What are NFTs? What’s a blockchain? Is this a new market for vintage camera / film photos? If so – does this mean I can buy more film without getting into trouble at home?
We’re excited and (slightly) apprehensive to have tackled the big issue of NFTs in our latest article for 35mmc.com.
Hand-rolling as many film photography metaphors as it takes, we cover what NFTs are, how they work and why you might be interested in them. We also put our pride where our keyboard is and have launched our very own NFT auction featuring images from our inaugural zine C-scapes.
If this all goes to plan, hopefully we will have inspired you to have a look at, or even better have a go at, NFTs yourself. If there is something here (and we’re not sure yet), then we’d love to help open the shutter on this new technology and encourage everyone to help build a market for the photos that we all love.
(On the other hand, if this is all too silly for you – that’s cool. Please be nice : )
Here’s the article, or you can visit the auction directly here:
Pixels and Grain Photography Collective 
Hi guys,
Great effort diving in to the brave new world. Just wondering if the Open Sea site has option to accept tokens other than Wrapped ETH? Wrapped ETH is on the binance smart chain if they had an option for just BNB coin it would probably be commonly held by people?
Anyway love the fact you guys are trying this.
Cheers
Matt Jones
Thanks Matt! This was a really helpful comment. The short answer is: yes, but it’s not clear how. We’ve looked through Opensea and it’s not clear how to accept other tokens now the auction has been launched. It’s something we’ll keep in mind for next time, and we also replied to your comment on 35mmc.com so that others can learn this lesson too. Thank you! Chris
I’ve been minting NFT’s on Cardano block chain, just for fun, there is no market place yet, I believe that is coming in August. But I have just been sending them to friends. The cost varies on the price of ADA but less than $10. You can also mint your own Coin. Viewing the minted NFT can be slightly tricky, the instructions on the site are not quite perfect in that respect, I have contacted the site owner and given him my suggestions, if you do mint one, hit me up for questions. Probably you have to be in to the Cardano ecosystem to want to use them, because it requires a Daedalus wallet 🙂
https://cardano-native-token.com/
Hi Matt, that’s fascinating! I’ve held ADA in the past and follow the ecosystem developments a bit. I hadn’t thought of NFTs on there though. What are you doing about permanence? This was a major issue for the 35mmc.com readership – rightly so. Are you minting the entire NFT on chain or linking to Arweave or something else?
I’ll definitely check it out, thank you!
Chris
Hi Chris, that Cardano-native-token minting site uploads the image to a P2P hosting site, and you then have a link to the image. The NFT token on Cardano has the HASH function of that image stored in its metadata. That HASH function also matches the image you keep on file or in fact any copy of that image which is exactly the same. So any time you run a SHA256 HASH function on that image file you will get that HASH key, which is stored within the metadata of the Cardano NFT. I am not really sure what the permanence issue is? But as far as I know this is how it works. You could of course take that exact image and re-hash it with SHA256 and create another NFT on Ethereum blockchain or any other blockchain. Just as you could re-hash it again and again and store more NFT’s of it on the Cardano block chain, as you would do if you did a limited print run. It’s really all about how you are going to market it. We are still in the wild west of Blockchains in general, and the very infancy of NFT. I think real world uses will shake out in time, for me it is just about learning and fun. Oh and Cardano is about funding my retirement, great staking rewards and a bright future 🙂
Thanks Matt! I’ll have to look more closely again at the way Ethereum manages NFTs on chain, but under ERC-721 I don’t think they include a HASH of the image itself – it usually links to a URL hosting the image. In that case if the URL is taken down then the NFT token points to nothing. The workarounds include pointing the URL to an Arweave or IPFS address but the HASH is an interesting idea. With the SHA256 HASH on Cardano I assume that means if you mint a “limited print” run of (say) 50 copies of the same image, each Cardano NFT contract will include the exact same HASH. So what you’d have then is a token that verifies you own one copy of that HASH. Does that sound right? I’ll do some more reading.
I agree that there is a solid use-case for NFTs that is emerging, and that we’re not there yet. I’m fascinated by the fact you’ve chosen Cardano as the future. I’m very interested in it but am also watching for ETH2 to see how that shakes out. What drew you to Cardano in particular? I’m also hearing about Solana and Avalance but I don’t know that much about them yet.
Hi Chris, yes that is correct about the limited print run. A Cardano NFT is not a smart contract, it is a token which is unique (ie non fungible). It is the similar to having 1 ADA coin but modifying the metadata in that coin. So if I minted 10 NFT’s with the same HASH string of one jpeg image then I can send you all ten or give them to 10 individuals. If the artist guarantees to only do a run of 10 you have to take them at their word, same as you do in the real world. It should be relatively simple to put “1 of 10” in the metadata, but the NFT creator web site I used does not have this functionality yet. Having said that Anslume, the fellow who made the site, is very approachable and open to ideas. https://cardano-native-token.com/
As to what attracts me to Cardano. Open source code, lots of peer reviewed papers in scholarly journals, low fees, great staking rewards. And recently they have won a Government contract in Africa to run school ID’s and grades on their blockchain to help stamp out counterfeit and corruption in the school system, so they have real world use. I also take part in their virtual town hall meetings which are part of their governance system, it just feels like they are both socially and economically forward thinking. Being part of the Cardano community feels akin to being part of the film community 🙂
PS you can stake your Cardano with a charity pool, I use “Kind Pool” in France, I still get my interest payments every 5 days like a commercial stake pool, but they donate 25% of their profits to charity.
Thanks Matt! Your enthusiasm is contagious. I’ve just re-invested in some ADA to keep my options open – thanks for the idea. I’ll have a look at “Kind Pool” and see if I have enough to stake. : )