For my pet-project Electrum Counterparty I need to replicate the various op_return messages used by Counterparty. Beware, this blog post is very technical – not very interesting for most people – but I share my insights to other developers who may be interested. A good starting point is the counterpartylib python code. Each transaction type (also called message) has its own .py script. The overall structure is added to a […]
The token ecosystem of 2014 and 2015 is characterized by creativity and experimentation. Little money was involved at the time and a handful of visionaries, driven by ideas not greed, came up with some pretty fascinating stuff. The tokens I present here are all on Bitcoin/Counterparty, which was the dominant standard pre Ethereum. My list is by no means complete. I merely list the most exciting tokens I can remember […]
JPJA is a book NFT from June 2014. It was a visionary project that outlined the modern NFT economy. Timeline June 22, 2014: JPJA issued with a fixed supply of 100 indivisible tokens and description “JPJA Share“. June 27, 2014: The eBook is announced on Bitcointalk: June 28, 2014: The description is updated to: “1 share = 1 % of eBook tips. See JPJA.net”. Also on the same day: Five […]
The OLGA NFT is for sale at a price of 88.88888888 BTC. The symbolism of eternal eights aside, the old money equivalent is $4,000,000 at $45,000 per Bitcoin. Here are eight reasons we think the price is fair: Olga is the first ever NFTDespite what some may claim, I have yet to see an older true NFT. Typically the earlier pre-NFT experiments were not properly tokenized. They expired and fresh […]
OLGA is perhaps the first NFT ever created. Here’s its timeline and some background information. 12 June 2014 – NFT MintedOLGA token is minted through two Bitcoin transactions. The first sets the supply at one indivisible token with description “Моя Вечная One & Only”. The second transaction locks the supply, meaning no more tokens with this name can ever be issued on the Counterparty standard.#1 View on Xchain.io and Blockchain.com.#2 View on Xchain.io and Blockchain.com.Comment: This […]
As a general token platform, Counterparty is perfectly suited for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Crypto Token vs Art Token vs NFTBefore we start talking about NFTs it’s essential to clarify what we mean. Art tokens are a subset of crypto tokens. An art token has an on-chain description of the artwork it represents. NFTs are a subset of art tokens. Each non-fungible token must be distinguishable from all other tokens, even […]
I spent one full day pondering before concluding the best answer is “Neither”. An NFT is essentially an autograph. An Art NFT has the artist’s artwork linked to the token to magnify the value proposition of the autograph. Autograph is more than an analogy to the handwritten original. Crypto in its core is made up of signatures. Every time you spend Bitcoin, Ether, or any other crypto token, you sign […]
Shortly after OLGA was discovered, this fact was added to the Wikipedia NFT article. The exact text was; A single-unit coin was minted with the name OLGA and the description “One & Only”. It was minted at the following time 2014-06 12T19:19:02:107 GMT. This is the first true NFT ever minted. Sources backing up the claim were also included. Believe it or not, all references to OLGA are now removed […]
Etheria made a spreadsheet of the first NFTs and NFT-like experiments. OLGA is listed as #3 but I am confident it’s actually the first true NFT. Here’s @etheria_feed’s tweet: The first candidate is a Counterparty asset called THING. I don’t think it belongs on this list. It was registered with a quantity of 1,000,000,000 tokens. It does not have a description nor any pointer to artwork. In 2021 all but […]
This is a follow-up to my post where I argued that Kevin McCoy’s pre-NFT experiment, however brilliant, was not a real NFT. More information has surfaced which proves my point. It took me a while to verify this claim. The artwork was originally recorded on the Namecoin blockchain but there are not that many Namecoin explorers out there. They are not easy to make sense of either. I did eventually […]