Where are your NFT’s really stored? On a centralized server, unless it’s on The Internet Computer
Today buying & selling NFT is more popular than ever, either for gaming, as a sign of opulence & flex, being a part of a community or just for long term valuation.
However here’s a fact not many people are aware of:
Most NFTs don’t really live on a blockchain.A lot of times they are stored in a centralized server like AWS.
Which raises an important question:
Are they safe & could they disappear one day?
Well, maybe. The answer isn’t so straightforward and requires us to first break down the elements that make up an NFT. When a person buys an NFT, get a digital code that points to a piece of media located somewhere on the internet, bound by a Smart Contract.
NFT = Smart Contract + Metadata (including the actual content or media file + attributes)
The digital artworks themselves are not located or registered on the blockchain. Rather, when an NFT artwork is purchased, the buyer gets a cryptographic signature, or certificate, that points to an image hosted elsewhere. The actual item could be located anywhere on the internet (on a centralized server), and the NFT effectively serves as a digital token for that internet address where the media file (image, video, etc.) is stored.
For example, when one mints/ buys an NFT on Opensea, they are quite clear about the fact that the Metadata is “Centralized” — This is the message on Opensea on minting an NFT :
This is mainly because the actual digital artwork is either too large or onerous to store on blockchains like Etheruem because they were just not designed to hold large data information.
What are the risks associated to NFT data being stored in centralized servers?
While the smart contract will always still exist the data can disappear.
- NFT file getting lost or corrupted
Since the actual NFT is stored on a central server, it’s very possible that the server faces technical issues, hacks or even something like a physical fire. A good example is when musician 3LAU sold an NFT album for $11 million on the Gemini-run marketplace NiftyGateway. In a few months it went missing. Read about more such cases here.
2. Changing the file of the NFT
A NFT could merely link to a URL, which means that whatever is stored from that URL can be changed as explained in this twitter thread :
So what could be done?
There are some probable but not 100% secure solutions like storing NFT files on hardware wallets, using IPFS services etc, however, none of them have offered a fool proof solution to holding an NFT 100% on chain, right along with the smart contract.
100% on chain NFT’s are now possible on ICP
As the phrase goes “not your keys, not your crypto”
Most blockchains don’t follow the practice of storing NFT files on the blockchain because it’s just too expensive to host gigabytes of data (millions per year). However with the unique Canister Smart Contracts on ICP, storing NFT’s and keeping them safe is easy. This is possible because of 2 key factors:
- Cost of storage : It costs as low as $5 per year to host a gig of data on the ICP.
- Unique infrastructure: Made up of Canisters and Cycles which it possible for the smart contract & the metadata to be united in one place.
This unique combination is what powers the evolution of safe, secure on chain.
Adding to this is the unlimited scalability, webspeed & reverse gas model, which makes the Internet Computer a very fertile playground to create great innovative NFT projects from interactive NFT metaverses, dynamic NFT’s, evolving NFT’s & more.
Have a look at this video + music NFT which is a huge file, however is still stored on chain, something unimaginable on Ethereum : View it On-Chain here
Or this simple Snake game which is integrated in an NFT and stored On-Chain, you can literally play the Snake Game on chain here
All these and more can be explored at Entrepot - the most thriving ICP NFT ecosystem on ICP which any NFT enthusiast & needs to explore.
It’s all summed up beautifully in this tweet by Dominic Williams , the president & chief scientist at DFINITY
