Article 2: Highlighting most imaginative and creative developments in IC Tokens

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Internet Computer NFT Designers Inspire the Imagination and embrace the Impossible. January, 2023

As of its, “Genesis Launch Event”, in May, 2021, the Internet Computer has offered developers around the world an entirely new kind of decentralized, Web3 infrastructure – notable for transcending the combined capabilities of the Web2 public clouds and the Ethereum blockchain. As DFINITY continues stewarding the growth and maturity of the Internet Computer ecosystem, they’re also facilitating broad decentralization of the decision-making that governs its policies and operations as well as those of available blockchain network services. In furnishing the ecosystem with ICP token’s governance voting power and the Network Nervous System, the DFINITY Foundation has set the standard for progressive, multi-scale capacity for effecting an “exit to community”. Specifically, the Internet Computer’s Network Nervous System (NNS) facilitates ICP token-weighted voting on proposals concerning the global Internet Computer blockchain, while the Service Nervous System (SNS) offers turn-key public infrastructure for tokenizing the governance of services and platforms you create on the network. And to be sure, this is only the beginning – the very first (and, decidedly experimental) use of the SNS only just occurred in December, 2022.

Internet Computer innovations like these are setting the groundwork and inspiring the imagination for a period of unprecedented creative exploration in the design and application of tokenization and tokenomics for extending the capabilities and enriching the digital experience of “Web3”.

Anyone approaching token systems and standards development on the Internet Computer – especially those familiar with the evolution of the slightly older Ethereum network - must appreciate a few unique architectural features of the Internet Computer.

On first-generation Layer 1 networks like Ethereum, smart contracts are immutable and this (defining) blockchain-enabled feature serves as a primitive basis for “trustless” assumptions in service design on the network. In contrast, Internet Computer smart contracts (“Canisters”) are mutable and may be optionally rendered immutable (a so called, ”blackholed” canister) or partially and conditionally mutable, under a variety of mechanisms - token enabled and otherwise. Because of this additional layer of control, any token system or standard on the Internet Computer entails selection or implementation of a suitable ledger design having the desired combination of governance and decentralization promises.

Discussion of this design difference sometimes dwells on the implications of resolving some degree of transaction and interaction atomicity at the contract level, rather than being baked-in at the network level. The nature and locus of immutability exemplified in the Ethereum network is, to many people’s minds, powerfully associated with the fundamental utility of blockchain, generally speaking; however, none of the token system developers or standards contributors that I spoke with expressed concerns - instead, seeing benefits for modularity, upgradability , ecosystem integration flexibility and more. As new token projects address these additional issues and design patterns, we will learn better the balance of risks and rewards implicated in the Internet Computer’s unique architecture.

First-generation, Layer 1 networks such as Ethereum serve only a singular blockchain ledger and rely on centralized public or hybrid clouds for most of their “Web3” implementation. In contrast, the Internet Computer employs an extended repertoire of cryptographic primitives to fully decentralize the provisioning of a complete cloud computing experience - a “World Computer” - comprising all of the “data”, “network and control-plane” and “presentation layer“ capability of a fully functional “cloud stack”.

Recent integrations that enable Internet Computer canisters, wallets, accounts and other token-enabled services to directly hold and transact on both the Ethereum and Bitcoin networks will have immense implications for token system designs and related standards on IC. Apart from the obvious benefits and advantages of extending network control to these highly capitalized networks, it creates an opportunity for the Internet Computer community to anticipate the power of cross-chain, multi-chain and, perhaps omni-chain (meta-chain? : O ), token systems and, demonstrate leadership in related network-spanning standards development and related “cross-jurisdiction harmonization”.

https://medium.com/dfinity/btc-icp-mainnet-integration-complete-bringing-smart-contract-functionality-to-bitcoin-9bd81d4ce0ba⁠

⁠

Some early Internet Computer token system designers are stretching the imagination regarding possible token concepts and use-cases. Those with an appetite for invention may wish to learn more about these projects.

Ntagle: A Near Field Communications enabled NFT producing a liminal (so called, “phygital”) object bridging the real and the virtual realms, created by Isaac Valadez, a mechanical engineer, blockchain developer, and serial entrepreneur from Houston Texas. Isaac is an active contributor across a variety of IC community endeavors. He was instrumental in organizing the first Motoko bootcamp (information about this year’s event

here⁠

) and developed the first NNS proposal generator service on the IC (

https://nnsproposal.icp.xyz/⁠

). Ntagle creates a unique URL binding the proven possession of a physical object to some digital asset or canister-controller - essentially, “soul-bound” to the physical item and transferrable between parties - but only when there has been a transfer of the physical object. Through a layer of indirection, the Ntagle NFT owner is still empowered to delegate, lend, or rent the powers conferred by their possession of the Phygital NFT. Isaac continues to explore possible use-cases and required token system extensions - for instance, will successive owners of an Ntagle phygital NFT be identified to each other - or share some continuing benefit by virtue of the physical object once passing through their hands (along with it’s corresponding metaverse or extended reality (XR) powers)? (

https://twitter.com/ntagled⁠

)

ORIGYN Foundation’s Perpetual Operating System and sNFT (Sovereign NFT): Austin Fatheree’s creativity and technical leadership stretches the limits of token innovation using machine learning, artificial intelligence, computer vision, and decentralized technology to mint and guarantee digital certificates as NFTs that are matched to both real-world goods and natively digital assets. The ORIGYN certificate of authenticity incorporates an object’s “digital twin” — its unique, tamper-proof digital duplicate. The perpetualOS is extensible in that it supports third-party development of entertainment, financial, social and other capabilities with the sNFT specifying a Data API, Market API, Identity API, Social API, and Object API (these NFTs actually have their own wallets). “Sovereign” being an operative word here, the sNFT and PerpetualOS aim to furnish sNFT holders more inventor and creator-focused alternatives for “peer-to-peer” market coordination serving the interests of creators and preserving for them some rights and controls presently centralized with marketplaces and exchanges. ORIGYN envisions a future of tokens which are much more composable, context-aware (of chain-state, say) and much more adaptable and dynamic in fulfilling your creative vision.

Impossible Things⁠

is a new NFT marketplace where ORIGYN-minted NFTs can be traded, with support for the

DIP721⁠

and

EXT⁠

standards (

IMPOSSIBLE THINGS (@Impossible_NFT) / Twitter⁠

). (

https://www.origyn.com/whitepapers⁠

)

{Connor bio Picture} Connor McCormick is co-founder of Supersynchronous (

https://supsync.com/⁠

), a rapid prototyping and no-code development guild serving the strategic and operational needs of venture capital and other industry leaders who want to move fast. He has been learning about the Internet Computer ecosystem since, 2019 and is interested in applying token systems and tokenomics in the design of novel epistemic claims-markets and mechanism designs that incentivize reliable signaling of epistemic commitments where it helps resolve adaptive policy choices and externality prices and contributes to prioritizing and financing research for falsifying claims.

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