Thread by @LeonidasNFT

There seems to be a lot of confusion around the just dug up 2015 Terra Nullius project.

Thread to hopefully helps clear things up👇

“Only the pieces minted in 2015 are 2015 NFTs. Everything minted in 2021 is worthless.”

This one is totally false. Almost all MoonCats were minted earlier this year and they have a floor of 1Ξ. If an NFT is minted at any point in time on a 2015 contract it’s still a 2015 NFT.

“You can mint the same message twice so these aren’t non-fungible.”

Also false. It is true that you can mint the same message multiple times but each message still has a unique id. But even if this weren't true, trading card projects like Curio Cards have multiples.

“There is an infinite supply so it’s worthless.”

Also not true. Just look at CryptoKitties, WeLikeTheRocks, and NumberBoard. The market just assigns value to the lower id tokens for projects that have an infinite supply. The Terra Nullius wrapper holds the lower ids.

“The supply cap on the wrapper is artificially set to 4,000”

This is true and I’m not 100% sure why the dev chose to do this, but as outlined above the low ids are where the value is in projects with an infinite supply. If you want to make another wrapper for high ids go for it.

“The wrapper contract isn’t actually connected to the original 2015 contract.”

False. Last night when I minted the message "Spartans! Prepare for glory!” from the wrapper contract it forever engraved it into the original contract. Smart contracts can talk to each other people!

The bottom line is that because early projects predate the ERC-721 standard, each contract needs to be evaluated independently. It’s very much a spectrum, based on total boxes checked. If it checks all of the boxes it will be worth billions like CryptoPunks. Most of course won't.

For example, it can get really messy. CryptoPunks and many other projects have earlier “bugged” or “test” contracts. Many of these projects technically existed on Ethereum Classic first. Some people even think that something’s not an NFT if it’s not fully on-chain.

But the market will sort all of this out. It's okay for people to have different definitions but IMO it’s not healthy to look at things in binary terms of "worthless" or "super valuable". It’s a spectrum and the free market determines exactly what the value is not an opinion.

For me, Terra Nullius is an NFT because it clearly checks the “non-fungible” box with the messages and unique ids. And it also checks the “token” ownership box because through the wrapper people can buy, sell, and exchange them.

It’s no different than Emblem Vault building a bridge between Counterparty/BTC and Ethereum. Through modern techniques, people found ways of transferring ownership. “What is ownership?” is a really interesting conversation that the whole NFT space is having right now.

As a community, I think we should lead by example here by staying open-minded and continue questioning, but doing so in a considerate manner without speaking in absolutes or using language such as “scam” etc. We are so much better than that.

I completely understand why holders of other tokens whose narrative was damaged a bit by this find would have incentive alignment to attempt to delegitimize Terra Nullius, however, I implore everyone to remain civil and have objective, open-minded conversations.

A lot of the criticism feels very much like the BTC crowd claiming that ETH isn’t “sound money” based on their definition. Well to that I say, it’s really cool that you made your own definition and all but we’re clearly using ETH as money so…

As always DYOR, understand that like every early non-ERC-721 project, Terra Nullius falls on a spectrum. The history books are still being written. There isn’t a ton of precedent built up yet. Keep asking good questions and treat others with the same respect you would like.