It was only a matter of time till we talked about NFTs, the latest and greatest in the technology spheres.
So what is an NFT?
NFT stands for a non-tangible token, but what does that mean?
I would define it as a virtual representation of a real-world thing. How these virtual representations are valuable comes down to three concepts that I think we should touch lightly on.
1-The Metaverse: The Metaverse is what we’ve all been waiting for since the first video games came out, a way to travel through time and space and be in another reality. From the original vomit-inducing Virtual Boys from Nintendo to the crazy sci-fi world of Ready Player One, the Metaverse has become real, and it has become more important than ever.
With the recent name change of Facebook to Meta, we are seeing that this new reality of both video games, social interactions and communications will be embraced full forced by leading minds like Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and anyone with their eyes on the future.
Here it’s where things get interesting. An NFT is a virtual representation of a real life item, it can be anything and it exists in the blockchain which will ultimately run the Metaverse with it’s favorable decentralized nature. What this means is that companies will start creating nfts out of everything, feel free to quote me when we start seeing auto dealerships selling you a car with an nft attached so you can display it on the blockchain. Which brings us perfectly into item #2.
2-The Blockchain: The blockchain is a massive decentralized network that stores data. Things like nfts, cryptocurrencies, and entire apps, games and platforms. Think of it like a huge vault that no one owns but everyone takes care of and inside of it, it holds millions of dollars along with valuable art, cars, assets and pretty much anything you can imagine can be put in the blockchain. There’s people selling plots of virtual land on there, and this isn’t just an isolated case.
Some of the more renowned owners getting in the game of these virtual lands/assets, are Tesla, Atari, and Adidas.
When we talk about decentralized, we are talking about system that is much more difficult to control by one entity, and thus less likely to fall into manipulation and censorship. Instead of one person ruling over everything, everyone has a chance to get a piece of the pie. The amount of accessible entries into the blockchain technology is making it easier and easier for the lay person to get into it. Whether they are doing it through crypto currency trading, or through games and nfts, the probability of mainstream acceptance is definitely close, in the next couple of years we will start seeing more embracing society, and for that to happen we first will have to fine tune the next point.
3- CrossChain Compatibility: This is the idea that all these blockchain platforms will begin to communicate effectively in the coming years without the need of so many hoops to get one token to another blockchain environment, and of course to get around the monster gas fees we are experiencing with such things like Ethereum and Bitcoin. As time progress and more capital is moved into the development of these technologies, with like everything else, we will begin to see an efficient growth that will no doubt become a part of our daily life. However all of these ideas and theories are just that for the moment, ideas and theories.
Currently we are in the present and the reality is that it is very expensive to create content for the blockchain environment. Whilst cryptocoins trading reminds at a low level of entry with many altcoins ROI being like nothing you’ve seen before and a $100 or less barrier of entry with apps like Coinbase and Crypto.com, when it comes to artists and developers things are on another level. Nfts are selling for thousand of dollars in the Ethereum marketplaces, yet gas fee remain at all time highs, with a cost of $100+ for minting 1 NFT in the Opensea marketplace. This couple with the environmental impact that proof of work has, things are looking hard towards societal international use.
Environmental Impact
It is important to note that I’m just a guy, a highly motivated guy sure, but still just one person learning and trying to wrap my mind about all these new technologies and systems, while of course being first and foremost a conscious artist.
Thusly it is no secret that the environmental impact of NFTs is a large one. With things like dataminting farms generating tons of electricity and no dbout making air a little less breathable each day. For the longest time this been for me the major reason as to why I’ve held off doing NFTs. However with the recent surge of NFTs in our society, it is important to listen and to realize that things:
1- Are definitely changing, and this is not just a fad. (If you think it’s a fad, I highly suggest you try a VR experience whether that means buying an oculus quest or going to your local arcade, and yes arcades now have VR entertainment. Things are definitely changing.
2- A lot of people are doing it out of the possibilities to change their lives for the better, and are not altogether considering the impact that their activities have on a larger scale.
Yet condemn anyone is to condemn oneself, and the best course of action here is not to hold off and let progress pass of by, but instead we must adjust, research and learn new more efficient ways to run these technologies while still taking care of our planet and consequently ourselves.
Enter…
Proof of Stake and the HarmonyOne Protocol
I’ll be honest there’s a long of techno stuff that I don’t quite understand so here’s their actual pitch.
Harmony is an open and fast blockchain. Our mainnet runs Ethereum applications with 2-second transaction finality and 1000 times lower fees. Harmony is your open platform for assets, collectibles, identity, governance. Our secure bridges offer cross-chain asset transfers with Ethereum, Binance and 3 other chains.
Harmony’s Effective Proof-of-Stake (EPoS) is the first staking mechanism in a sharded blockchain that achieves both security and decentralization. EPoS allows staking from hundreds of validators and the unique effective stake mechanism reduces the tendency of stake centralization.
Harmony ONE
https://www.harmony.one
Precisely because of it’s effective proof of stake mechanism the environmental impact of it’s blockchain remains an eco friendlier alternative to proof of work platforms. Even then the idea of this blog is not to divert attention from proof of work platforms, but rather to encourage developers of all platforms to consider implementing eco friendlier alternative. No doubt we will be joyous to see what Etherum 2.0 has to offer in the coming years as I hear great things about it in regards to sustainability and lowering gas fees.
While that is going on in the underground, let’s turn our attention to DaVinci Gallery.
daVinci Gallery
The daVinci.gallery marketplace is a NFT marketplace that supports the creation, buying and selling of NFTs (Non – fungible tokens) minted on Harmony blockchain. That means $ONE, the Harmony native token, fuels all transactions on daVinci platform, in contrast to Rarible or OpenSea that use $ETH.
https://davinci-how-it-work.notion.site/davinci-how-it-work/daVinci-gallery-FAQ-b1064d650e9e48089ebfdcaddd821f67
That was really well written, pretty easy to understand I think. So daVinci uses the $ONE token which runs on the Harmony blockchain which currently encourages sustainability, and boom minting through the daVinci marketplace gets us an Eco-Friendly NFT.
Listen if your objection is “How about don’t make any NFTs in the first place.” I suggest you stop driving your car, because at this point we’re both doing the same thing here you feel me. So that’s nonsense coming from a smart person such as yourself. Now the next thing I want to tackle though is greed and capitalism.
With new opportunities to make money and change your life as a result, comes greed people that want nothing but to get the bag and forget about everyone else. Not everyone is money hungry in the marketplace though and there’s all sorts of artists just trying to share their next passion projects. I would like to count myself as one of those artists.
MabsArts Generative Art Project
Generative Art is the art of developing an application that uses originally created art assets to make a randomly generated unique piece of art. Unlike regular art, this type of art can be created almost instantly once the app has been developed and the art assets created, the instantious unlimited nature of the art form makes it a nuke like weapon capable of flooding the art market, if used by the wrong hands. Yet when used consciously we are able to create pieces of art that are of low cost and easily acquirable by those trying to invest their money wisely.
At the moment I am developing such an app, and the results so far are quite wonderful.
Utilizing the Art assets from my newgounds Dress Em Up, I was able to create a truly randomizing machine, that not only randomizes parts, but actually randomizes the color of chosen elements in your art.
“With great power comes great responsibility.” Uncle Ben, and Aunt May 😉 (Greate movie that new SpiderMan)
These are the only 3 pieces I will create with this specific character assets. So get them now for 50NE (like $13.50USD as of the time of this writing) I think 3 is a good number and provides a lot of good groundwork to move on to a bigger project, that whilst remaining a good entry point for new investors, will ultimately become a good asset for game developers abound.
RPG Bust Art Generator
This project has given me a new spark towards development and I’m excited to expand the possibilities of this engine, and for that I will be putting it through a round of new assets that will serve as RPG character art busts, not unlike these examples.
Of course with my own art but this illustrates the point perfectly. Stay tuned for those coming updates and the corresponding nft drop during this year.
Whilst I am working on that app I am also working on my next NFT drop, and I would like to talk to you about that, this project will be releasing as a set of three as soon as I get verified on the daVinci gallery platform, already submitted all my info and I’m just waiting for that email.
The Cryptos4Charity Project
This project seems to me to be the bridge between embracing new technologies and consolidating yourself with the impact you will have on your planet and your community.
The goal of this project is to donate 20% of the profit to different charities. Each charity will inspired the theme of the nft art. Unlike the generative art project, each of the pieces in this nft collection are hand drawn and animated by me, AntonioMabs. They take roughly 4-6hrs and feature a fully animated image that loops and plays a nature sound.
Now the good stuff! It’s the holidays and what better way to celebrate than by giving back?
The first NFT Dropping from this collection is titled: “Plant A Tree”
20% of the profit will be donated to the current campaign from OneTreePlanted.org. I find it so beautiful that we are able to donate to plant trees.
So yeah, be sure to check this post out when the piece goes up for sale because I will be posting a picture of our donation confirmation. I want to be as transparent as possible with this project.
Cryptos4CharityFirsts Collection
I want to give you a little more insight into the project as a whole and what comes after this first one sells.
I’ve sketched 3 NFTs total for this particular collection.
Here you can see the plant a tree sketch and see how it goes from idea to final NFT ready for minting.
As well as two other ideas that will be added to the collection.
The Terrence McKenna Butterfly Conservatory will be minted to help two charities, psychedelics research called the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelics Research or Maps for short, and the Butterfly Conservation to help save butterflies and moths in our environment.
Lastly, to close off this collection, the Bitter Sweet piece will be minted to help save the rainforest, through Rainforest Foundation US, cool thing about this specific foundation is that they take cryptos as a donation so we can donate them straight through without having to convert down to USD and incur those pesky fees.
The text above comes form my initial try at writing this and minted the first nfts in OpenSea and then learning all about the problematic issues that came with it, after finding daVinci and feeling more confident with my choice of platform I actually finished the second nft for this collection, below I will leave you with a still image of the Terrance McKenna Butterfly Conservatory.
Remember the final art actually moves and has this beautiful forest sounds in it courtesy of the TimberFestival . These pieces will go live when I get verified on daVinci, which if all goes well and the details go through should be during the first weeks of January 2020. 20% of profits will go to the charities above. I will definitely write a blogpost about it when it goes live.
Future Collections
After the Cryptos 4 Charity collection, I would like to honor the life of my friend Carlos Lopez. I will be doing that through the minting and auction of a collection that will be titled “Human Consumptions” and will include 5 pieces of digital paintings, revolving around the topic of addiction.
25% of the profits from these pieces will go towards charities that deal with issues like:
- Substance Abuse
- Addiction
- Violence
- Poverty
- Health
Closing Statements
All of this is only possible through your participation. You can help out by sharing this post on social media, purchasing the NFTs on the daVinci platform, and telling people about it. I’ve also linked directly to the donation page of each of the Cryptos4Charity, charities we are going to donate to, so if after you share the post you want to still help out but don’t want to or can’t get yourself the latest NFT you can still send help their way directly.
That’s all I can say for now, follow me on social media as @antoniomabs, and let’s see what happens. Nfts represent the possiblity of doing a project I strongly believe in and I hope others do as well.
MabsArts 
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