Writing NFTs ✍️ – by William M. Peaster

Metaversal is one Bankless newsletter for weekly levels on NFTs, virtual worlds and digital collectibles

Dear Bankless Nation,

NFTs can be anything – art, digital land, music, videos, you name it.

So what about writing NFTs?

This area of ​​digital things is growing rapidly as more and more people begin to explore the possibilities of non-fungible tokens + text.

For today Metaversallet’s talk “why write NFTs” and give you a quick tour of this booming new scene!

-WMP

🙏 Sponsor: Nexo – Buy BTC, ETH and 40+ cryptocurrencies and keep your assets safe.✨

The power of writing NFTs is that they allow you to create and publish and experiment with texts in ways that traditional media cannot.

For example, having a simple DIY process for digital edition texts for collectibles were never possible before NFTs. Now with a little web3 knowledge and a few clicks, authors can make text – e.g. articles, blogs, digital autographs, fiction, poems, etc. – to NFTs to connect with audiences in new and composable ways.

As such, writing NFTs is kind of like self-publishing and DIY distribution on steroids. With this medium at your fingertips, you have the ability to easily adapt your release strategy, easily send new content to your fans and make use of many open web3 resources, with all this on a global neutral infrastructure, e.g. Ethereum, which anyone can use.

Speaking of infra, that brings me to my next point: writing NFTs is also compelling because they can turn texts into lasting digital things, digital artifacts, digital memories, digital souvenirs, what have you. Once minted, an NFT lives forever on the chain.

Of course, when it comes to preserving/storing metadata, NFTs aren’t necessarily a catch-all solution (although they can be through some chaining techniques), but still, they offer the possibility of total digital durability, and authors have never had access to that for. I used to have a poetry account on Instagram and closed it down years ago, but now I wish I could go back to those early works – with the writing NFTs I make here and now, know I can make it so readers, and I will be able to return to them forever.

Currently, there are no NFT mining platforms on Ethereum that explicitly accommodate to write NFTs. For shorter pieces, a simple solution right now is to take a picture of a desired text and then make it as an image file, e.g. JPG, PNG, SVG, through your infra selection. For example, I have used this image-based approach before to mark poems via Zora and Foundation.

The 101st: Mirror is a web3 publishing platform for authors that handles accounts through Ethereum, data storage through Arweave, and writing of NFT records through Optimism layer-two (L2) scaling solution. This minting approach allows authors to create write NFTs for free, and the NFTs are inexpensive to interact with because they are on an L2.

The 101st: In July 2022, cent.co was unveiled Cent pages, a “premium NFT publishing platform” built on Polygon. The system is not just for authors, but it offers free audience management and content distribution tools that are very user-friendly.

The 101st: Powered by Lens Protocol on Polygon, Lenses is a decentralized social media app where people can create and aggregate posts as NFTs. It’s like a web3 native version of collectible tweets!

The 101st: Zang is a blockchain NFT platform built on Polygon. The project is minimalistic in design, but it supports some interesting things like HTML + CSS creations.

The 101st: Created by the team behind the generative art platform fx(hash), fx(text) is the first web3 publishing platform on Tezos. The recently launched project provides a custom text editor and supports markdown.

The 101st: typewritten.art is a text-based NFT platform on Tezos.

Writing the NFT scene is very early, so the projects mentioned above that stay from here will undoubtedly move on and develop much further.

That said, as a writer and NFT user, I’m a big fan of the efforts listed above, but personally, my ideal writing NFT platform would be more expansive than those currently on the market. Some features I would like to see in a one-stop writing NFT platform going forward include:

• Multichain support — choose whether you want to mark on Ethereum, Optimisme, Arbitrum, Polygon, etc.

• Customizable coin parameters — mint 1/1s or editioned series.

• Mint selected photos — enable writing of NFTs to be embossed as text + a highlighted image.

• Flexible text editor — provide a text editor that supports basic formatting, e.g. paragraph breaks.

• On-chain and off-chain modes — offer the ability to stamp a piece of textual metadata entirely on-chain or choose off-chain storage via Arweave, IPFS, Filecoin, etc.

• Lazy coinage — let writers post drafts of non-embossed typefaces, which people can then create on demand as they please.

• Native marketplace — provide a built-in marketplace system for people to list their written NFTs for sale directly on the platform.

• Adaptation of profile — let creators customize their profiles and segment their creations into collections/series for better visibility.

What about you? What features would you request for your dream writing NFT platform? Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear your thoughts! And in the meantime, welcome to the world of writing NFTs ✍️

William M. Peaster is a professional writer and creator of Metaversal– a bankless newsletter focused on the rise of NFTs in the crypto-economy. He has also recently contributed content to Bankless, JPG and more!

Subscribe to Bankless. $22 per month. Includes archive access, Inner circle & Divorced.

Nexo follows a robust business model that safeguards your crypto in all market conditions. The company’s strict security policy makes it the best platform to safely borrow against your crypto. You can also buy or trade 40+ assets and earn daily compound interest.

👉 Get started now!

Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell assets or make financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Mediation. From time to time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive a commission if you purchase through one of these links. In addition, the Bankless writers have crypto assets. See our investment information here.