Dev’s Did Something

Manifold Studios - Contract Deployer Tool

21st December saw Manifold release their long-awaited Creator Contract deployer tool to the public. 

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“After collaborating with artists like Mad Dog Jones (REPLICATOR), Pak (ASH), FVCKRENDER (Sotheby’s Auction), they learned three key aspects that a creator-centric minting contract should feature:

Authenticity — true provenance for creators,

Interoperability — works with existing ERC-721/1155 NFT platforms, and

Extensibility — unique, creator-approved NFT applications

And of course, the smart contract should be open source and free to use.”

So, they got to work to develop a free to use tool for anybody to be able to deploy their own custom minting contract. 

What are you talking about? 

Manifold Studio combines the power of a Manifold Creator Contract with a seamless user interface to mint your own NFTs with zero coding required.

Manifold’s custom minting contract allows any user to deploy their own customisable Ethereum contract which they can mint from, rather than minting using platforms (usually default) minting contracts. 

Example: Mad Dog Jones’ Creator Contract

This cuts out a couple of middle-men that we no longer need to rely on, such as platforms like SuperRare to mint or Solidity Developers to build contracts for every project. We’re also cutting out the reliance on platforms to store / manage our media however they choose. 

For creatives that have fallen foul to platforms that they may consider “gate-keepers”, in a handful of steps, this tool allows you to create your own customisable ERC-721 or ERC-1155 tokens, from your own contract. 

• ERC-721 tokens are always 1/1 tokens and would be what many consider true NFTs. 

• ERC-1155 tokens allow for multiple ‘editions’ of one token, which, to NFT purists would be considered an SFT (semi-fungible token). 

Once your contract is deployed and you’ve created and minted your tokens, one of the only remaining barriers between token creator and recipient are marketplaces. 

Manifold don’t take profits and the only fees paid are gas fees to deploy each contract, which Manifold claim should be around 0.05ETH. 

Why should I use it?

• Creator owned contract
• Creator in control of their tokens
• Free to use (+ gas to deploy)
• Longevity
• No reliance on platforms to mint
• No reliance on dev’s
• “100% decentralized permaweb storage” (Arweave)
• “Compatibility with major NFT platforms”
• Easily traceable tokens
• No shared contracts
• No platform fees (minus marketplace fees) 

There’s plenty more going on at Manifold Studios and we haven’t covered the finer contract details but we’ll let Manifold do the talking. Their website, articles and tutorials are easy to understand.

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Tutorials

wemint.art - Contract Deployer Tool

Interview with wemint.art 

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Following on from Manifold’s contract news we spoke to CrashBlossom (@crashblossom1) at ‘wemintart’, who built and released a similar free to use (+gas) tool earlier in 2021, to understand why custom minting contracts are important for tokenisers. 

Why did you build wemint?

​​We saw many artists feeling dependent on big platforms and gatekeepers for their sales, either getting rejected, or paying hefty commissions to sell their art. We want to give cryptoartists a way to control their output from creation through to sale, with no gatekeeping. 

wemint.art was the first website to offer an independent custom ERC721 to the entire cryptoart community. We’ve never had an approval process like other providers, because we always believed these tools should be available to everyone. 

Why is it free to use?

wemint.art charges no fees because we want to make the process as accessible as possible to artists big or small. We’re not backed by VCs (Venture Capital) so we have no paymasters to answer to. We’re here for the whole cryptoart community, not just to make a profit. 

Why do you think these kinds of tools are important for token creators and potential buyers?

We believe web3 offers an opportunity for all creators to take control of their work and own the entire ‘pipeline’ from creation through to sale. Being able to deploy and mint on your own custom contract ultimately means you can bypass big centralised platforms completely, so creators get the power they deserve.

Larva Labs - Marketplace Interface

This week Larva Labs, creators of Crypto Punks, announced that they’ve released a new one-page, feeless, marketplace interface.

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“It will address some of the shortcomings of the current UI (User Interface), but more importantly will also allow for community input and code contributions as we together tackle problems with increasingly difficult tradeoffs, such as bid acceptance front-running.”

The main take for the rest of us outside of punks is that “anybody will be able to fork and run a marketplace interface of their own, and users can choose the trading experience they prefer, in the true spirit of the decentralized blockchain.”

In layman's terms, you can build your own, simple OpenSea for your own projects. 

Pair this with the likes of Manifold and wemintart and you’re pretty much cutting out all middle men. This is what decentralisation is all about isn’t it? 

Find the project on github.