Next Steps in NFTs: Which Innovations Stand Behind Dynamic NFTs?

Dynamic NFTs are a new trend in web3. In five questions and answers, we explain what kind of technology it is and why it is the next big step in web3.

What is dynamic NFT technology, and how is it different from usual NFTs?  

With dynamic NFTs, there are two aspects of metadata — the visuals, and the written data, the same as regular NFTs. But, inputs can constantly change the metadata. Dynamic NFTs have more utility since they can respond to user interaction with the tokens, which unlocks potentially limitless utility.

In other words, dynamic NFTs, unlike static ones, are responsive and interactive. The factors determining the change to the images can be anything in the online or real world, and they can be relatively predictable or completely algorithmically generated, depending on the creator's intentions.

To summarize the difference, typical static NFTs have unchanging metadata, but dynamic NFTs can constantly grow, change, stay up to date, and provide a reason for users to want to keep them, collaborate on them, and acquire them. This technology can be applied in NFT tickets, move-to-earn apps, wallets, games, art, and documentation.

Are there many web3 companies using this technology?

It’s a new technology so there aren't many of them yet, but more and more such projects appear, and the technology is quickly gaining in popularity. Here are just a few examples. 

The OthersideMeta by Yuga Labs has become one of the most anticipated NFT projects launched in 2022 and surely the most attended to date. It almost broke Ethereum blockchain on its minting day for its high request demands. Dynamic NFT is behind its most remarkable features. 

The OthersideMeta is a highly engaging metaverse built of Otherdeeds lands, a unique mix of environment and sediment, resources or artifacts, some with aliens called Koda. These lands are dynamic NFTs and will evolve based on players’ chives. Players are the creators of this meraverse. They can interchange the traits of their lands by adding or removing resources and trade on the Otherside marketplace. 

Same year NBA, which is not new to the world of NFT, has launched NBAxNFT, official web3 home for the NBA, a collection of 30 thousand NFTs minted during the 2022 NBA playoffs. Each card is a dynamic NFT changing its appearance influenced by team and player on-court performance. How does that work? Each NBAxNFT was linked to real time data feeds. The data computations were carried out by Chainlink which powered the automated visual traits change of each dynamic NFT based on the preset achievements per player and team written into the smart contract. The visual changes of each NFT included background, special emojis designed by various artists, and also accessories. Some of the traits were progressive, meaning that an attribute could only be gained if a player reached the same achievement multiple times. 

What does it have to do with art?

Dynamic NFT technology may be used to create impressive generative art collections. These art NFTs can grow, breed, fuse, and react to blockchain or IRL events, and they can continue to evolve even after they were bought. So, collectors interacting with this artwork can keep developing it – potentially forever. 

In art projects using this technology, everyone becomes a co-author, while digital art becomes an everlasting act of co-creation. In fact OG.Art platform is now creating a whole art platform for selected artists to experiment with this technology. They promise that with their technology rendering any transformations of NFTs will actually take just several minutes.

Can you give an example? 

Probably the first NFT art collection that developed and tested this technology was OG:Crystals, a collaboration between artists Michael Joo (ASomatica) and Danil Krivoruchko (Myshli) with the technical support of Snark.art. A collection of 10,301 unique NFT collectibles launched on October 16, 2021. Each OG:Crystal transformed and grew every time it was purchased from another collector. The facets and contours of each piece were generated algorithmically, according to each owner's crypto wallet history. 

The collection became one of the top-5 art projects on OpenSea, earning $4.2 million in primary sales and $9 million in secondary sales. Such a success motivated the OG:CR team to even turn the technology developed for the art collection into a separate product called OG Protocol — a b2b solution for web3 companies to apply dynamic NFT technology. 

So dynamic NFT art is a collection of static generative pictures? 

Not at all. OG:Crystals were high-quality static 3D pictures, but the new collection by OG.Art called Life in our Minds is a collection of dynamic generative 3D videos.

It’s a multi-dimensional artwork consisting of two major parts: an NFT collection to be launched in October and an interactive generative video sculpture entitled The Mother Flock. The Mother Flock and NFT collection are interrelated, as they are made from the same basic matter — 3D origami objects called Boids. Following the launch of the project, all the elements — Boids, NFTs, and The Mother Flock — will go through a complex evolutionary process that depends on the NFT collectors’ behaviors. 

LIOM NFTs gradually evolve as long as they stay in the collectors' wallet and are not put up for sale — they add new Boids to the formation, while the old Boids of the NFT gradually change their looks, sometimes adding special rare materials and decorative patterns, that represent other NFT collections in the owner’s wallet. The Evolution Mechanics here reward the holding of LIOM NFTs, rather than the typical trend common in the NFT space of simply flipping the items. So, the longer you hold onto a LIOM NFT, the more complex, beautiful, rare, and precious it becomes.  

LIOM project created by prominent artists Random International and Danil Krivoruchko is one of the most collaborative, technologically innovative NFT projects to date.

“The NFTs are constantly updating dynamic 3D videos and we have to render each update. I had to make many optimizations to keep the NFTs looking sophisticated while still being able to render them fast enough and keep the cost of these updates reasonable. From a technological point of view, it was an exciting puzzle to solve” — Danil Krivoruchko.

Despite the crypto slump the dynamic NFTs collections have completely boomed the market. The OthersideMeta by Yuga Labs has become one of the most anticipated NFT projects launched in 2022 and surely the most attended to date. It almost broke Ethereum blockchain on its minting day for its high request demands. Dynamic NFT is behind its most remarkable features.