Since Beeple sold his Everydays: The First 5,000 Days on Christie’s for $69.3 million this year, the existence of non-fungible token aka NTF has finally caught the eye of the public. Several months have passed, now it is almost impossible to ignore the mushrooming of NFTs and the expansion of the business if one still lives in human society.
However NFT and its lucrative business have gained people’s attention, and more and more have dived into the creating, selling, and purchasing process of NFTs, any of them available in the market remains in its basic, primitive form: a digital image. This fact is often teased about, either by someone who is suspicious about the way NFT works, or by someone who already owns NFTs, as saying buying a NFT is buying a JPEG file. So one might wonder, are there other forms a NFT that can be created? Can we even experience them in other ways?
The answer is positive. Here, we are introducing you to Skymon, the first live NFT in the metaverse.
Skymon?
Skymon are NFTs, but not just NFTs. They are digital creatures inhabiting in the next generation Internet.
We are trying to redefine the meaning of being, existence, and living. It is very likely that the concept of living will alter as we experience other kinds of animated beings in the metaverse. From novels to movies, we have already been provided with dazzling imaginations of the metaverse, where the real world can be integrated with the digital through VR/AR technologies. In such fantasies, a virtual world accommodating various kinds of digital creatures is usually presented. They can interact with humans in diversified forms and are no longer confined to the physical world. Now, with the advances of VR/AR related technologies in the past decade, these imaginations have become a forthcoming future, and this is where you will meet your Skymon.
Skymon are created each with its unique traits: a unique combination of a certain species, colors, and a pair of wings. There will be up to 10,000 combinations of the three traits generated arbitrarily by the algorithm. Most importantly, no matter what colors, species, or wings a Skymon is assigned to, they are all equal. We believe the metaverse can be an inclusive universe for these little creatures to flourish.
The pair of wings every Skymon owns are the symbol of freedom. Skymon move freely in the metaverse, and never touch the ground. This further implies their unique state of being digital creatures who are away from the real, physical world, existing in a parallel universe which is approachable through XR applications.
You might think, by their appearance, Skymon are just some sort of fancy digital pets, but they are not just that. We designed Skymon as digital partners. They can accompany you on many adventures and create memorable achievements together in the metaverse.
Immortal
We not only create creatures in the metaverse, but we also want Skymon to live forever! How to do it?
All the Skymon traits are completely on-chain! The images are both on Arweave and IPFS! IPFS is a popular P2P network for sharing data in a decentralized way, but it lacks one feature: Permanence. Contents on the IPFS network can disappear. If no one hosts the data, it could be lost forever.
Arweave is a new type of storage that backs data with sustainable and perpetual endowments, allowing data stored forever.
Skymon is immortal, long live Skymon!
Why Cardano?
We believe that NFTs should be accessible to everyone, instead of remaining a form of assets that transact between and owned only by a small number of investors and collectors. We understand the high transaction costs charged by blockchain platforms make people who are interested in NFTs hesitate, and this is the very reason we choose to release Skymon on Cardano. The minting and transaction costs of NFTs on Cardano are far lower than other major platforms, which makes it more in line with our vision.
For example, if we compare Cardano NFTs to Ethereum NFTs, there are some differences. Ethereum tokens like the ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standard, are smart contracts. To send a token you need to execute a Smart Contract and pay much higher transaction costs than general ETH transactions. On the Cardano blockchain, tokens are native. Sending tokens costs the same as if you send ADA. Also, because the tokens are not smart contracts, they are more secure. They don’t allow for human errors since you don’t need to write smart contracts.
Future is now
The future is happening right now! Why not start exploring this dazzling, vibrant, inclusive universe which will soon become a great part of our daily life? And what would even be better than to be accompanied by Skymon in this exciting future?
How do I get a Skymon?
Skymon will be born on the 10th December 2021, the Human Rights Day. We strongly hold the belief that the values of diversity and equality of individuals should not be excluded from the NFT market and the metaverse. Skymon is our first step to participate in the creation of a better world. More information will be revealed on Twitter. Please follow us if you would like to receive the latest updates of Skymon.
