Is the value logic of "cross-chain NFT" hard enough?

22-04-25 11:00

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Written by: 0xCookie, Rhythm BlockBeats

Recently, the rise of "cross-chain NFT" led by Gh0stly Gh0sts and tiny dinos is attracting attention attention.

As a Free Mint project, Such an increase can be described as astonishing.

These "cross-chain NFTs" do not require holders to use cross-chain bridge tools to achieve transfer, they only need to call the traverseChains function in the contract, Platforms such as TofuNFT also quickly followed up and encapsulated contract function calls in a more fool-like way to help holders achieve one-click transfer. It is so easy for NFT to freely shuttle between chains like FT, and the rapid growth process of FTs from single-chain applications to multi-chain applications also makes NFT players full of expectations for "cross-chain NFT".

Many NFT players have a good "first impression" of "cross-chain NFT", mainly from these three aspects - "universal" social Value, "maximizable" revenue and "more interesting" game expansion, but these good "first impressions" do not seem to be as beautiful as imagined. After the short-term FOMO has gradually calmed down, let us rethink, does "cross-chain NFT" have a solid enough value logic?

Explore the "first impression"

"Universal" social value

Social value is one of the core values of PFP NFT. To put it simply and crudely, it is "dazzle" for showing off. PFP, which cannot be circulated across chains, has the limitation of being "unusable" in terms of social attributes—assuming that a popular app appears on some other chain ecology that is not on the ETH main network, and CryptoPunks, which was bought with a large amount of money on the ETH main network , BAYC, Azuki, etc. how to "show off"?

A friend is expressing such concerns to me, "Take the StepN of Solana ecology as an example, if it is updated in the future Some functions with strong social attributes, such as being able to join a sports group to display your own movement track on the world map, or making an appointment with other users to run, so how can I do my PFP on the ETH mainnet on the Solana ecological application? What about the avatar? "

Gh0stly Gh0sts and tiny dinos can really solve his worries. Both use the Layer Zero protocol. The process of cross-chain implementation of this protocol is simply to destroy the transferred NFT on the current network and mint a new NFT on the target chain. This can indeed solve the above-mentioned problems, but Two new problems have also emerged:

• "Tear down the east wall to fill the west wall": cross-chain transfer will destroy the original The corresponding assets on the chain. Suppose I transfer a certain PFP from the ETH mainnet to other chains today, which can indeed meet the social needs of my dApps on other chains, but the price is that dApps on the ETH mainnet cannot use this PFP as an avatar.

• "Transportation costs": Taking tiny dinos as an example, when Gwei is in the range of 25~30, it takes about Gas fees worth 50~60 USD are consumed. Frequent operations may be tolerable, but what about frequent Gas fees?

The "cross-chain NFT" headed by Gh0stly Gh0sts and tiny dinos is an answer, but it doesn't seem to be a good answer. What is more worthy of our thinking is, if we simply use PFP as an avatar, does it take so much effort?

The implementation process of using PFP as an avatar is simple. The first is "confirmation of rights". After the user signs with the wallet, the application can confirm that the user does hold the corresponding NFT asset. The second is "picture acquisition", which loads the corresponding image according to the URL pointed to in the corresponding NFT metadata. In addition to "cross-chain NFT", other answers have appeared:

• "One account, multiple wallets": with Take the online NFT gallery application OnCyber as an example. Users can add multiple wallets including ETH, SOL, Tezos and other chains, and each address corresponds to an independent gallery. After signature "confirmation of rights", different APIs are used to obtain pictures of NFT assets under each address, so that users can display NFTs in different addresses on different chains in one gallery.

• "NFT Passport": Harmony's ecological game DeFi Kingdoms provided BAYC holders with the "NFT Passport" function in February. As long as you have the address of BAYC in the connection address in the game, you can directly use the corresponding BAYC as the game avatar. Since "Proof of Ownership" is generated for BAYC holders on the Harmony network, players do not need to make cross-chain transfers of NFT assets.

Of course, the premise that this method is feasible is that Harmony’s main network is compatible with EVM. If it is a main network that is not compatible with EVM like Solana, I am afraid that we still have to return to the solution of "one account, multiple wallets". Considering that a software environment that supports EVM such as Neon has appeared on Solana, it is reasonable to expect to see more applications of this method.

It can be seen that "cross-chain NFT" does not have the irreplaceability of "universal" social value - freely Using PFP as an avatar has a more flexible solution. In addition, let us look at another data:

Observing the situation of Gh0stly Gh0sts calling the traverseChains function on Etherscan, it will be found that only 9 Records. In other words, Gh0stly Gh0sts only had 9 transfers from the ETH mainnet to other chains. In addition, there are a total of 3085 Gh0stly Gh0sts minted on the ETH main network, and the total number of Gh0stly Gh0sts currently circulating on the ETH main network is close to 6500, which means that most of the Gh0stly Gh0sts minted on other chains are mostly Returned to the ETH main network.

This data can explain two problems:

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• "Capital Effect": Although the ETH main network is often congested, its most diverse ecology and largest traffic determine that it is still the first choice for NFT projects and even applications to take root. For NFT players, the ETH mainnet is still their most active place - the latest and most interesting things generally appear here, and the best liquidity is also here. If you continue to need $ETH to seize new opportunities , so why not transfer the assets back to the ETH main network for sale to facilitate the next purchase?

• "Application shortage": a PFP can "show off", it needs to meet two conditions at the same time - the value of the PFP must not only be widely recognized, but also There must be enough popular apps to support the display. But at present, there is still a lack of such applications with "strong social attributes" on each chain. Twitter from Web2 may be the best place to "show off" at the moment, but it also "shows off" and only supports NFTs on the ETH mainnet.

"Universal" The social value is indeed not as beautiful as NFT players imagined, so what about the "maximizable" income level?

"Maximizable" revenue

Assuming a high APY appears on a certain chain How to move to the NFTFi mine?

Assuming that the NFT market/loan market of a certain chain is more liquid and the gas fee is lower, how to move it to operate?

"Cross-chain NFT" seems to be able to solve the above problems and improve capital utilization, but in fact it is "cross-chain NFT" that solves the above problems Chain" + "NFT with high net worth and strong liquidity". Many NFT projects have the application expansion of pledge to obtain Token, but for bad projects - low net worth and poor liquidity, 1 $xxxx is indeed equal to 1 $xxxx, and equal to 0 $ETH, but it may be possible to find another way to create a "waste "Mine" to accept all these projects, and then hype the pledge reward tokens with the logic of meme coins to achieve the rebirth of the phoenix? The same is true for lending - the value of NFT itself determines whether there is a demand for lending.

So if we were to It is believed that the value logic of "cross-chain NFT" at the level of "maximizable" income is strong enough, and it is necessary to find a strong expectation of becoming a "high-net-worth and highly liquid NFT" for it, and it is necessary to return to the NFT project. Traditional scoring items - artistic style, cultural core, community operation, market strategy, etc. are evaluated. However, projects such as Gh0stly Gh0sts and tiny dinos are just newly born, and it is not enough to give convincing strong expectations in this regard, and more time is needed to give us enough feedback.

"More interesting" game development

Big brain opening The time has come.

Make an MMORPG chain game, which can be cast in ETH, BSC, SOL, AVAX respectively, and each chain The castable amount is 1/4 of the total amount. Players’ first game starts from the time of casting - NFTs cast on different chains will have different character characteristics. For example, the ETH main network is the most abundant ecology and is often congested, so the strength of the characters cast on it The value is high and the agility value is low. The throughput of SOL is high, so the characters cast on it have high agility values. There are "pancakes" on the BSC, which have sufficient calories, so the characters cast on it have high stamina... There are unique game tasks on each chain, and the character NFT needs to be transferred to each chain to complete. After completion, you can get exclusive The equipment has different gain/loss effects for characters cast on different chains...

do In a farm chain game, different farms cast on different chains will have different backgrounds, and seeds obtained through pledges on different chains will be cultivated on farms on different chains to produce plants of different shapes...< /p>

Of course, there are many interesting ideas. However, these do not form a value logic support for the current "cross-chain NFT" such as Gh0stly Gh0sts and tiny dinos-they didn't say they would do it.

"Cross-chain NFT" and "NFT cross-chain application"

"Cross-chain NFT" cannot carry all the beautiful imaginations of "NFT cross-chain applications".

"Cross-chain NFT" is an NFT after all, so when evaluating its value expectations, it cannot be separated from the traditional value of NFT Score item. As a technical means, "cross-chain" can optimize or solve some problems, but it is beyond reach for artistic style, cultural core, community operation, market strategy, etc. All the good "first impressions" actually come from the possibilities of "NFT cross-chain applications" that we can see from the Layer Zero protocol that enables NFT to have "cross-chain" capabilities.

The recent shortage of new concepts in the NFT market and the narrative of arresting people have caused the FOMO of this "cross-chain NFT". In the roadmap of the PFP project, physical goods, metaverse integration, and pledge to obtain Token are all the same, and the homogenization of application expansion is serious. At the operational level, the project parties have been so involved that they are scrambling to hold offline gatherings. Even at the level of artistic style, there are few refreshing breakthroughs. "Cross-chain" appears as a new concept at this time, which can be described as "a long drought meets rain". Secondly, "cross-chain" is very appealing to NFT players at the narrative level. First of all, open interconnection must be considered by most NFT players as an important part of the Web3 spirit. Secondly, "NFT cross-chain application" still has a huge imagination space, and this imagination space is easily projected onto "cross-chain NFT" by mistake.

Does "cross-chain NFT" have a solid enough value logic? No, it's not hard enough, don't be greedy.