NFTs Are Trending: But Are They Reliable, Secure and Trustworthy?

NFT and Metaverse make it spicier: high stakes and high rewards with low security make the system vulnerable, as stated by high-tech experts. Is it so? And is there a solution?

For more than a year, “NFT-gold rush” is making professional investors, foundations and ordinary people buy, sell and discuss the paradox of NFT: a pixel-art series of CryptoPunks - #5822 - for more than $23,000,000; a collection of NBA Top Shots with LeBron James’ “Cosmic” dunk was sold for $208,000; even an act of literal art destruction - burning of the “Morons” original by famous street artist Banksy - was “encased” in NFT and sold for $308 000.

Also, not only images are sold via NFTs. Unique cars, antiques, jewelry, even precious stones worth several tens of millions USD - they are sold via NFTs on a daily basis. High prices, a sense of technical superiority - all these things stimulate high interest from everyone. But when professional investors buy a bunch of pixels for hundreds of thousands - experts of blockchain, cryptography and digital rights are thinking about questions of reliability, security and trust in the new, NFT-zed world (Metaverse, as it is called now).

Critique of NFT comes from different people. Ordinary investors find it conflicting with ideas of decentralization and freedom of ownership - when original object depictions are stored in exclusively OpenSea, when OpenSea can just delete a depiction and that all, no NFT, no ownership, just a link in blockchain leading to nowhere.

Digital Security experts ask other questions: complex structure of oracles, providing links between blockchains and centralized storages of NFT trading platforms - are like “black box” for many developers. It is too complex and if something breaks - it is impossible to predict what consequences this will lead to.

Web3.0, the next stage of Internet development, is all about decentralization and equality (and NFT also, as it is an instrument of Web3.0). Is there a “little” conflict between ideas and reality?

Moxie Marlinspike, the creator of Signal Messenger and cyber-security expert, put it as best as possible in his article “My first impressions of web3” - he covered every aspect of NFT production and ownership, from wallets to trading platforms, from personal security to moderation and censorship.

As an example, he created one NFT linked to different pictures on OpenSea and Rarible. But in the wallet, this NFT becomes the third picture. According to the rules of platforms, nothing above is forbidden. But in a couple of days, this NFT was removed from his wallet.

“After a few days, without warning or explanation, the NFT I made was removed from OpenSea… The takedown suggests that I violated some Term Of Service, but after reading the terms, I don’t see any that prohibit an NFT which changes based on where it is being looked at from, and I was openly describing it that way.

What I found most interesting, though, is that after OpenSea removed my NFT, it also no longer appeared in any crypto wallet on my device. This is web3, though, how is that possible?” - writes Moxie Marlinspike in his blog.

At the conclusion of all his research, Moxie writes one very important thing for every Metaverse creator: “We should try to reduce the burden of building software”. The current decentralized Metaverse is building on morally old, centralized and vulnerable tech - like a colossus with feet of clay. And no one, from investors to tech experts, wants to see him fall. What can we do? Is there something to give a smooth and stable transition to real Metaverse in decentralized and equal Web3.0?

There is always an answer.

Decentraland

Originated back in 2016, Decentraland is truly the oldest Metaverse with a wide variety of tools: a virtual reality space for communication and interaction, the possibility to enhance it by own creations, create and stake digital assets, NFTs, and run virtual auctions. Through several transformations, Decentraland came to the idea of ultimate Metaverse/gaming/trading space and has been actively implementing it for 2 years.

The Sandbox

As the name of the project states, it is a sandbox - platform for gamers and content creators, working in voxel-art style. With extensive numbers of objects tradable on NFT exchange platforms, The Sandbox is one of the biggest 3D Metaverses with NFT-zed game objects. Via trading of user-created NFTs, The Sandbox evolution can be defined by users in a truly decentralized way.

These two examples are visionaries of a future, where fantastic ideas of Cyberspace from the middle 1980’s are real. But now we have powerful mobile devices and interfaces we are used to. There are not so many examples of Metaverse builders, who take it into account.

One of them is ExtraChain. This project aims to build not only a “level 0” decision for Web3.0 and future Metaverses, friendly to the current user and mobile devices, but also a smooth transition from current-existing old and complex technologies to new one, simple and extendable as for professional developers as for ordinary users.

“NFT is one of the best tools to connect digital and virtual, a bridge to transfer the value from real world to Metaverse and back. We understand it and want to adapt it to the rules of real-life” - says Yuriy Snigur, CEO of ExtraChain Foundation.

ExtraChain defines a set of rules and tools required by Metaverse:

• Decentralized storage - basis for all decentralized interactions, because there is no decentralization without a distributed file system. For example, NFT-object image, stored in DFS, cannot be removed by someone, only by the will of the owner;
• Decentralized computing - to ensure that no central node can capture the control over user actions;
• Decentralized asset exchange - DeFi became a part of our life very fast and it is growing even faster. ExtraChain will not ignore this trend and aims to launch an on-chain mechanism for asset price formation and asset staking/farming. These tools will be accessible as for creators aiming to use fast native algorithms for their tokens/NFTs, but also for users supporting their favorite tokens or content producers;
• Cross-chain action - ExtraChain includes a set of bridges to other popular but old approach technologies: Ethereum, Decentraland, Solana, Tron etc. These bridges make it possible to smoothly transfer assets two-way.

**“**With these basic principles we try to cover all aspects of a decentralized approach to application and service development. A limited set of tools - but with limitless possibilities” - states Vladyslav Halasiuk, CTO of ExtraChain Foundation.

ExtraChain team wants to make Web3.0 real, not the overcomplicated, “decentralized” in name only, but simple for usage and transparent for anyone. No wonder they chose such a motto: