The blockchain space continues to evolve and the many projects that are around today are a mixed bag. Crypto adoption propels itself seemingly every day and the current Bull Run also brings with it many outrageous feats and cool projects.
Blockchain technology and the world of crypto has been a prime interest of mine for many years. So I want to talk about my recent jump into NFTs.
What are NFTs?
Non-fungible tokens are unique and cannot be split into smaller denominations. You can’t rip up your digital Pokemon cards and share them on the blockchain, you probably shouldn’t do that in real life either, I hope.
NFTs Everywhere
Various use cases have emerged over the years including asset management, digital items and collectibles. CryptoKitties on the Ethereum blockchain was probably the first NFT project that caught my eye many years back with rocketing prices that turned heads. The breeding mechanics were interesting too.
A few years later, we have numerous chains such as Binance Smart Chain (BSC) that offer NFT minting. NFT Collectibles have been forming new markets and engagement. CryptoPunks, Bored Ape, Travel Monkey Club and many more have realized massive hype. These projects are generative NFTs where a base set of assets are created in layers. Various layers and attributes/rarity are then used by script to generate a predefined number of collectibles. This minting process I might compare to pulling in Gacha games/loot boxes. Except here we have a finite supply and digital ownership on chain.
I’ve watched the NFT space for some time and have wanted to dip into a few collectibles for a while. With the announcement from Blockhead Games bringing their version of CryptoPunks to the Hive blockchain as Punks on Hive. I wanted in on the action this time round!
Hive Blockchain
Hive is a decentralized blockchain that has a growing number of decentralized applications (DApps). It is a fork of the Steem after TRON/Justin Sun acquired Steemit Inc. resulting in a number of events leading to hardfork and division in community.
Read more about it here: https://decrypt.co/38050/steem-steemit-tron-justin-sun-cryptocurrency-war
Since then, Hive has continued to grow and positions itself as an ecosystem for DApps. Most notably, the top blockchain gaming project, Splinterlands is on Hive along with many others.
I made an account on Hive a few months back with the intention to publish content and try out the various DApps, so expect more to come from there.
Punks on Hive
Hive have an annual event called HiveFest, currently in virtual format due to the current pandemic situation. Punks on Hive was announced as the first generative NFT project. In addition to generative art and transaction ID verification, the project would actively calculate a rarity score of Punks as they were minted.
With a capped supply of 10,000 Punks, real-time rarity would be determined based on all attributes of the entire Punk population. Rarity scores meant an immediate sense of hitting the jackpot or pulling a common. At 20 Hive per Punk during HiveFest, I was happy to participate and try my luck.
Minting Punks on Hive NFTs
To grab some Punks, I needed to buy some HIVE tokens and send them to my wallet. This was really easy as sending my money to @bytzeombie. Hive is fee-free, the only fee taken was by the crypto exchange, a few cents in value. My funds were confirmed in minutes without issue.
To transact on Hive, Resource Credits (RCs) are needed, these are allocated through powering up HIVE to Hive Power (HP). It behaves a bit like mana in RPGs, being spent when doing things on the network and regenerating over time at a rate based on your stake.
I powered up a token amount into HP and then went on to mint some Punk at https://punks.usehive.com/
Logging in to punks on hive requires browser extension, Hive Keychain. It’s available on both Chrome/Brave and Firefox. Many DApps make use of Hive Keychain, the identity management feature allows easy signing into various websites on Hive.
After getting in, it was time to mint some Punks. Minting was done in just a few clicks. I am not sure if it was possible to manually send an amount to the @punksonhive account with the correct memo format but the interface worked just fine.
My punks arrived after some hours, it seems the demand for Punks on Hive was high and the account had to catch up with its backlog of minting. I gradually bought more after my first batch confirmed. It was exciting to see my rarity scores climb and descend in real time. In the end, I ended up with a handful of punks.
Punks on Hive Market
Punks on Hive has a built-in market. It’s easy to list and buy. 10% of the transaction goes to Blockchead games, a little high but I hope development continues and an eventual decrease can be seen.
A big note, marketplace transaction make use of side-chain, Hive Engine. This means all transactions are settled in SWAP.HIVE.
Read this Hive Engine FAQ for an understanding.
https://hive-engine.com/?p=faq
My market listings weren’t initially showing up due to a maximum of 1000 Punks being shown on the market. Updates to the frontend quickly resolved these issues. Market History has been useful too. It’s been great to see price discovery on the Hive Punk marketplace, there have been some sizeable buys and increasing participation. Over the past few days I’ve had NFT sales for multiples more than the 20 HIVE I paid and the market is continues to grow.
My first dive into NTFs on Hive was easy and fast, something that matters greatly to me. I’ll hopefully jump into some new projects and support again.
For now, here is picture of one of my Punks rendered a little differently.