Why is the effectiveness of EIP-3778 important for time attribute assets?
Recently, the NASH Metaverse team announced the EIP-3778 contract, an NFT protocol based on ERC-721. EIP-3778 is called Time proof Non-fungible Token (tpNFT). The cost of generating and verifying timeproof can be greatly reduced through timestamp proving. EIP-3778 embeds the timestamp within the NFT, so that a series of services and applications that rely on timestamp proof can be directly invoked based on the on-chain smart contract. This process can be automatically deployed and executed without relying on third-party materials and proof.
Currently, NFTs are mostly used to provide digital asset uniqueness in the physical world by uploading a specific composition of token information to a centralized or decentralized third-party storage such as IPFS. There is also the use of ERC-721 and ERC- 1155 standards to map token information and seek proof and transfer of ownership under limited consensus. As a standard protocol for handling irreplaceable assets, ERC-721 ensures the scarcity of digital assets, the type of scarcity that does not need to be verified by a centralized organization. However, there are limitations to the ERC-721 protocol, as it can only describe asset content, and is comprised mostly of static content. In addition, it cannot be updated and has limited on-chain interaction and execution capabilities, while not supporting the NFT time attributes as well as the interaction and composability pertaining to time attributes.
The NASH Metaverse team stated that NFTs should aim to satisfy four major attributes including mapping, composition, interactivity, and dynamics. The emergence of EIP-3778 not only expands the application scope of the first three attributes, but also provides a basis for dynamics.
The NASH Metaverse team made observations through the lens of composability and interactivity and found that various combinations of dynamic NFTs at different points in time can produce interesting and colorful results. Therefore, the team envisioned adding a new dimension into the mix — time. Extracting the time attribute from traditional NFTs, the time attribute brings more dynamism, which enables the attributes to show varying characteristics at different points in time. Simultaneously, the time attribute can be provided to third-party contracts as a timestamp proof of the on-chain data.
For example, combining composability and dynamics on the basis of AsyncArt, the layer changes automatically with time, and unique combinations will appear at any given moment. One can capture this combination through the [Capture] action and generate a timestamp proof, thereby realizing the mapping of interactivity, composability and dynamics.
The NASH Metaverse team claimed “Similar to suddenly adding a time dimension to a static three-dimensional space that becomes a four-dimensional space-time continuum, the addition of another dimension is a cross-dimensional qualitative change to its previous existence.”
Inspired by LOOT, the NASH team developed an experimental project based on time attributes called STORY. STORY integrates the NFT id with timestamps and is based on the EIP-3778 timestamp attribute. On this basis, the dynamic on-chain variation of time is expanded, realizing the dynamic function of STORY’s NFT content which automatically updated every 42 hours without incurring any gas fees.
Imagine a world where user generated loot is no longer a set of constant and static equipment data, but can be automatically updated over time into similarly rare items but consisting of NFT equipment package data with different compositions. In addition, the interaction between the NFTs at different times will also produce different results, which adds variety and may make the on-chain game more interesting.
Also, the use of EIP-3778 can also realize a wide range of possibilities for NFTs. For example, the new on-chain decryption function was inspired by “Cicada 3301”, a global puzzle-solving competition that once attracted decryption enthusiasts all over the world.
Most of the on-chain decryption schemes used in existing activities are carried out by decrypting private keys. A case in point is “310BTC”, where the answer to each puzzle is a private key or mnemonic phrase corresponding to the wallet address, and the participants use decryption to obtain a private key with no actual textual significance and then proceed to extract the reward from the corresponding address.
The on-chain decryption game based on EIP-3778 is not the same case. By decrypting the [encrypted Hash] parameter in tpNFT, some or all the fund locked in the tpNFT can be extracted. A new code design scheme is adopted to prevent attacks that may occur when answers are submitted on-chain.
Imagine that within the interstellar space of the NASH Metaverse, a user finds a poem praising the universe and submits it onto the chain, receiving an NFT that records the story of the NASH Metaverse. This NFT was created by the player at this specific moment in time. It is worth noting that the form of the final answer is not limited, and the answer can be data of any length.
On the other hand, only a slight improvement to the extraction conditions is needed for a NFT creation scheme based on computing power, and more interesting NFTs will be discovered through proof of work (POW). Decrypt NFT by intelligence.
Aforementioned are just some simple use cases derived from the core attribute of EIP-3778-timestamp proof. The future will bring about more developments that expand anonymous on-chain governance voting, the emergence of time value NFTs, academic proof NFTs, etc. The NFT world will be filled with infinite possibilities.
Single static methods of presentation have long been iterated with the advent of Web3.0. With this, NFT assets with time attributes should have more interactive combination possibilities. The crypto industry is still nascent and requires more original applications. NASH Metaverse has integrated Chainlink’s VRF random number scheme to ensure the security and fairness of the NASH Metaverse. Moving forward, more NFT projects will cooperate with NASH Metaverse to jointly explore the application potential of NFTs as well as its development prospects to realize a crypto native Metaverse.
