The Most Useful NFT

Creating NFTs on the blockchain instead of using them as speculative investments is like rowing a small boat in front of the vast Mount Fuji - only you can experience the joy. (Image of Hayama-cho, Zushi City)

Six different scenarios for using Writing NFTs

Writing NFTs on LikeCoin chain will soon be available for general use in April, and this article will summarize my experiences and share six personal usage scenarios for your reference. Finally, I will explore why I particularly emphasize the importance of "useful" NFTs.

Writing NFT

Writing NFT starts with written creations, which are uploaded to IPFS and Arweave. The Metadata of the creation (including cover, description, author information, etc.) is then registered with ISCN (similar to the ISDN used by libraries) and uploaded to the LikeCoin blockchain.

Using this Writing NFT of "Career as Investment" as an example, you can see the cover image and description at first glance. After clicking "View Content," you will be directed to my blog post URL https://leafwind.tw/2022/12/12/career-as-investment/.

As you browse further down, you will see the message that I wrote as a creator when minting the NFT: "Self-disclosure is not easy, but the reason that encourages me to continue writing is the belief that this article will be helpful to readers who are also struggling with their careers."

At the bottom, the registered ISCN index and the location of the ontology backed up on IPFS and Arweave will be displayed. Since the release of Writing NFT, I have turned every blog post into an NFT, and I have created more than thirty pieces of work.

Originally, my written works would definitely be placed on my own blog, and now forging Writing NFT has become one of the most basic actions in my creation.

The sense of collectible ceremony and "collection" itself increase the connection between readers and creators. Readers are no longer just "someone" who came to read an article, disappeared in the torrent of the Internet and time.

I don't even need to know any personal information about the readers, I can still collect data on the chain and send them LikeCoin, or give them early access to new works (of course, also using Writing NFT), or even a chain-based small card at specific moments.

Book NFT

Since there are articles turned into Writing NFTs for preservation, there are of course Book NFTs as well. The first NFT book on the LikeCoin chain is the "I Don't Invest" by Kin Ko, which is completely open to the public, but owning the NFT represents that you have "bought" the book and you can even get the author's signature.

Currently, I have collected two NFT books and plan to publish my own in the future.

Image (IllustBuy) NFT

Although Writing NFT is born for writing, it has no format restrictions except for size. Therefore, if you only look at the cover, it's a "picture NFT" through and through.

Anyone can create an image NFT, and IllustBuy, an illustration/design commission platform, has integrated Writing NFT's function to launch the feature to "mint NFTs," allowing everyone to easily upload images and sell their own NFTs on the platform.

After returning to Japan from Taiwan, I took back my nurtured pet (whose name is 學妹) from my friends. At first, I thought she had gained weight because my friends had been too good to her, and I didn't pay much attention to it.

After a few days, I found out that something was wrong. She seemed to have bloating all over her belly. After seeing the doctor, I found out that there was a pathological change near her ovary that caused water retention and swelling. So, a netizen named 吐司大大 drew a picture of 學妹, hoping she could become a healthy grandmother.

This IllustBuy NFT was minted with 吐司大大's approval to commemorate the moment when a "stranger" from a faraway place brought warmth.

Although 學妹's belly is still a bit swollen, her condition has stabilized temporarily thanks to medication and careful care. I hope she can fully recover and live happily again.

Video NFT

The next step after having text, books, and pictures is, of course, adding videos. I used a clip of Ricky Gervais' interview as an example.

Ricky Gervais is an British comedian, actor, director, producer, writer, and musician who later entered the world of comedy. His speech eloquently describes the problem of polarization in today's society, accurately portraying how two extreme ends are connected, as Confucianism says "Going too far is as bad as not going far enough."

I registered this video on ISCN and stored it on the chain before Writing NFT was open, but it has not been converted into an NFT yet.

Now I have the opportunity to mint it as an NFT and showcase it, and others can also collect it.

Archive NFT

Shoebillcoin participated in the crowdfunding project "The bridge between flowers, animals and people" at Kobe Animal Kingdom, which is documented here.

The Kobe Animal Kingdom has Japan's largest Shoebill stork ecological park called "Big Bill." This NFT records the participation of Shoebillcoin. The crowdfunded project included setting up breeding and exhibition facilities for Shoebill storks, as well as the successful breeding of the endangered Japanese species, the Amami spiny rat.

Although the amount we sponsored was not much, it was a collective effort to participate in the donation event. After the event ended, the Kobe Animal Kingdom website posted a page thanking the donors, but since we cannot guarantee when the page will be taken down or when the website will be redesigned, I registered the webpage as ISCN on the blockchain and created this NFT, which I call "Archive NFT".

Evidence NFT

After the FTX incident erupted, SBF deleted his Twitter post claiming user fund safety, but the post still exists on web archive.

Of course, even if the web archive still exists, it cannot guarantee that it will not disappear one day. Therefore, I used the feature of Writing NFT to permanently save SBF's post on IPFS and Arweave, and registered it with ISCN as an index, and then added his avatar and description. This NFT becomes an indelible historical record.

If someone mentions it in the future, I'll show them this NFT and say, "This is the 'Chain News' that I made back then. It won't disappear due to web archive crashing or censorship."

It's actually an Archive NFT, but because it's special, I've given it a separate name, "Evidence NFT".

The most practical NFTs

In the world of NFT or blockchain, the most commonly asked question by novices is how to "empower" it, which is a strange question to me.

The most common way we see empowerment is to hold NFT as proof of collection and creation, and then give it a ticket or membership card to use the functions of another project, to gamble, or to increase revenue.

However, NFTs have powerful functions, and there is a path for creating collectibles, but most projects do not focus on the path of creating collectibles, instead using the concept of tickets or membership cards to "empower" them. It's a mistake to add unrelated functions to creative collectibles.

It may sound like I'm a self-righteous person, but I don't think NFTs that are used for hype shouldn't exist, in fact, I buy them too. What I don't like is the fraudulent practice of combining "creative collectibles" with "hyped functions" and selling them together. This is like Taiwan's popular savings insurance that bundles investment and insurance together – on the surface, it can make money and provide security, but neither is as good as advertised, and marketing language is used to cover up the fact that the products lack core competitiveness.

In Ethereum, we can still see some products similar to Writing NFTs (such as Mirror.xyz), but in Solana, most NFT projects are just hype, and projects like Metaplex haven't done anything for creators; the user experience is even negative. It only exists to quickly launch new blind boxes and violently slaughtering retail investors, completely wasting the technical advantages of NFTs.

I use Writing NFT every day instead of thinking about how much money I can make by buying and selling it (in fact, most retail investors like me will lose money if they think that way). And the user experience of Writing NFTs has been improving, and its current level of completion can already meet most of my usage scenarios. This article only lists a few usage scenarios that I've thought of so far, and I'll continue to explore more possibilities.

Writing NFTs are not yet a perfect product, and the best NFTs to use haven't emerged yet, but as long as more people view NFTs from the perspective of practical usage instead of just looking for "hyped" NFTs, perhaps one day, no one will talk about NFTs anymore, and uploading creations to the blockchain will be as natural as breathing.

Of course, this article itself will also be a Writing NFT.