NFT standards have a long road ahead, says Huobi Research Institute A new report from Huobi Research Institute examines the disadvantages of ERC-721
The Non-Fungible Token (NFT) market appears prosperous of late. According to data from NFTGO, total traded volume for 30 days reached US$6.2 billion. However, the most commonly adopted standard for NFTs, ERC-721, contains elements that may result in unfairness towards buyers. A new report from Huobi Research Institute examines several other proposed standards and concludes that standards innovation could prompt the industry to re-invent itself.
In a new report titled “The Advanced Road for NFT Standards”, the disadvantages of the ERC-721 standard are analyzed, including the need to pay gas fees multiple times for an NFT series to be minted and how bots can be used to mint rare NFTs if certain conditions are met. While some projects seek to avoid such a situation by randomly distributing NFTs with different properties according to their tokenIDs, users remain in the dark as to whether the distribution was indeed conducted fairly, as the right to issue NFTs still lies very much in the hands of project developers.
The report further examines ERC-721A, a new standard whose main selling point lies in saving gas fees by allowing for the gas cost for minting multiple NFTs to be almost equivalent to that of minting a single NFT. In ERC-721A, a holder’s address is updated only once when a batch of NFT is minted so long as two preconditions are met: 1. The user has sufficient balance to mint and 2. The NFT minted by batch is of a continuous tokenID. In addition, ERC-721A removes the redundant storage requirements associated with ERC-721.
Several new standards, dubbed ERC-721R, have also been hotly debated of late, with the two most famous ones attempting to solve the unfairness issues linked to ERC-721. ERC-721R, proposed by exo-digital-labs provides for trustless refunds, while ERC-721R proposed by erc721r.org seeks to distribute NFTs to minters more fairly by pseudo-randomly assigning tokenIDs.
“The value offered by setting standards lies in unifying the basic attributes of NFT products so developers can better focus on NFT content,” says Yeyan Wei, Researcher, Huobi Research Institute and author of the report. “More innovative standards will lead to the development of the entire industry, and it would do good for the NFT industry to re-invent itself.”
Click here for the full report.
About Huobi Research Institute
Huobi Blockchain Application Research Institute (referred to as "Huobi Research Institute") was established in April 2016. It is committed to researching and exploring new developments in the global blockchain industry. Its goal is to accelerate the research and development of blockchain technology, promote its applications, and improve the global blockchain industry ecosystem. Huobi Research Institute covers industry trends, emerging technologies, innovative applications, new business models, and more. Huobi Research Institute partners with governments, enterprises, universities and other institutions to build a research platform that covers the entire blockchain industry. Its professionals provide a solid theoretical basis and analyze new trends to promote the development of the industry.
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