The KnownOrigin Evolution

Learnings and implementation details about the evolving the protocol and ecosystem

Where it came from

At KnownOrigin we started out building a digital arts platform. The initial driver for this was purely as it was space we were interested in and we identified a gap in a market with the potential for great things plus it was a use-case people understood. We’ve spent the last 6 months building, prototyping and learning about what would be required to building a new platform and protocol for distributing and issuing creative works backed by the Ethereum blockchain. Throughout we have been speaking to art houses, galleries, artists, creatives, and buyers, mapping data and generally learning.

Last week we announced the release of our new base layer smart contracts to our community, a new protocol for issuing digital assets. We aim to be the go to marketplace for creatives, artists and art houses to sell artworks, both physical and digital, on the Ethereum blockchain.

The approach we have taken is to build a solid and robust base layer, something which I like to call a non-fungible token factory, or NFT factory. This foundation is central to any future endeavours and opens up KnownOrigin to a wider range of possibilities. We call it an NFT factory as the central smart contract is capable of minting and issuing bespoke ERC-721 tokens (aka NFTs).

What we’ve done

One of our first problems we wanted to try and address is gas costs. On a public blockchain this can be problematic as we all know. We use the NFT factory to define digital assets and make them available on the platform while also providing a basic purchase flow. We no longer minting hundreds of tokens which would sit around taking space on the the public chain, potentially unsold and unused. Upon purchasing of a digital asset we dynamically mint and issue the token, reducing costs all around as we have configured the tokens within the contract at the initial edition creation, a token ID is deterministically generated and the NFT is issued to the buyer. This process transfers ownership and maintains provenance of the digital asset. We think it this strategy will make the onboarding process much quicker and easier for all as well as saving costs over time.

Our second learning is that KODA (beta) was limited in the number of configuration options and metadata data we could attach to digital assets. Data is extremely valuable and costly to store on chain, it needs to have real value and a true requirement to be stored in our opinion. Within the base layer NFT factory, editions can now define a much wider number of default configuration options which can be used to enable a much wider ecosystem. Additional layers can also be built on top of this base protocol — describe below.

Some of characteristics/traits/options which can now be defined in KnownOrigin are as follows:

• assetID—this becomes the default identifier of each edition, no edition shall share the same number, all tokens minted will be between this number and the next edition. An edition is defined as a set of a single digital asset.
• data — 32 bytes worth of custom data which can be embedded within a digital asset. This can be used as identifiers for 3rd party systems, external contracts and other layers of the system.
• type — A fundamental addition to the base layer, it allows for multiple parties to issue NFT assets i.e. KO is type 1, an external party maybe type 2, a arthouse which uses our contracts to track provenance is type 3. This allows for different parties to utilise our base layer and query only for the types they are interested in.
• startDate — The date when the asset goes on publical sale, this can overridden and is optional.
• endDate — The date when the asset is publically available until, this can overridden and is optional.
• priceInWei — The base price a single asset, this can and will be overridden by parent contracts.
• totalSupply — This defines the number of issued assets made of this edition.
• totalAvailable — This defines the maximum number available.
• commission — This allows us to define per-edition, the commission percentage of any sale which is paid directly to the creators ETH address below. At the point of sale, immediate enumeration of funds issues out this value. We expect this to be overridden in parent contracts when more complex structure are required.
• commissionAccount — The account that any commissions are paid to.
• tokenURI — This represents the IPFS hash which must conform to the ERC-721 metadata standards. Further additions to the standards can be defined with the metadata.
• active — This allows a root level of control, turning an edition on/off. For the public to purchase an asset by default it must be active, however this can be skipped by various controls.
• optionalCommission — This allows for any edition sale to define a 3rd party to also take a slice of the purchase. One use case could be if creatives may want to donate a % of commission to a charity or creative art fund, much like the brilliant artblocks.io platform does.
• Higher volumes per edition supported — editions can now supports tens of thousands of tokens per edition. Ideal for other uses than rare digital arts.
• Enhanced data lookup methods — query purchased tokens by commissionAccount, type, owner, editionNumber. This will help with 3rd party integration, APIs and external tools.
• Enhanced events — events are published at all state changes and contain a more complete set of data.
• Batch transfers — the ability batch transfer ERC-721 tokens has been added.
• Pre-minting or under-minting — The ability to hold back a number of assets from an edition for special purposes e.g. competitions, personal collections, contra-deals, transferring to 3rd parties/trustees/contracts.

All the above represents allows us control and flexibility to drive the KnownOrigin marketplace forward. We believe this set of default configuration options and features allows for a wider range of use cases than our previous issuing contract and provides a much broader scope for tracking digital asset provenance.

Now these changes are live we can now re-focus efforts in marketing and promoting the amazing artists we already have on the platform as well as building out and developing the additional layers of the Known Origin ecosystem.

The most exciting part for us is that we have laid the foundations for is the ability to layer on things such as new purchasing and auction styles, white label solutions and additional products beyond digital art. One feature to enable this is by building additional access controls for minting, creating and configuring editions and purchasing assets. We expect the first new auction contracts to be ready within a few weeks.

Shortly, we will be announcing three new products which are being developed under the KnownOrigin umbrella and its partners. For now I can only give out some code names and show you an overview for the type of ecosystem we envisage:

Our vision for what http://knownorigin.io/ can be

KOTA, KOCOA and Crypto K….?— three newly developed and innovative products built by our team and with our partners. They align with our ethos and ambitions and will help to further propel KnownOrigin to the forefront in the blockchain and digital arts space and to test new ground when it comes to tracking provenance of Digital and Physical assets.

We will be releasing more about these in the comings months. In the meantime head over to our the KnownOrigin marketplace and see what awesome assets the artists are creating and listing for sale.

Remember to say “hello” on our telegram channel or twitter @knownorigin_io account.

Peace out 🎨… KO Team

BE ORIGINAL. BUY ORIGINAL.

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