Editor's Note: This article comes fromDappReview（ID：dappreview）, Author: DR Little Partner, reprinted by Odaily with authorization.
, Author: DR Little Partner, reprinted by Odaily with authorization.
Guide: In recent years, blockchain and art have been constantly colliding with each other to produce new sparks, and a new type of niche circle - encrypted art circle has emerged as the times require. With the help of the characteristics of blockchain/NFT, encrypted art has begun to grow wantonly in the encrypted world, and has also begun to exert influence in the field of traditional art. In the past two days, the encrypted art platform AsyncArt held an encrypted art auction. Vincent also strongly participated in the auction and lost at a price of 88ETH. This painting is not a simple static picture, but a "programmable artwork" composed of several layers that can be changed by the owner. In this article, we will take you to understand the AsyncArt platform and the unique NFT technology implementation mechanism. I believe that after watching this auction, everyone will have a new understanding of the entire encrypted art market.
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The platform was created by CryptoArt developer Conlan, who is also an Ethereum/Cryptovoxels enthusiast. In the art circle, the Conlan team is definitely worth talking about. One of the team members, n0shot, was once the art director of Apple.
"What would it be like to program art?" In order to answer this question, AsyncArt was born. This project is an artistic experiment. Tokenizing and trading works of art is not a new topic, but what would it be like if the appearance of works of art could change over time, give feedback to its owner's operations, and even obtain data from the outside world? kind of experience? AsyncArt chose to give the answer in the most interesting way.
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Two concepts: Master and Layer
AsyncArt splits artwork into two concepts, Master (main canvas) and Layer (layer). Master is the main embodiment of the work, and a Master is composed of multiple layers of Layers.
In addition to referring to the entire work, the Master also includes a configuration file stored on ipfs, which mainly records information such as the picture containing the Layer and the location of the Layer in the Master.
Layer is a specific and visible work layer, which is also stored on ipfs. Layer has multiple parameters: artist, owner, Master to which it belongs, and Layer parameters. Layer parameters will be pre-set by the artist, such as adjusting color, rotation and even the content of the work.
For example, the first work to be auctioned is "First Supper" (the original dinner), which contains a total of 22 Layers (layers) such as characters, furniture, backgrounds, and decorations. As shown below:
These Layers form the following figure through the configuration information of the Master.
Then here comes the interesting point:
1. Independent Ownership
The ownership of the Master and the Layers it contains are independent. The Master and Layers are Tokenized on the Ethereum blockchain, and both are independent NFTs. That is to say, the painting First Supper has a Master NFT and 22 A different Layer NFT.
2. Programmable Art
Here comes the important point, the owner of the Layer has a right to change the way the Layer is set and displayed. So, can I change the picture at will? No, according to the current AsyncArt settings, the artist who creates the Layer must pre-set the changeable method and specific parameters of the Layer. That is to say, the Layer owner can only make changes in limited options at present, and cannot do whatever they want.
The above figure shows the content that can be changed by the two Layers, among which Wallpaper can change the Texture (texture), and Stat(u)es of Liberty can change the three parameters of State, Feet, and Arm Rotation.
The Master will change with the changes of each Layer, but the owner of the Master cannot decide how the painting will change. It is very likely that the whole painting will change after waking up. According to our rough estimate, most Layers have at least 3 styles, and a total of 22 Layers are combined, so the Master has at least 3 to the 22nd power, that is, at least 31.3 billion different presentation forms! ! !
The friends of DappReview observed four changes of the Master within one hour (above). Welcome everyone to find faults and see what has changed. Isn't it amazing? The specific implementation method will be slowly expanded in the following chapters.
for collectors
If you like an artist and buy one of his Layers, you can modify the appearance of the Layer through the parameters given to the Layer by the artist, and all modification results will be reflected on the Master. For Master collectors, you not only own the overall ownership of this painting, but also the owners and artists of each Layers are "working" for you, creating countless different paintings.
Artists can design large or small parameters in the artwork, and this parameter can be input or changed by the Layer owner. This is a simple programmable art (Programmable Art), the artist can use his imagination to his heart's content.https://dapp.review/
View AsyncArt information and data:
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Let's talk about the auction of First Supper
Miss Josie
Josie used to be a practitioner in the financial industry. She became interested in crypto art in early 2017. She gave her first crypto art work as a gift to her boyfriend, who posted it on Reddit and got a lot of attention. The amount of attention, Josie saw an opportunity here, and since then started the creation career of encrypted art. Most of Josie's works are based on beauty + blockchain elements. She sells NFT artwork and peripheral products on her website at a price of around $200.
XCOPY
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ALOTTAMONEY
The one on the right is Miss Josie
XCOPY is an encryption artist from London. He is a Tweeter. Almost all the dynamics in the circle can be seen on his Twitter. His works are mainly animated drawings of skulls, and the average price of the four works on SuperRare is more than 1,500 US dollars.
The First Supper auction started in the early morning of February 27th UTC time and ended on the evening of the 28th. In the final stage, every time a bidder bids, the countdown will be automatically extended by five minutes. After several bidders raised the price to 55.55ETH, only two bidders, Vincent and MetaKovan, continued to bid, and the price quickly reached the 88ETH that Vincent bid. MetaKovan didn't talk too much, and directly increased the stake to 103.4ETH. After that, Vincent didn't bid again. MetaKovan ended the long tug-of-war and won the auction. MetaKovan later said in the Discord group that he went to check Vincent's wallet and found that it was only 99 ETH. Considering his lucky number was 34, he directly bid at a price of 103.4 ETH. In the end, the work was auctioned by MetaKovan at a price of 103.4 ETH (the current price is about 160,000 RMB).
It is worth mentioning that the original MetaKovan account only had less than 50 ETH. During the bidding period with Vincent, he was forced to transfer a total of more than 110 ETH from the Kraken exchange to win the final auction. It seems that he also Didn't expect the bidding to be so crazy.
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Layer Auction
Two days after the end of the Master auction, First Supper's Layer auctions also came to the final stage, and 20 Layers among them were auctioned for a total of 264.7ETH, which is already 2.56 times the Master's transaction price. The picture below shows the auction prices of each Layer Trend (There are 2 Layers that have not yet started bidding)
Vincent also participated in multiple Layer auctions, and finally won the Layer Eternal Anger at a price of 14.8 ETH.
The Layer has three states that can be changed:
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Dig deep into AsyncArt
We have a strong interest in AsyncArt, and decided to dig into its specific implementation mechanism to see how changes in Layer affect Master. The DappReview partner sorted out his understanding of the whole process into a flow chart:
1. Layer modification parameters
In this step, the owner of the Layer initiates a transaction, calling the function useControlToken in the smart contract to modify the parameters of the Layer NFT recorded in the AsyncArt main contract. The picture above shows Vincent updating the captured Layer state to State2 on the AsyncArt page.
In the corresponding transaction event log, you can see that the Layer with tokenid 21 (that is, Eternal Anger in the above) has updated the leverIds from 0 to 2.
2. The renderer obtains Layer parameters and Master configuration
The Master image is composed of Layers. Once any Layer is updated, the corresponding Master should be changed, and the change is done through a renderer (Renderer). The renderer needs to know two pieces of information when generating the Master: one is the latest parameter of the Layer, which only needs to be obtained from the contract, and the current parameter setting of each Layer is recorded in the smart contract. The other is the configuration file of the Master, that is, where each Layer should be placed, and how the parameters of different Layers should be rendered. , this configuration file is stored on IPFS. For example, the configuration information storage location of First Supper is -
3. The renderer generates the Master image
Actually not, AsyncArt open source this renderer (Renderer), the address is:
Summarize
Anyone can use this renderer to obtain the Layer parameters in the contract and the Master configuration on ipfs to generate the latest Master image. This process does not depend on the AsyncArt team itself. It can be understood that the "raw materials", "recipe", and "tools" that generate the Master image are all open and decentralized, and anyone can use them to restore the exact same Master image.
Summarize
The encrypted art circle is still very small, and there are not many related Dapps and communities, and it is only a game for a few people. But the new attempt of the AsyncArt platform allows us to see the interesting innovations of blockchain + art. Previously, whenever we discussed NFT artworks, most of them revolved around the certainty and uniqueness of the blockchain. "Programmable art", although it is only a simple preset parameter at present, but in our opinion, this is the minimum viable product of the concept (Minimum Viable Product). Smart contracts store parameters, ipfs stores layers, and open-source renderers are used to generate images. Limited Layers combine more than 31.3 billion master forms. Isn’t it interesting that such a piece of art will change quietly at any time? ?https://dapp.review/
