Is the value logic of "cross-chain NFT" hard enough?

Recently, the rise of "cross-chain NFT" led by Gh0stly Gh0sts and tiny dinos has attracted attention.

As a Free Mint project, such an increase can be described as amazing.

These "cross-chain NFTs" do not require holders to use cross-chain bridge tools to achieve transfers, they only need to call the traverseChains function in the contract, and platforms such as TofuNFT will soon follow up and make contract function calls more foolish The package is designed to help holders realize one-click transfer. It is so easy for NFT to freely shuttle between chains like FT, and the rapid growth process of FTs from single-chain applications to multi-chain applications also makes NFT players full of expectations for "cross-chain NFT".

Many NFT players have a good "first impression" of "cross-chain NFT", mainly from these three aspects - "universal" social value, "maximizable" income and "more interesting" game expansion , but these good "first impressions" do not seem to be as beautiful as imagined. After the short-term FOMO has gradually calmed down, let us rethink, does "cross-chain NFT" have a solid enough value logic?

Delving into "First Impressions"

"Universal" social value

Social value is one of the core values of PFP NFT. To put it simply and crudely, it is "dazzle" for showing off. PFP, which cannot be circulated across chains, has the limitation of being "unusable" in terms of social attributes—assuming that a popular application appears on a chain ecology other than the ETH main network, and CryptoPunks, which was bought with a large amount of money on the ETH main network , BAYC, Azuki, etc. how to "show off"?

A friend expressed this concern to me, "Take StepN on Solana's ecology as an example. If some functions with strong social attributes are updated in the future, such as joining a sports group and displaying your own movement track on the world map, Another example is that I can make an appointment with other users, so how can my PFP on the ETH mainnet be used as an avatar on the Solana ecological application?"

Gh0stly Gh0sts and tiny dinos can really solve his worries. Both use the Layer Zero protocol. The process of cross-chain implementation of this protocol is simply to destroy the transferred NFT on the current network and mint a new NFT on the target chain. This can indeed solve the above-mentioned problems, but Two new problems also arise:

• "Remove the east wall and pay the west wall": cross-chain transfer will destroy the corresponding assets on the original chain. Suppose I transfer a PFP from the ETH mainnet to other chains today, which can indeed meet the social needs of my dApps on other chains, but the price is that dApps on the ETH mainnet cannot use this PFP as an avatar.

• "Transportation costs": Taking tiny dinos as an example, when Gwei is in the range of 25-30, it will cost about 50-60 USD worth of gas to cross from other chains to the ETH main network. Frequent operations may be tolerable, so what about frequent Gas fees?

"Cross-chain NFT" headed by Gh0stly Gh0sts and tiny dinos is an answer, but it doesn't seem to be a good answer. What's more worthy of our consideration is, if we simply use PFP as an avatar, does it take so much effort?

The implementation process for using PFP as an avatar is simple. The first is "confirmation of rights". After the user signs with the wallet, the application can confirm that the user does hold the corresponding NFT asset. The second is "picture acquisition", which loads the corresponding image according to the URL pointed to in the corresponding NFT metadata. In addition to "cross-chain NFT", other answers have appeared:

• "One account, multiple wallets": Taking the online NFT gallery application OnCyber as an example, users can add multiple wallets including ETH, SOL, Tezos and other chains, and each address corresponds to an independent gallery. After signature "confirmation of rights", different APIs are used to obtain pictures of NFT assets under each address, so that users can display NFTs in different addresses on different chains in one gallery.

• "NFT passport": Harmony's ecological game DeFi Kingdoms provided BAYC holders with the "NFT passport" function in February. As long as you have the address of BAYC in the connection address in the game, you can directly use the corresponding BAYC as the game avatar. Since "Proof of Ownership" is generated for BAYC holders on the Harmony network, players do not need to perform cross-chain transfers of NFT assets.

Of course, the premise that this method is feasible is that Harmony's main network is compatible with EVM. If it is a main network that is not compatible with EVM like Solana, I am afraid that we still have to return to the solution of "one account, multiple wallets". Considering that a software environment that supports EVM such as Neon has appeared on Solana, it is reasonable to expect to see more applications of this method.

It can be seen that "cross-chain NFT" does not have the irreplaceability of "universal" social value-freely using PFP as an avatar has a more flexible solution. Also, let's look at one more piece of data:

Observing Gh0stly Gh0sts calling the traverseChains function on Etherscan will reveal that there are only 9 records. In other words, Gh0stly Gh0sts only had 9 transfers from the ETH mainnet to other chains. In addition, there are a total of 3085 Gh0stly Gh0sts minted on the ETH main network, and the total number of Gh0stly Gh0sts currently circulating on the ETH main network is close to 6500, which means that most of the Gh0stly Gh0sts minted on other chains are mostly Returned to the ETH main network.

This data can illustrate two problems:

• "Capital Effect": Although the ETH main network is often congested, its most diverse ecology and largest traffic determine that it is still the first choice for NFT projects and even applications to take root. For NFT players, the ETH mainnet is still their most active place - the latest and most interesting things generally appear here, and the best liquidity is also here. If you continue to need $ETH to seize new opportunities , so why not transfer the assets back to the ETH main network for sale to facilitate the next purchase?
• "Application shortage": To be able to "show off" a PFP, two conditions need to be met at the same time - the value of the PFP must not only be widely recognized, but also have enough popular applications to support the display. But at present, there is still a lack of such applications with "strong social attributes" on each chain. Currently Twitter from Web2 may be the best place to "show off", but it also "shows off" and only supports NFT on the ETH mainnet.

The "universal" social value is indeed not as beautiful as NFT players imagine, so what about the "maximizable" income level?

"Maximizable" benefits

Assuming that a high APY NFTFi mine appears on a certain chain, how to move over there?

Assuming that the NFT market/loan market of a certain chain has better liquidity and lower gas fees, how can it be moved to operate?

"Cross-chain NFT" seems to be able to solve the above problems to improve capital utilization, but in fact it is "cross-chain" + "high-net-worth and highly liquid NFT" that solves the above problems. Many NFT projects have the application expansion of pledge to obtain Token, but for bad projects - low net worth and poor liquidity, 1 $xxxx is indeed equal to 1 $xxxx, and equal to 0 $ETH, but it may be possible to find another way to create a "waste "Mine" to accept all these projects, and then hype the pledge reward tokens with the logic of meme coins to achieve the rebirth of the phoenix? The same is true for lending - the value of NFT itself determines whether there is a demand for lending.

Therefore, if we want to think that the value logic of "cross-chain NFT" at the level of "maximizable" income is strong enough, we must find a strong expectation for it to become a "high-net-worth and highly liquid NFT". Go back to the traditional scoring items of NFT projects-art style, cultural core, community operation, market strategy, etc. for evaluation. However, projects such as Gh0stly Gh0sts and tiny dinos are just newly born, and it is not enough to give convincing strong expectations in this regard, and more time is needed to give us enough feedback.

"More Fun" Game Expansion

It's time to brainstorm.

To make an MMORPG chain game, you can cast in ETH, BSC, SOL, and AVAX respectively, and the castable amount on each chain is 1/4 of the total amount. Players’ first game starts from the time of casting - NFTs cast on different chains will have different character characteristics. For example, the ETH main network is the most abundant ecology and is often congested, so the strength of the characters cast on it The value is high and the agility value is low. The throughput of SOL is high, so the characters cast on it have high agility values. There are "pancakes" on the BSC, which have sufficient calories, so the characters cast on it have high stamina... There are unique game tasks on each chain, and the character NFT needs to be transferred to each chain to complete. After completion, you can get exclusive The equipment has different gain/loss effects for characters cast on different chains...

To make a farm chain game, different farms cast on different chains will have different backgrounds, and the seeds obtained through pledge on different chains will be cultivated on farms on different chains to produce plants of different shapes...

Of course, there are many interesting ideas. However, these do not form a value logic support for the current "cross-chain NFT" such as Gh0stly Gh0sts and tiny dinos-they didn't say they would do it.

"Cross-chain NFT" and "NFT cross-chain application"

"Cross-chain NFT" cannot carry all the beautiful imaginations of "NFT cross-chain applications".

"Cross-chain NFT" is an NFT after all, so when evaluating its value expectations, it cannot be separated from the traditional value score item of NFT. As a technical means, "cross-chain" can optimize or solve some problems, but it is beyond reach for artistic style, cultural core, community operation, market strategy, etc. All the good "first impressions" actually come from the possibilities of "NFT cross-chain applications" that we can see from the Layer Zero protocol that enables NFT to have "cross-chain" capabilities.

The recent shortage of new concepts in the NFT market and the narrative of arresting people have caused the FOMO of this "cross-chain NFT". In the roadmap of the PFP project, physical goods, metaverse integration, and pledged tokens are all the same, and the homogenization of application expansion is serious. At the operational level, the project parties have been so involved that they are scrambling to hold offline gatherings. Even at the level of artistic style, there are few refreshing breakthroughs. "Cross-chain" appears as a new concept at this time, which can be described as "a long drought meets rain". Secondly, "cross-chain" is very appealing to NFT players at the narrative level. First of all, open interconnection must be considered by most NFT players as an important part of the Web3 spirit. Secondly, "NFT cross-chain application" still has a huge imagination space, and this imagination space is easily projected onto "cross-chain NFT" by mistake.

Does "cross-chain NFT" have a solid enough value logic? No, it's not hard enough, don't be greedy.

Rhythm BlockBeats reminds that according to the document "Reminder on Preventing Illegal Fundraising in the Name of "Virtual Currency" and "Blockchain" issued by five departments including the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission in August 2018, the general public is requested to treat the blockchain rationally, and do not Blindly believe in hype promises, establish correct currency concepts and investment concepts, and effectively improve risk awareness; actively report and report to relevant departments for clues of violations and crimes discovered.