3 Projects Implementing NFTs Outside of Ethereum
As the Ethereum blockchain becomes a bigger challenge to handle due to the growing number of NFT transactions. Resulting projects like the Sensorium Galaxy digital metaverse with its SENSO token are choosing cheaper and scalable alternatives.
NFTs are becoming a separate asset class
One of the current significant trends in the blockchain industry is the evolution of NFTs from being regarded as a geek toy to having assets listed at the world’s largest auctions.
Here are some prime examples of this:
- In March 2021, the collage “Everydays” by digital artist Beeple (real name Mike Winkelmann) became the first fully digital artwork sold at Christie’s auction. The artwork was sold at a whopping $ 69 million, which is more than what was paid for the painting “Lot with Daughters” by Rubens several years ago.
- Next in line are canvases by old masters and artists of the twentieth century. The Florentine Uffizi Gallery just sold Michelangelo’s NFT masterpiece Tondo Doni for $17,000, and the director of Christie’s has announced that the auction is going to release the NFT of Andy Warhol’s work for sale.
- Celebrities are not far behind. Over the past couple of months, NFT tokens have been issued by several celebrities, some to mention are; Cara Delevingne, Emily Ratajkowski, and Floyd Mayweather.
- The average weekly turnover of NFTs from the CryptoPunks collection was over $10 million.
- The Sensorium Galaxy Digital Metaverse has announced a series of VR concerts by electronic music stars, including David Guetta, for which tickets will be issued in an NFT form and sold for native SENSO tokens.
Many NFT projects are ditching the Ethereum blockchain
Despite the enthusiasm around NFT, for the further development of this market, two serious and related technical problems need to be resolved, which are blockchain scaling and high fees.
Almost all NFT tokens are issued on the Ethereum blockchain, which was not originally designed to handle such a large number of transactions. The maximum network bandwidth is 15 operations per second, and as the queue grows, users pay higher fees to get miners to process their transactions as soon as possible. The situation is aggravated by the high price of ether and gas. So, despite the recent correction, ETH is still three times more expensive than at the beginning of 2021.
In April and May 2021, the average commission for sending tokens on the Ethereum network ranged from $ 8 to $ 70. At the same time, it is significantly more expensive to release an NFT, since this operation requires more complex computations. The increased network load also causes delays and freezes. As such, creating and trading NFTs is an expensive and frustratingly slow process.
NFT marketplaces like OpenSea try to solve the problem by offering a zero gas cost NFT issue, however users will still have to pay for gas in order to accept a buyer’s offer, cancel a listing, etc.
Ethereum’s final transition to Proof-of-Stake is still a long way off. For the moment, the wisest decision is to utilize other blockchains that support NFT, such as Polkadot, Binance Smart Chain, Solana, and Elrond.
We have selected three compelling projects from a full-fledged digital metaverse to a protocol for organizing auctions, which will soon offer NFT tokens on alternative blockchains. We’re talking about Sensorium Galaxy (SENSO), Burnt Finance, and BSC Station
SENSO and Sensorium Galaxy on Substrate architecture
SENSO is the native token of the Sensorium Galaxy digital universe. SENSO will host virtual concerts of famous artists, dance shows, meditation classes, digital art exhibitions, quests, and much more.
The release of the first PRISM world is scheduled for autumn 2021, together with the first VR concerts. The project has signed contracts with a number of the biggest techno stars, including David Guetta and Armin van Buuren. The avatars for the digital metaverse were designed by renowned 3D artist Jason Ebeyer.
It has long been rumored in the SENSO community that Sensorium Galaxy will implement NFT. These rumors were finally confirmed after the publication of the Light Paper, end of April. In paper it was documented that the Sensorium Galaxy will soon move to its own Substrate-based blockchain optimized for the entertainment and VR segment.
The digital universe will be embodied in the NFT marketplace. All fees for issuing NFT tokens, listing on the marketplace, closing deals, etc. will be paid in SENSO.
Thanks to the modular Substrate architecture, developers will have the ability to shape blockchains with the desired properties, choose a consensus algorithm, a commission structure, and so on. By far, the only Substrate-based NFT application is SubstraPunks, which is a variation of CryptoPunks on the Kusama network, an experimental space for Polkadot. There are many other projects in development already, from NFT browsers to digital galleries.
The SENSO token itself is still available in ERC-20 format on large exchanges like KuCoin and Poloniex. In April 2021, the Project burned 70% of all SENSO issued; about 4.2 billion tokens for a grand total of $ 10 billion. The rationale of the burning was an exceedingly successful closed round of sales, which made further public sales unnecessary.
Burnt Finance (Solana)
The Injective Protocol team working on the Burnt Finance decentralized auction protocol chose a highly unusual way to bring attention to the project. The organizers purchased and burned, literally, the print of the notable street artist Banksy and then sold it in a NFT form.
The team spent $ 95,000 on a print called “Morons” with Banksy’s signature. Then a user nicknamed ‘Burnt Banksy’ burned the work during a live stream on Twitter. The video has already received 10 million views. After the print was destroyed, the team released its NFT on the OpenSea marketplace. Soon after, the token was sold for $ 380,000.
This extraordinary performance demonstrated that NFTs have their value, which does not necessarily depend on the value of the underlying asset. It is noteworthy that the selling price of NFT was four times the price of the print itself. In other words, the print has acquired immortality on the blockchain and has become even more desirable for collectors.
As for the Burnt Finance protocol itself, it will allow users to issue NFTs and organize an unlimited number of auctions. The choice fell on the Solana blockchain due to its fast-growing ecosystem, almost zero fees and a distinctively high output of up to 50,000 transactions per second.
In order for users to buy NFTs with ETH and ERC-20 tokens, BurnFinance integrates the Solana Wormhole Ethereum bridge. The launch of the protocol is scheduled for late 2021.
Binance Smart Chain station
The Binance Smart Chain blockchain (BSC), pulled a lot of users and liquidity from the Ethereum network when gas became too expensive for a number of small investors. Unlike Solana and Polkadot, BSC is highly centralized as there are only 21 validators in the network with stakes from 10,000 BNB
While the centralized nature of BSC is distrustful of many blockchain enthusiasts, the network vastly outperforms Ethereum in terms of scalability, efficiency and availability. In addition, BSC is compatible with the Ethereum virtual machine and the popular MetaMask wallet. Hence, making it easy for developers and ordinary users to adapt to it.
The BSC Station project has a mixed DeFi/NFT infrastructure allowing the creation of Dutch, English and private NFT auctions. In addition, the platform will have a decentralized exchange like Uniswap, which supports the exchange of NFTs for tokens in the BEP-20 format. BSC Station recently announced a partnership with Project Polkamon that will make collectible polkamons available on BSC through lotteries and other mechanics.
Ethereum remains the central platform for issuing NFTs, yet this may soon change. As projects like SENSO begin to implement NFTs in other ecosystems, including Polkadot and Solana, users are realizing that creating and trading NFTs on these blockchains is significantly cheaper and faster. As a result, Ethereum will begin to lose ground, at least until the migration to Eth 2.0 is complete, which could take years.
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