DEV Community: Tadej Vengust

Unownable Token (U0T): Redefining Ownership in the Digital Realm

Tadej Vengust — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:13:17 +0000

Unownable Token (U0T) is a new concept and allows you to possess something temporarily without owning it. Like a ball being passed around in a never-ending game, never staying with one person. U0Ts can create endless cycles of possession and inspire creativity.

Last (ownership)

The concept of an unownable token arose from the latest art exhibition called Last (ownership) by a Slovenian multidisciplinary artist The Miha Artnak. Through the exhibition, he explores seven concepts of ownership, one of them being unownability.

Unownability refers to the idea that certain items or concepts, universal or not, cannot or should not be owned by any individual. It challenges traditional property laws and suggests a paradigm of assets existing without being owned, as in tied to a single person until they decide to sell or transfer it. It pushes for a radical rethinking of property rights.

Under the current property law, where abandoned or unowned items are claimed on a "first come, first serve" basis, possessions can always be owned. If, temporarily, something has no (known) owner, it's considered trash, waiting for someone else to claim and use it.

The idea of ownership has been reduced to little more than an exclusive privilege to sell. Ownership as the exclusive right to dispose of property: this is certainly not what art inspires me to desire. — Martin Zeilinger

Artnak’s exhibition manifests the seven ownership concepts through material art pieces accompanied by their digital counterparts in the form of NFTs. The tangible painting representing the concept of unownability has been brought to the physical world as unownable - however, this posed legal issues since this concept does not exist in law books.

This led us to test whether the concept of asset unownability can be solved in the digital world.

The unownable object, a painting, is John Lin's interpretation of a photo taken by Klemen Ilovar, which captures an artwork created by Zora Berberich and The Miha Artnak

Unownable Token (U0T)

What law and physical possession limits the physical art piece the digital world solves and allows us to create a true unownable representation.

The code for the unownable token is based on NFTs, specifically the ERC721 standard, which allowed us to inscribe digital representations in a standardized way. However, we modified the code and added a takePossession() function to it. This allows anyone to take such a U0T into possession from anyone who currently possesses it, upholding the never-ending game of passing the NFT around without being owned. No wallet or smart contract, be it cold storage or multi-sig, can keep it locked, thus materializing the concept of digital asset unownability for the first time in history.

The takePossession() function also eliminates an NFT’s practical purpose of listing or selling it on a marketplace, as its ownership model defies conventional ownership and trading mechanisms. Or rather, the U0T nature should be included as a warning that buying such NFT on a marketplace (if ever listed) comes without ownership since anyone can take it from someone else’s possession.

Anyone can take possession of a U0T in seconds and join the never-ending cycle of transferring such NFT. To learn more and start (temporarily) possessing an U0T, please refer to unownabletoken.com.

Technical details

The unownable token is deployed on the polygon network. The smart contract and transaction (possession) history can be inspected here.

If you are interested in the technical aspects of unownable tokens, everything is open-source and free to use or improve.

Webpage and smart contract are available on GitHub:

The webpage is hosted in a decentralized manner via IPFS powered by Apillon.

Why decentralized storage matters for NFT metadata and your next NFT collection

Tadej Vengust — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 10:03:12 +0000

Instead of overdoing what meets the eye, NFT projects should focus more on metadata and the way it's stored. With IPFS and IPNS, you can distribute NFT metadata and make it updateable.

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This should not have happened. But it could to any NFT project that doesn't think about metadata and how to store it.
NFTs have been one of the great hypes of the past year or two, and everybody was rushing to launch or mint the next big collection. But too many projects were focused more on designing a pretty combo of pixels and cashing in on users' FOMO, yet placed little attention on how their metadata is stored and handled.

But if NFT projects want to deliver long-term value to the ecosystem and their communities, they should up their metadata game and choose the optimal way of storing and handling it.

ERC-721 and the metadata problem of NFTs

NFTs or non-fungible tokens are, by nature, one-of-a-kind. But, in the Web3 context, their uniqueness doesn't apply so much to the visual or tangible asset. Images can be copied and saved as .jpgs for free, designer handbags can be replicated at a fraction of the cost, and the copy in both cases is hard to tell from the original. It's actually the data in the background that makes them unique.

The ERC-721 token standard made NFTs possible and changed the way we approach asset ownership. It allowed creators, issuers, and certifiers to inscribe unique metadata describing unique items on the blockchain network. Such permanent inscription would allow for easy inspection of the token's back-end data, which would help to either confirm its claimed uniqueness or discover anomalies and reject the item as a counterfeit.

ERC-721 is one of the main pillars of the NFT ecosystem and supports billions of dollars worth of NFTs, including Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) and Unstoppable domains. But it comes with flaws…

URI location

What differentiates NFTs are their unique identifiers, ID numbers of a kind. Plus, each NFT comes with a unique address of the smart contract sustaining it. The bare minimum to identify an NFT is, therefore, a combination of a unique number and its contract address.

The ERC-721 metadata standard also incorporates a URI, a uniform resource identifier. With URI, you can locate or retrieve an additional metadata file which could not be stored on-chain due to its large size. Usually, it contains data, images or videos, description or other unique properties, such as a serial production number, author, date and time of release, etc.

But there is a catch. The metadata URI can be stored and saved anywhere.

For example, a Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT can be worth tens of thousands of dollars, but its data? It's just a URI that can be stored anywhere, even on a centralized server like AWS…
This also means that access to it could be left uncontrolled, opening the door to metadata tampering and damaging the very thing that made an NFT the NFT.

Metadata updatability

Apart from the URI location, the option to update metadata is also essential, especially in gaming, where in-game NFTs reflect game updates and player status.

To increase NFT interoperability and agility, a new EIP was proposed years ago — the EIP-2477. Despite pending approval, it introduced the capability for NFT metadata hash to be updated each time the metadata URI changes.

But, similar to other metadata updating methods, this leads to multiple (unnecessary) transactions and high costs.

NFT metadata storage should be decentralized

Many NFT projects solve the problem of URI storage by choosing distributed metadata storage and employing Arweave or IPFS.
Such a distributed approach to storing NFT metadata provides certain protection. But it comes with drawbacks.

For example, with Arweave, each file gets a unique URI meaning each newly created NFT is linked to that URI. The requirement of making a new unique transaction for every NFT drives costs up and makes it very difficult to release an NFT drop on the Ethereum network.

On the other hand, IPFS can handle the pre-generation of URI where every newly uploaded folder gets the same hash but contains different metadata file names. This enables cheaper NFT drops on Ethereum, but it could also lead to NFT trait sniping. Moreover, IPFS is difficult to use, and doesn't provide an easy way of integrating IPNS to enable edits of metadata files.

Then, there is a hybrid approach to storing NFT metadata, and it's what most NFT projects are going with. The written metadata is accessible from a centralized, Web2 API, while the visual content is stored on Web3 IPFS. This way, metadata can be changed as needed, and NFTs can be updated to reflect the current status of their owner or context. This helps prevent trait sniping, and allows projects to launch delayed NFT reveals and update the metadata of an evolved NFT easily. However, the Web2 API access to centrally stored metadata is exactly what damaged FTX-based NFTs…
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IPFS + IPNS = decentralized mutability

For NFTs to provide value, security, and agility, they should store metadata in a decentralized way plus enable easy and affordable updates.

The best way to go in terms of decentralized storage is IPFS, InterPlanetary File System. But while some services like Pinata do provide a gateway to IPFS for NFT metadata storage, they do not come with IPNS, an essential feature for in-game and other upgradeable NFTs.
IPNS, the InterPlanetary Name System, allows you to update metadata without changing the URI contained in the NFT contract, saving transaction fees and time. Every NFT project planning to launch assets with mutable metadata should think about utilizing IPNS, too.

But the thing is, a manual set-up and handling of IPFS and IPNS in an NFT project can be costly and extremely complex, a pain in the neck for every developer. Or at least it was until Apillon…

NFT metadata storage made easy

Apillon's Web3 Storage service powered by IPFS and Crust Network was designed to provide decentralized storage for existing and upcoming NFT projects seeking to distribute their metadata and manage it easily

And it does so in a super simplified way. By sourcing the best of Crust Network and making it accessible to all developers, Apillon's Web3 Storage service allows you to harness distributed storage on IPFS for your NFTs' metadata. Plus, with IPNS, Apillon's own addition, you can keep your NFTs upgradable and updatable to boost their utilities in various contexts.

The first on the market, Apillon will let you implement both IPFS and IPNS to launch and power your NFTs easily, faster, and at a significantly lower price than doing it manually.
Test the waters and see how to use the key Web3 services for your project.

This article was originally published on Apillon Medium.

Authtrail providing a complete toolbox for Web3 developers. Join the Live AMA today to learn more.

Tadej Vengust — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 13:30:00 +0000

Authtrail is hosting a new episode of the AMA (Ask Me Anything) series. Once again, all lights will be pointed at Authtrail’s CEO and co-founder Matjaz Sobocan.

Join Authtrail’s live AMA with Matjaz on June 23 at 5:00 pm UTC on our official Telegram channel to catch some revealings and inputs from the Web3 space at large.

Build your dApp on Wanchain

Tadej Vengust — Thu, 08 Aug 2019 13:49:22 +0000

The newly published Wanchain tutorial series will teach you how to build a dapp on the Wanchain network using the 0xcert Framework. Your Wanchain-based dapp will also support the creation and management of non-fungible tokens.

From chapter 1 to 6, you will learn how to:

Set up a Wanchain test node (gwan)
Create a Wanchain wallet and obtain test WAN tokens
Set up Express server with TypeScript for back-end
Deploy asset ledger
Create new digital assets
Transfer digital assets
Create atomic operations for asset exchange on Wanchain

Here are the links to the whole series:

https://0xcert.org/news/0xcert-framework-for-wanchain-tutorial-1-run-and-prepare-wanchain-test-node-for-backend-integration
https://0xcert.org/news/0xcert-framework-for-wanchain-tutorial-2-set-up-express-server-with-typescript-for-dapp-backend
https://0xcert.org/news/0xcert-framework-for-wanchain-tutorial-3-deploy-asset-ledger
https://0xcert.org/news/0xcert-framework-for-wanchain-tutorial-4-create-new-assets
https://0xcert.org/news/0xcert-framework-for-wanchain-tutorial-5-transfer-assets
https://0xcert.org/news/0xcert-framework-for-wanchain-tutorial-6-atomic-operations

0xcert Framework for building dapps launched on Product Hunt!

Tadej Vengust — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 09:16:27 +0000

Hi there, mighty devs!

We have just launched the 0xcert Framework for building dapps on Product Hunt! 🚀

Why? Because we’re all about supporting the dev community and spreading the word and knowledge about dapp development. And because we believe every community has its potentials.

After all, you never know where the future dapp developers will find their inspiration.

So - we’ve onboarded a hunter to launch the Framework on Product Hunt, and here is your chance to show support and bring dapp development to the masses. 🙌

How ever you show support - by upvoting, commenting, or reviewing the Framework - we’ll be more than grateful for the minute you devote to it.

To do that, please:
Go to producthunt.com
On the landing page, check the “Today” section and find “0xcert Framework” among the listed products
Click on it and show support in any way you prefer 💙

Without your extensive support, we wouldn’t have made it this far, and we definitely would like to push it even further.

We’re here for and because of fellow developers. A big thanks to all!

Live Testing Smart Contracts with ESTIMATEGAS

Tadej Vengust — Fri, 12 Apr 2019 12:49:39 +0000

We have developed a new technique that allows you to test any deployed contract in arbitrary ways, without spending gas.

It works on Ethereum Mainnet, Wanchain, Ethereum Ropsten, Hyperledger Burrow, Proof of Authority Network, private chains, and every other network based on Ethereum Virtual Machine.

This technique could work well for you if:

Your contract deployment is too complicated to use Truffle
You are testing somebody else's contract, possibly without access to the source code
You want to batch test deployed contracts, and you don't care how they were deployed
You are interested in weird stuff and errors in the Ethereum Yellow Paper

More about it here: https://0xcert.org/news/live-testing-smart-contracts-with-estimategas-william-entriken-tadej-vengust/ (edited)