NFT Journey Part 2- Is NFT Unique?
Before we begin, let’s study the following two NFT listing before we go in-depth into the discussion of what makes an NFT unique.
NFT Listing: Sunflower in Winter #1
Contract Address: OpenSea smart contract
Token ID : 110075082525157842416853083599221197420544368141821670921609398061813351841793
NFT Listing: Sunflower in Winter #7
Contract Address: OpenSea smart contract
Token ID : 110075082525157842416853083599221197420544368141821670921609398068410421608449
Refer to NFT Journey Part 1 to recap what NFT is and the importance of its token id.
Observation:
Have you noticed that even though both “Sunflower in Winter #1” and “Sunflower in Winter #7” have different token id, the NFT’s item is identical to one another? I was petty confused when I first ventured into NFT, and questions such as,
- “Isn’t NFT supposed to be unique?”
- “What is the ERC-1155 token standard?”
have sent me a massive google hunt. Thus, my goal in this article is to answer these questions concisely.
What is ERC-721?
ERC stands for Ethereum Request for Comment, and it is the set of documentation that guides the writing of a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain. Any NFTs that reside in Ethereum blockchain or Ethereum compatible blockchain are governed by ERC token standard, namely, the ERC-721, a well-known token standard for NFT. According to ERC-721, (1) an item, be it collectible or unique, will be given (2) a unique token id as an identifier to match with (3) an owner. And this is the basis of an NFT.
However, as observed above, the token standard used in the newly minted NFT on OpenSea is not ERC-721 but ERC-1155 instead ; thus, what is ERC-1155, and how does it differ from ERC-721?
What is ERC-1155?
ERC-1155 is a multi-token standard that supports “fungible token” and “non-fungible token.” The combination of having both “fungible token” and “non-fungible token” attributes is known as “semi-fungible.” This token standard was introduced in 2018 to add flexibility to the existing NFT to support broader applications such as gaming NFTs or even Metaverse. ERC-1155 is treated as an NFT when it meets the criteria of being non-fungible, meaning one image is mapped to one token id and one owner. ERC-1155 token mapping can be quite complex. For example, it can map multiple instances of the same item to one token id and one owner, or it can have multiple instances of the item map to one token id and various owners, and so on and so for.
Let’s take at the following image for one of the many ERC-1155 token mapping possibilities:
NFT Listing: adidas Originals: Into the Metaverse
Contract Address: AdidasOriginals smart contract
Token ID : 0
Observation: The NFT listing has a token id mapped to 30,000 instances of an Adidas image with more than 20,000 owners using the ERC-1155 token standard governed by the Adidas smart contract.
Due to ERC-1155 versatility, it is a matter of time before ERC-1155 will eclipse ERC-721 as the default token standard for NFTs.
Fractional NFTs (F-NFTs)
Like “timeshare,” where a property is divided into fractional ownership, an F-NFTs also attempt to slice NFT into fractional ownership. They are ongoing development on this space to support this application. However, F-NFTs are not native in ERC 72,1 and are not precisely spelled out in ERC-1155.
Is NFT Unique?
Under the ERC-721 and ERC-1155 token standards, if an item is mapped to a unique token id and linked to an owner, an NFT is considered unique even if the items are identical. In conclusion, NFT uniqueness is based only on the digital mapping of the 1:1:1 ratio, and NFT trading is solely based on token id.
Note: The following article is based on the Ethereum blockchain token standards, namely ERC-721 and ERC-1155 on the NFT platform, OpenSea.io. Polygon blockchain is a side chain that aims to offload the Ethereum congestion problems, and it is currently supported in OpenSea.io. NFTs minted on either Polygon or Ethereum comply with Ethereum token standards.
Subscribe to get notified via email whenever I publishes.
Not a Medium member yet? Sign up for just $5 a month. Your membership directly support writers like me plus you get a full access to every story on Medium.
Please let me know if you have any questions or if there is anything you would like me to write in general; leave a comment below. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the article.
Join Coinmonks Telegram Channel and Youtube Channel learn about crypto trading and investing
