In the past year, developers in the Arweave ecosystem have pioneered many NFT paradigms and explored how Arweave can support these innovative use cases.
Written by Adeola @ Contributor of PermaDAO
Translation: Jonathan Lee @ Contributor of PermaDAO
In its early stages, the Arweave protocol was primarily used to store non-fungible tokens (NFTs). However, with the advancement of technology, especially in the field of blockchain, the application scope of NFT has expanded to include video, audio, music and other fields. In the past year, developers in the Arweave ecosystem have created many unique NFT paradigms and explored how Arweave can support these innovative use cases. Some of these projects include everPay, ArSeeding, and PermaDAO, which support various NFT projects on Arweave. everPay organized 12 NFT auctions, and everVision products provided support for these projects from infrastructure to improved storage and convenient payments. These projects will continue to evolve in the future, creating more unique tools and features.
everPay NFT Auction
everPay is a payment protocol that has successfully held 12 NFT auctions to actively embrace the NFT field. everPay NFT is a series of NFT artworks launched by everPay in cooperation with different projects or artists for users to bid in the everPay auction. A total of 12 auctions were held and 108 artworks were showcased, with some notable works including Winston Family, Year of the Tiger NFTs, Old Gods Remastered, Wonderland and the Funny Fellows, Breaking Panda, Inner Motion, Microplants, Dragon Turtles, Crypto Slang Gang, Ark and Birdsong, etc. Participants can not only appreciate NFT artworks, but also have the opportunity to receive other rewards, including participating in early liquidity mining on Permaswap and becoming an early Router node on Permaswap. In addition, everPay has also actively explored other use cases in the NFT field and participated in the summer NFT game event of the Degame NFT community. This series of initiatives not only improves users’ experience with NFT artworks, but also provides them with more opportunities to participate and empower.
Rareweave
Although Rareweave was founded less than nine months ago, it only took three months for Rareweave to make some notable contributions in the Arweave ecosystem, making it famous. It is the first Arweave atomic NFT marketplace, with transactions powered by everVision’s payment protocol, everPay. Rareweave introduces the sub-account feature, an innovation that enables Permaweb applications to manage and use user keys. This feature was subsequently upgraded to version v0.1.0. In June, it introduced Glome - a high-performance, scalable and flexible core engine for SmartWeave. By integrating with Irys, Glome has instant interaction features while maintaining support for Arweave basic transactions. In late July, Glome built a plugin. Also in June, FilterScript or SortScript was released, a powerful tool for fetching multiple contracts based on application needs. Later Filterscript was also replaced by Lua. Rareweave launched Arweave’s social API SocioWeave and universal wallet interface functions.
Artbycity
Artbycity, an app that helps artists upload content to Permaweb, has had relatively few events this year. In early 2023, it began integrating Decent Land’s ark protocol, an integration that will have a significant impact on the core of Artbycity’s infrastructure. It allows artists to introduce their own preferred identities into Arweave, enabling artists to prove ownership of their works on multiple chains. For example, an artist can publish a work on Arweave and at the same time prove that his or her identity on another chain is consistent with the current one.
DarkBlock
Darkblock launched its promotion at the beginning of the year featuring its audio, video and image NFT products. One of them is the literary NFT, which uses technologies such as artificial intelligence to encrypt a book and associate it with the NFT. In addition, Darkblock has also cooperated with Soltype, the first literary NFT platform on Solana; Darkblock’s NFT technology is used by NFT-TIX to optimize the ticketing system. For Darkblock, revolutionizing the way NFTs are used will lead to the next wave of the creator economy. In March, it launched a beta version of PFP Content Factory, a tool that allows PFP project founders to quickly and easily create PFP derivatives and embody style.
Glass Protocol
This year, Glass Protocol demonstrated its strong business potential and profitability. The project is said to have helped creators publish more than 200 videos, generating $1.5 million in revenue. It announced that it has 12,000 registered users on its Glass Pass subscription list, which serves as an identifier for those planning to create videos on Glass. While releasing multiple music videos, Glass launched the Circle feature to help creators build communities. The project had moved back to Ethereum from Solana, saying it was the result of user requests. However, soon after, the project could no longer tolerate the high gas fees of the main network, so it switched to Ethereum Layer 2 - Optimism. However, Glass Protocol’s growth and development was short-lived. In September, the project announced the end of active development. It said sustainability was a real issue as the platform’s revenue failed to offset development costs.
Gridacity
Gridacity is a gaming platform, but not much is known about it since 20 years ago. However, in 2023, it made some blockbuster activities. It released Reveries of Ymatar, a collection of 100 Bitcoin-based games powered by Ordinals and Arweave that are stored on ArDrive.
LiveArt
LiveArt is a web3 art platform powered by a global art price database, utility tokens and AI-based art market analysis. The platform’s main activities this year focus on the release of artworks. Mid-year, the LiveArt Collector Hub was launched, which features collection opportunities, tracking of Live Art token rewards, and collector circles. LiveArt has attracted undisclosed investment from investors including Mapleblock, Binance Labs, Animoca Brands and Samsung Ventures.
Metaplex Protocol
At the beginning of this year, Metaplex, a leading digital asset protocol on Solana (associated with Arweave), issued a statement denying that the false NFT fraud incident suffered by Magic Eden had affected it. Programmable NFT attracted the attention of Metaplex in the first quarter of the year. Metaplex has also enhanced its royalty functionality by using programmable NFTs to perform royalties and upgrade existing collections. The positive response to the feature from many apps shows that this is a welcome development. The Metaplex Foundation has also added programmable NFTs to the NFT chart, symbolizing recognition of the technology. Programmable NFTs are also deployed on the Metaplex mainnet, and their JS SDK has been updated to support programmable NFTs. The protocol further improves its functionality with the launch of Creator Studio. Solana wallet Solflare integrates Metaplex’s programmable NFTs. Metaplex’s infrastructure has also been upgraded, such as the deployment of token metadata to the mainnet and Rust and JS packages, as well as the upgrade of Candy Machine V3, which supports programmable NFT minting.
Metaplex Creator Studio invitations are experiencing issues due to Mailchimp suspending service. Metaplex describes the situation as a battle between traditional creators and Web3 creators. It had to send the invitation via a compressed NFT. Metaplex has partnered with the Solana Foundation to make token metadata immutable to strengthen its defenses against censorship. A detailed description of Token metadata can be found here. The Metaplex codebase’s monorepo has been split into separate repositories to create a cleaner space to promote productivity. Metaplex Foundation announces steps to decentralize the protocol through a governance mechanism. The NFT compression tool has been deployed on the mainnet, and in the fourth quarter, Metaplex announced that more than 130 million NFTs have been minted on the platform. It launched an initiative at the end of the year aimed at reducing costs from Master Edition accounts by reducing the token metadata account size for new NFTs. Metaplex also launched Inscription and Inscription, positioning it as the new standard for fully on-chain and immutable digital assets on Solana.
As base
As an NFT minting platform, Mintbase launched an alliance system at the beginning of the year, aiming to enable anyone to build their own NFT market, sell other people’s NFTs and charge market fees. This system brings value to the community because anyone can earn marketplace fees without having to interact with sellers or Mintbase. In addition, Mintbase is also working on integrating more wallets to provide more options. In partnership with Stateless Dao, Mintbase launches Project Cootoo, a distribution contract that simplifies the distribution of funds on the Mintbase store. The platform launched a series of funding programs, ultimately funding dozens of projects. Mintbase tried to optimize the user interface with ChatGPT and added the ability to pay with stablecoins and Stripe credit cards. To further enhance the user experience, Mintbase has created a simpler NFT management solution, making it easier for users to interact with NFTs on store pages and profiles. Introduced Tags feature to help share project details, images, code, etc. in one place. Additionally, Mintbase has introduced a chat-based search tool for developer documentation on its platform.
FISHING ROD
OLTA, a toolkit for creators to publish interactive art, got off to a slow start at the beginning of the year. They revealed that it was difficult to make their NFTs popular on the platform and called for suggestions to improve sales strategies. On the infrastructure side of its application, OLTA announced that it is building a dynamic time- and event-based media protocol with a value proposition focused on interactive engagement with art. There’s no firm word on when it will launch.
Pianity
Pianity released new features for its mobile app in January, including creating new channels, improved message replies and handling of mentions, and customizable notifications. Pianity also enables users to connect to Metamask. This technology is made possible thanks to Redstone. This feature can be described as a bridge between Arweave and Ethereum users. It moved the Club functionality from its mobile platform to the Web platform. After announcing in January that it was building ArSnap, Pianity finally launched the tool in September.
Releap Protocol
The Releap social graph announced support for NFT creation on its studio platform at the beginning of the year. In February it was announced that more than 8,000 NFTs had been created. In April, it announced a protocol upgrade to the system. Releap also implemented search by profile name and launched on the Sui network mainnet. To help users create content, follow and like it without paying anything, the project created sponsorship deals. Additionally, Releap successfully raised $2.1 million. In August, Releap underwent a code audit by MoveBit. At the end of the year, the project introduced the Releap social token, symbolizing its desire to lead SocialFi, and stored content created on Releap through Irys.
Sound.xyz
One of Sound’s biggest achievements this year is the launch of its mobile app. The music NFT app also adds support for email login and credit card payments for minting. Additionally, it has launched Curator Rewards, which collectors can use to earn income. Sound has also launched a community page for its artists. The project announced the removal of restrictions on price, supply and release format. It also integrates Optimism, a second-layer solution for Ethereum. To open up its project to artists, Sound announced that artists will receive 100% of the revenue generated by their content. Sound raised $20 million in Series A funding. At the end of the year, it plans to move to Base Chain and acquire Soho to accelerate and expand its vision for the music industry.
WenMint
WenMint announced support for six EVM chain launchpads at the beginning of the year. The project released the staking reward feature in the first quarter of the year after months of testing. Although WenMint has seen relatively little performance this year, 2024 may provide new opportunities for the project, and users can expect to see more development in the future.
