kkk_ethe's exposure sparked discussion of $FERC developer Jackygu's "market intervention".

Jackygu's response to this is:

Well... sorry I can't understand, I can only understand that $FERC's activation is "fair". But what is even more incomprehensible is, can the development of the project be realized by "intervention in the market"? Bitcoin, ETH or even Doge, which one has not experienced violent fluctuations? What can't be defeated is getting stronger and stronger in the end.

In fact, it is the "consensus" that cannot be dissipated by price fluctuations. The word "consensus" is almost used badly now. It is not that today I bought it and you bought it and we got together and shouted 100x and waited for others to take over, but it really formed an emotional connection and ideological resonance. Just like when Bitcoin was still very cheap, walking on the street and meeting someone who also said that he believed in Bitcoin, they might both have bright eyes and think that the other person is very interesting. This is a simple and direct manifestation of "consensus". Without the early selfless developers, without the early real dreamers, can Bitcoin really stand the test of time? If Bitcoin starts to "intervene in the market" when it rises to $1, will Bitcoin still have "subsequent healthy development"?

As mentioned above, many ETH NFT players are now dissatisfied with ETH NFT. ETH has come to this day, and there are indeed many "unfairness" that make players dissatisfied. For example, VC/CEX took away a large amount of initial chips. Occupy" Launchpad, meme Token also set up a bunch of "blacklist", "transaction tax" and other rules...

But these are not "technical" issues, but "people" issues. In a decentralized world, it is ironic that we still use "decentralization" as the narrative of the project... On the way of "making money", we have gone too far. When can we go back? Do you really want to go back? Just like the "token raising movement" that has been mentioned all the time, if we say "no" with unanimous and firm actions, then the so-called "unfairness" will disappear, but this is not the case.