NFTs have become an increasingly popular way to represent unique digital assets, but as more NFTs are created and traded, there is a risk of treating them like fungible assets, where their unique characteristics are ignored in favour of a simplified and condensed asset value. This effect is pre dominant in profile picture (PFP) NFTs where assets lack individuality or utility and are “flipped” like fungible tokens for profits.
Previously, we have developed a one-dimensional view where most market action was focused on rarity. With rarity metrics being available through an array of analytics tools, in the current phase of the market, buying and selling concentrates on bidding pools only taking into account floor or ceiling prices of assets. It can be best compared to buying clothes in bulk.
This is dramatically different to non-fungible assets in the real world:
Imagine a scenario where houses are represented as NFTs. Each house would have a unique set of characteristics, such as location, size, number of rooms, and style. Instead of trading the floor price or looking for a “rare house”, it would be more relevant to look for houses that have certain trait combinations, such as a three-bedroom house with a backyard in a suburban area.
With this in mind we created an on-chain matching engine currently running on zksync / era (L2 testnet) that can be used to analyze trait combinations or match buyers with the assets that best fit their preferences.
In our DNA Explorer tool, players use and test the same matching engine in a gamified way to unlock or activate predefined combinations of traits in NFTs.
We created the “DNA Explorer” to allow collectors to explore the individual “Crecodile” on-chain metadata encoding (referred to as “DNA”) in a unique, unprecedented way while at the same time testing our new technology. The DNA Explorer is a gamified layer that uses the Creco Matching Engine to analyze combinations of traits in NFTs. In this game, players can unlock effects and bonuses by finding unique combinations of traits.
Contrary to other NFT PFP collections, Crecodiles are blockchain native assets. Instead of selling off-chain experiences like events, games or merchandise through tokens, Creco provides innovative on-chain experiences (“attractions”) pushing limits of what’s possible with NFTs and on-chain metadata. The “DNA Explorer” is such an experience: protocol (smart contract) and tool. It guides players through the metadata encoding and allows them to unlock one of over 450 hidden patterns in the collection.
The DNA Explorer creates a “gamification layer” over an existing collection. The asset is not a row on a spreadsheet but gains an extra dimension where the potential of NFT technology is unlocked. It turns the focus to art, lore and community. It provides collectors with a new angle to the creation process, the story and encourages a deeper look at the exciting technology.
NFT Search & Discovery
Our matching engine is not limited to games or gamification layers. On-chain trait matching is a critical building block for infrastructure, best positioned to revolutionise how we discover and search for NFTs. For example, a player can input their desired traits into our matching engine, and the engine will search for NFTs that match 1, 2 or all those traits. This can be useful for both buyers and sellers on a marketplace, as it would help to match buyers with NFTs that meet their specific needs, and sellers with buyers who are interested in their unique NFTs. The matching engine can do conditional and logical matching and e.g. power impressive user interfaces like our visual search engine displayed below.
The Creco Matching Engine has to be optimized and extremely efficient. Which makes it not only faster compared to existing NFT search but allows it to run 100% on on-chain at a fraction of the cost compared to engines running e.g. on traditional marketplace infrastructure or private databases.
Trait matching can be used to promote a more diverse range of NFTs, as participants would be encouraged to discover new combinations of traits that are not commonly found in the market. This would help to create a more dynamic and interesting NFT market, where buyers and sellers are matched based on their individual preferences.
In conclusion, NFTs are unique digital assets that should be treated as such. By using a matching engine to analyze combinations of traits, we can ensure that the unique characteristics of each NFT are valued, and parties of a trade are matched based on their specific preferences and needs. This allows us to zoom out of one dimensional trading activity and get closer to assets that are diverse and available in the real world and in complex applications.
The DNA Explorer is the first step in a multi-layered game that unlocks the full potential of NFTs, and we believe that all NFTs that have on-chain metadata can be gamified and made interesting. It is live on zksync testnet and our website. Our protocols can be applied to various types of NFTs, including artwork, music, or even houses, which could help to promote a more diverse and accessible NFT market with better search and more options for decentralised curation and discovery.
Creco’s mission is explore on-chain metadata NFTs with technology. Our matching engine demonstrates a big step into NFTs on-chain future and will help build NFT infrastructure for the next generation of non-fungible assets. We believe it has the potential to change how we perceive and interact with NFTs.
We are just at the beginning of a new generation of smarter protocols. Creco drives innovation and bootstraps upcoming L2 NFT ecosystems, providing core infrastructure modules, experiences and education for communities.
If you are interested in what we are doing reach out to us via twitter, discord or email.
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