A Guide to 8Bidou
Understanding the ins and outs of this platform
If you’re interested in selling or collecting from 8Bidou, but not sure where to start, I wrote this guide to help. Scroll through or use the table of contents to navigate to where you want to go:
- What is 8Bidou?
- What is Tezos?
- As a Collector
1. How do I set up a Tezos Wallet?
2. How do I fund my wallet?
3. How do I buy art on 8Bidou?
4. How do I see what I own?
5. How do I resell or transfer art I own? - Tips for Buying
- As an Artist
1. How do I format my art?
2. How do I mint?
3. How do I sell my tokens?
4. How do I burn tokens on 8Bidou?
5. How do I see my sales? - Additional Resources
What is 8Bidou?
Is a platform for minting and selling pixel art on the Tezos blockchain.
Pieces minted here are minted on-chain. This differs from creating pixel art and minting it through most other platforms in that, the connection between where the metadata links to and the image itself can’t be lost.
Any art that is minted off-chain can run into issues with broken links, missing images, swapped out images, etc.
8Bidou comes out of Japan where it is known as 八火堂. It was created by hrtkassh, who continues to develop the platform at a steady pace, alongside a vibrant community of artists and developers.
8Bidou is broken down by type and size of art. Currently there is a marketplace for 8x8 full-color and 24x24 monochromatic pixel art.
What is Tezos?
Tezos is decentralized open-source blockchain that facilitates peer-to-peer transactions. In the same way that you might exchange your paper currency for goods, Tezos allows you to do this in a digital manner.
Tezos operates using a proof-of-stake (PoS) model to create blocks and secure the network. This method makes it much cheaper and less energy intensive to process transactions, which has lend itself to Tezos being seen as an eco-friendly blockchain.
As a Collector
To buy art on 8Bidou, you will need a Tezos supported wallet.
Setting up a Tezos Wallet
There are many Tezos supported wallets out there including software and hardware options. For a complete list including how to download, check out the Tezos website.
Follow the specific instructions for how to set up your wallet, including securing your seed phrase. Be sure to follow these links and make sure that that source your downloading from is correct, for security purposes.
Funding Your Tezos Wallet
Assuming you’ve used any centralized exchange before like Coinbase or Binance, you should have the option to buy Tezos.
Once you’ve purchased your Tezos (also called tez by the community), locate the address of the Tezos wallet that you’ve set up. Your Tezos wallet address should be a string of numbers and letters starting with “tz.”
Use this address to withdraw Tezos to. When transferring funds be sure to check, letter by letter, that the address is correct. In some cases, it may even make sense to send a test withdrawal of a small amount before sending a larger amount of tez.
Buying Art on 8Bidou
Once, you have your wallet set up and funded, you will want to navigate to the piece you want to buy.
Currently, the only place to buy an 8Bidou piece is on the respective market on the 8Bidou website or through a third-party tool like teztok. 8Bidou tokens have not yet been added to other marketplaces like Objkt for sale.
Buying Through 8Bidou’s UI
- Start off on the homepage: https://ui.8bidou.com
2. From here, you’ll want to click the “MENU BUTTON is here” button on the top right. This will open up a menu. From here you can check out the various parts of the site including your inventory, the marketplaces, and the minting page.
3. Clicking on “Marketplaces” reveals the marketplace, which is broken down by the different type of art (in this case 8x8 full color and 24x24 black and white).
4. Click “Sync Your Wallet” to connect your wallet to the platform. This will reveal a modal. Select your previously set up Tezos wallet.
5. Once in your wallet, approve permissions for 8Bidou to sync with your wallet.
6. The text below the menu button may still say “Sync Your Wallet” but refreshing should show that your wallet is synced. Note: if you would later like to disconnect your wallet from the site, click “Unsync.”
7. Navigate to a piece of art that you’re interested in by clicking the image in the marketplace or navigating directly from an artist’s link.
8. Since the creator name can be changed to whatever the artist wants, you’ll want to do some due diligence here. Start with verifying that the artist and address is who they say they are. Under the “Creator Info by Tezos Profile” you’ll find information pulled from their TzKt profile.
9. You can also click the address to go to the artist’s TzKt profile or the handle to go to their Twitter profile.
10. It’s possible that the creator may not be who they say they are, since this name is entered by the artist. It’s also possible that a Tezos Profile may not be linked, in which case you’ll see this warning.
11. To buy from the original creator, you’ll want to identify that the “Seller Address” under “On Sale” says “Creator.”
12. If the token doesn’t have any available items for primary sale, there may be secondary options available. These options will show the Tezos wallet address that holds the token being sold.
13. To buy, click on the “BUY” button. Hovering over on desktop, will change the color of the button.
14. Pressing buy will bring up a confirmation from your wallet. Process the confirmation to finish processing the transaction.
15. After the transaction is processed, it should appear in your Tezos wallet and under your “Inventory” page.
Buying Through TezTok
Transacting through Teztok is a little faster, but it also requires a little more verification of who the artist is.
- Start off on the homepage: https://8x8.teztok.com
2. On this page, you’ll find a stream of the latest mints and latest sales, which can be handy. Click the “Sync” button on the top right to sync your wallet. This will reveal a modal. Select your previously set up Tezos wallet.
3. Once in your wallet, approve permissions for 8Bidou to sync with your wallet.
4. Clicking on an image reveals this UI. You can click a user’s name to go to their inventory page. You can click the Twitter icon to check out the user’s linked Twitter profile. You can also click the “Open… on 8Bidou” button to check out the item on the original 8Bidou UI.
5. Scrolling down, you can also find more creations that the artist has made.
6. Clicking on a user’s name, reveals their profile. This profile pulls in information from tzprofiles, versus tzkt for the “Alias” information.
7. Assuming there is a number with a 🌮 emoji next to it, there is an item for sale. Clicking on the item, will reveal a “Buy for X 🌮” button under the item image and across from the seller’s name. If you are on a desktop and hover over the button, it should change colors.
8. Pressing buy will bring up a confirmation from your wallet. Process the confirmation to finish processing the transaction.
9. After the transaction is processed, it should appear in your Tezos wallet and in your inventory which is viewable on the Teztok site under “My Profile.”
Checking Out Your Collection
Both https://ui.8bidou.com and https://8x8.teztok.com have a section to check out your collection.
On “UI - 8Bidou,” navigating to the Inventory tab, reveals the inventory that you have. If you have artwork that you’ve minted, you will find it by clicking “Creation” under the “Type” section.
You can also toggle between different formats.
On Teztok, click “My Profile” will pull up a page with “Creations” listed above “Inventory.”
If you have more tokens than what appears, you may have to click “More pixels.”
How to Resell or Transfer a Token
Listing a token for sale is only currently possible on the 8Bidou site.
To list or transfer an NFT you own, click the item. If you scroll down, you should see an area that looks something like this.
In order to sell tokens, type in the price you would want buyers to pay in XTZ (aka Tezos), then type in the number of tokens that you want to sell. Once these details are in place, click the large underlined text “List.”
This will open up a dialog with your wallet to confirm listing the token(s) at the price you specified.
To transfer tokens, copy and paste the wallet address in the “Address” form. You can send to multiple addresses by separating addresses with a comma. Type in the number of tokens you want to transfer and click the large underlined text “Transfer.”
This will open up a dialog with your wallet to confirm transferring the token(s) to the wallets listed.
Note: if you need to unlist a listed token, you can do so by clicking the “UNLIST” button on your listing.
Unlisting in this manner will unlist all of the tokens under this listing. In the case above, unlisting would unless 5 tokens that were previously on sale at 1 tez.
Tips for Buying
- The marketplace shows a random selection of art, so if you’re trying to discover something new to collect, it may make sense to continue refreshing the marketplace page.
- Verify that who you think you’re buying from is actually who you’re buying from. It’s possible for an item to be minted with the same creator name but the minting wallet is different/spoofed.
- Teztok can be a little easier to use since it has the ability for users to easily see how much quantity of a token is left to buy. This is a little more difficult to figure out on the 8Bidou site, but 8Bidou has a few more precautionary guardrails.
- Have a favorite artist on Tezos? They probably have created something for the platform. Find the address they typically mint from and swap it out in the inventory url. This is my teztok collection:
https://8x8.teztok.com/user/tz1N9n3brQ1ho5qGHqoe5g2LEDLUeQN4uqdR
Let’s say you wanted to see if cessrz had any art on 8Bidou.
From Objkt, you can get the artist’s wallet address, which is cessrz.tez (tz1XhBVf7LFFTKFATCrJPjeHTJ3xhDBovJta).
Swapping out the wallet address in the inventory URL, you’d get https://8x8.teztok.com/user/tz1XhBVf7LFFTKFATCrJPjeHTJ3xhDBovJta which reveals some of my favorite plant-based art on the platform.
As an Artist
To sell art on 8Bidou, you will need a Tezos supported wallet. Check out this section for more info. Once you have your wallet and art, the process is fairly simple.
Formating Art
You’ll want your art to fit the specific requirements of the marketplace you’re planning on minting it on. For the 8x8 full color marketplace, for instance, you’ll want your art to be saved as an exactly 8x8 pixel png in RGB.
Sometimes software can cause the exported image to blur or be much larger than 8x8, so be sure to make sure that the art you are uploading is the right size and what you want it to look like.
Minting
When you’re ready to mint your piece to the Tezos blockchain, head over to the mint page. Currently, this can be found at:
From here, be sure you have the correct market selected.
Upload your art by clicking “Upload Art” button, then fill out the rest of the details.
After your art is uploaded, you’ll see a preview of the image. You should use this to make sure that what you’re minting, is what you want to mint.
Fill out the title of the piece, your creator name, description, and number of editions. Unless you want to get more technical, you can leave the “Token Meta Data URL (Optional)” as is.
For editions, you can put 1 if you want a 1/1 token. You can also put a much larger number if you’d like. The price will be placed when tokens are swapped.
When you have all the details set, you will want to click on the “Mint” button:
Doing so, will cause your wallet to open up for you to approve the transaction.
Note: be sure that everything is correct before minting as the tokens will exist forever on the Tezos blockchain. If you make a mistake, you may need to burn your tokens.
If there is an error, the platform may tell you so. Most commonly, the platform may not recognize that your art is the right number of pixels or RGB. If this occurs, simply open up a new mint page, transfer over the text, upload the new image, and try to mint again.
Once successful, your minted token(s) will show up in your Tezos wallet and in the inventory section of the 8Bidou UI.
Selling Art
Selling (otherwise known as swapping or listing) is currently possible on the 8Bidou site.
To sell an NFT you own, click the item you want to sell from your inventory page. If you scroll down, you should see an area that looks something like this.
In order to sell tokens, type in the price you would want buyers to pay in XTZ (aka Tezos), then type in the number of tokens that you want to sell. Once these details are in place, click the large underlined text “List.”
This will open up a dialog with your wallet to confirm listing the token(s) at the price you specified.
In this manner, it’s possible to list different numbers of tokens at different prices.
If you need to unlist a listed token, you can do so by clicking the “UNLIST” button on your listing.
Unlisting in this manner will unlist all of the tokens under this listing. In the case above, unlisting would unless 5 tokens that were previously on sale at 1 tez.
To transfer tokens, copy and paste the wallet address in the “Address” form. You can send to multiple addresses by separating addresses with a comma. Type in the number of tokens you want to transfer and click the large underlined text “Transfer.”
This will open up a dialog with your wallet to confirm transferring the token(s) to the wallets listed.
Transferring tokens can be useful if you want to airdrop a piece to your holders.
Burning Tokens
Burning is the idea of sending tokens to an address that is inaccessible. This means that once a token is sent there, it can never be brought back into circulation.
There currently isn’t a built in way to burn tokens on 8Bidou. If you make a mistake while minting or simply come across a piece you want to burn, you can use the transfer function and send to the official Tezos burn address:
tz1burnburnburnburnburnburnburjAYjjX
The main issue with this, is that the current UI will show that a collector named “Burn Address 🔥” has the tokens that have been burned, when in most cases, these tokens would not be counted as being part of the collection still.
Checking Sales
Currently, the only way to easily see what has been been sold is to use the tool created by Pinkyblu_:
https://8bidou-tools.vercel.app
Going to this page gives you the existing markets and a “Sales History” button. Clicking on this button takes you to a new page where you can insert the Tezos wallet address, you’re interested in looking up sales data for.
Sales data is limited to a fixed number of transactions, so it may be useful to compile this on a regular basis, in case you need longer historical data.
For sales info on specific tokens, you can go to the individual token page and scroll down. On UI - 8Bidou, sales information is under “Sales History.
On Teztok, sales information is under “Sales.”
Additional Resources:
- 8Bidou Twitter
- 8Bidou Discord
- Unobtrusive Interface 8Bidou — a simpler version of the original UI.
- 8Bidou x Teztok—a quick UI to access the 8Bidou ecosystem
- 8Bidou Sales History
If you’ve found any of this helpful, please feel free to share it with others! If you feel so inclined, I have a choose-your-own-adventure experience I’m developing using the 8Bidou platform. You can learn more here and support by purchasing here!
