How and when did NFTs start? How are they evolving? Tweet thread👇
1/ Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are crypto assets that are one of a kind.
The value of one unit of cash or Bitcoin is the same as another. NFTs are the opposite of that and are unique.
It might seem like NFTs are a recent thing--they're not. NFTs have been around for a decade.
2/ Decentralized domains were the original crypto NFTs.
A decentralized domain is unique, i.e., non-fungible. Namecoin pioneered decentralized domains in 2011, launching at Bitcoin block 19,200 with merged mining.
(I registered u/muneeb there in Feb 2014.)
3/ Non-fungible tokens have existed on Bitcoin and separate blockchains (like BitShares) since at least 2014.
Counterparty launched on Bitcoin in 2014. Rare Pepes, the first popular digital art NFTs launched in 2016 on Counterparty (Bitcoin).
4/ You'll often hear in the media that NFTs originated on Ethereum. That's demonstrably false.
Domain NFTs go back to 2011 (Namecoin, merged mined with Bitcoin), and popular digital art NFTs go back to 2016 (Rare Pepes, on top of Bitcoin).
5/ You'll also hear that NFTs are not possible on Bitcoin. That's also false.
NFTs are currently gaining traction in ecosystems like Ethereum and Flow.
However, scalable NFTs are launching on Bitcoin. Boom wallet and the NFT drop by Cara Delevingne are examples.
6/ In summary, NFTs emerged on Bitcoin (Counterparty and merged mining).
The next-gen NFTs on Bitcoin are more scalable as they settle on BTC (e.g., using Stacks) instead of storing all data on-chain (like Counterparty).
It’s worth knowing the original history!
P.S: Relevant article on Bitcoin NFTs.
“These NFTs are ... minted on Bitcoin and not Ethereum.”
Bitcoin is often misunderstood within the crypto industry. Here is how:
Tweet thread👇
1/ People don’t think beyond the Bitcoin base layer.
L2s in Ethereum or subnets in Avalanche bring additional features to base layers.
Similarly, Bitcoin layers, like Lightning for payments or RSK/Stacks for smart contracts, bring additional functionality to Bitcoin.
2/ Bitcoin is for settlements, not payments.
The additional layers, like Lightning or Stacks, is where payments happen. On Lightning, people use sats, and on Stacks, people can use stablecoins like xUSD or Bitcoin-based assets like xBTC.
1/ Turing completeness is not a desirable property for smart contracts. What you mean/want here is expressiveness i.e, developers can easily write any logic.
You can be expressive with *decidable* languages. Being Turing complete i.e, not decidable is a security problem.
2/ There is nothing fundamental about Bitcoin that stops smart contracts.
Bitcoin designers, very carefully, built it so that the base layer has a small attack vector (i.e, limited script).
This leaves several options open to implementing smart contracts.