Introducing Nifty Erdstall — Our Plug-in NFT marketplace solution
We introduce a new hybrid approach for developing NFT marketplaces that allows both novice and advanced users to fully use all NFT features while still ensuring ease-of-use, low fees, scalability, flexibility, and security.
Non-fungible tokens or NFTs have risen in popularity over the past few months. The power of NFTs lies within the ability to create personalized tokens that can be tied to an individual account and are unique in a way that they cannot be duplicated. NFTs have been especially popular in the art scene with the auctioning of digital art pieces for millions of dollars. Furthermore, the gaming industry has been very keen on NFTs for tokenizing in-game items or collectibles such as cryptopunks or sorare.
Utilizing blockchain technology to provide the guarantee for users that their precious NFTs cannot be controlled or duplicated by someone else has definitely been an accelerant for the success of the technology. However, as we explained in previous blog posts, global blockchains are not ready to support massive amounts of users which leads to long waiting times and high transaction fees. A few months ago we introduced Erdstall as our solution to these technical roadblocks of Ethereum which takes advantage of trusted execution environments (TEEs).
With Nifty Erdstall we are taking the next step towards providing a solution to build easy-to-use, affordable, secure, and powerful NFT marketplaces or enhance existing ones.
Easy to use
With the hybrid approach of Nifty Erdstall novice users can onboard without having to go through complicated steps because it doesn’t require interacting with a blockchain. Power users on the other hand can take full advantage of the blockchain capabilities and transfer their tokens to the Ethereum mainnet and interact with other platforms within the Ethereum ecosystem.
Affordable
With Ethereum fees at an all-time high, minting NFTs is very costly (between $80 and $1000) and is not economically viable in most cases. Nifty Erdstall provides off-chain minting which allows generating NFTs with zero gas fees. Instead of minting the token directly on the Ethereum mainnet, Nifty Erdstall computes a cryptographic voucher that guarantees the user to mint the token on mainnet at a later point in time. Further, the Nifty Erdstall trading engine allows for gas-free trades and token auctions.
Secure
By leveraging the power of trusted execution environments (TEEs) transactions and trades are computed within a secure enclave and cannot be manipulated or altered in any way. Users can further verify that the software within the enclave hasn’t been altered through a process called software attestation.
Powerful
Nifty Erdstall provides massive performance upwards of 2000 transactions per second for both minting and transacting NFTs. Trades are verified within milliseconds with little computational overhead.
Use Cases
Nifty Erdstall can be used as a basis to build marketplaces around a variety of different use cases. Let’s take a look at a few examples and how Nifty Erdstall can improve them.
Art: NFT Art marketplaces provide a platform for artists to sell their NFT-based art. Sellers usually have to create the NFT on-chain and pay transaction fees before even knowing if their item gets sold or not which puts them at a disadvantage. Using off-chain minting, the NFT can be created without having to pay gas fees and with a guarantee (provided by the cryptographic voucher) to be able to mint the NFT on the Ethereum mainnet. Going one step further, they can sell, trade, or auction that cryptographic voucher to other users without paying a cent in gas fees. In addition, Nifty Erdstall will also include the possibility to encrypt the data for the art piece so that only the current buyer has access to it.
Gaming: As the market for unique in-game products grows, NFTs are becoming more prominent in gaming as they can enhance a unified gaming experience. With the support of NFT marketplaces, gamers can own and exchange cool stickers, cards, and other rare and exclusive gaming assets, earning real money. Each object has a distinct identifier that is linked to the gamers account for as long as he owns it. Nifty Erdstall can help build gaming marketplaces for monetizing assets, valuing them based on scarcity, and trading them for cryptocurrencies — all with no gas fees.
Loyalty/Reward programs: When buying or ordering from the same store or e-commerce website repeatedly, rewards or loyalty points may be provided in the form of NFTs. These tokens can be exchanged on the NFT Marketplace for a fair discount on the next order, as well as with other users for real money. Premium Badges may be gifted for a gold membership or achievement of a certain goal at any online shop or social platform. These badges can be one-of-a-kind and can be used to highlight premium accounts or special achievements. These exclusive badges can also be exchanged at marketplaces for any cryptocurrency to people who want to get a unique and premium account and reap the benefits. Nifty Erdstall can streamline the user onboarding process and make it seamless for new users to access any NFT based loyalty or reward platforms. At the same time, Nifty Erdstall offers the option for power users to pass their achievements to Ethereum directly.
Summary: We introduce Nifty Erdstall, a powerful extension to our Erdstall scaling solution for Ethereum to build easy-to-use, affordable, secure, and scalable NFT marketplaces. Further, existing marketplaces can be scaled with Nifty Erdstall and guarantee security and efficiency with no gas fees.
If you are interested in learning more about Nifty Erdstall and how it can be used to scale your business, visit our website (https://erdstall.dev/) and our GitHub repo or contact us directly by writing us an email at hi@erstall.dev.
