This article comes fromABCDE Capital, compiled by Odaily Shiwen.

ERC-721 was created in January 2018 when there were already some NFT experiments on-chain. But no one could have predicted that it would lead to the birth of the NFT ecosystem and unleash the potential of NFT applications. PFP and GameFi NFT once became the main stage of Web3 in 2021 and 2022, and we are even more excited to look forward to the next stage of NFT growth.

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1. Permission-enabled NFTs

We have been following a model for NFTs so far: each NFT has an owner field in the metadata, representing one of its owners. However, single owner configurations lead to a lack of flexibility when using NFTs. What if the owner wants to rent out the utility of NFTs? What if a publisher wants to limit the number of total NFTs but still give its audience broad access to its services? This leads us to permission-enabled NFTs.

By enabling permissions, we mean a method of generalizing permissions on NFTs. An NFT can have an owner, but also have fields dedicated to potential rights holders, loyalty givers, etc. We can break down the utility of NFTs into specific parts that allow different players to get the most out of it。

EIP-4400 A consumer role for NFTs is introduced, enabling non-owners to enjoy the benefits of a given NFT instance by creating permissions for them. The main use case comes from the metaverse: landowners can authorize consumers to use their land. It hints at the potential to leverage additional roles to enable beneficiary-user relationships in NFT-based rental marketplaces and NFT yield farms.

EIP-4907 The concept of rentable NFT is proposed. It includes user and expiry fields in the ERC-721 contract to enable granular owner-beneficiary relationships within an NFT. With this improvement, one can easily rent out an NFT or authorize others to use the IP. Prior to this EIP, the NFT holder had to transfer the NFT to enable leasing, carefully calculating the collateral required to protect his or her ultimate ownership. This model is not the safest and will cause the NFT rental market to behave like an options market: if the value of the NFT rises sharply, the lender can choose to forego the guarantee and get the benefit of the NFT's rise.

EIP-5023 Created an interface for creating NFTs that are shared by multiple owners, called shareable NFTs. The current reference implementation emits a share event to mint a new token based on a given token ID and transfer it to the recipient. While the implementation isn't perfect, it points to a future:The ownership of NFT can be refined to each specific function or functional module. Owners can share the same or different parts of the rights granted by the NFT.Furthermore, it can deal with the current contradiction between supply and demand: NFT needs scarcity and limited supply to stabilize the market price, however, NFT should be shared and thus should be accessible to all. Apps with shareable NFTs, such as music NFTs, may achieve the goal of retaining price appreciation while providing access to all fans through sharing functions.

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2. Relationship-enabled NFTs

In addition to innovating in terms of multiple owners and users of NFTs, we also urgently need to implement the function of multiple NFTs bundled together to belong to the same owner. In a game, the value or output of a group of assets may be much higher than that of a single item. In the metaverse, one might wish to teleport between multiverses and still be able to access their assets in a compatible format. If NFTs can be combined between ERC-721 contracts, applications, and chains, there will be a huge market for unlocking the balance of value through NFTFi.

EIP-5606 The concept of a multiverse NFT is proposed to enable a common representation of multiple related NFTs on different platforms. as a single asset,It enables users to bundle and unbundle any NFT to support collectible needs and utility.It can define the relationship between assets and their associated nature for better cross-chain and cross-metaverse interoperability.

EIP-6059 Extend bundled NFTs further into nestable NFTs controlled by the parent,This adds a relational layer to the bundled NFT. It provides better clarity for bundling by specifying the EOA controlling the parent NFT and the tree structure of all child NFTs. It can support bundling, standardized collections, on-chain membership, and delegation to enhance the NFT collecting experience and NFT utility potential.

EIP-6150  The concept of layered NFT is proposed, similar to the file system in the operating system. It allows for more accurate layering and grading of NFT hierarchies. also,It also proposes to standardize setting permissions for each layer of each hierarchy for better NFT permission manipulation。

EIP-6220 secondary title

3. NFT as an installment vesting tool

Tokens have always been a vehicle for investors and early backers to gain stake and rewards in projects. However, there has been more short-term hype than support for the healthy growth of the ecosystem. It is difficult for projects to work out a fair share distribution in a crypto-native way, or for ordinary people to easily create step-by-step ownership claims in ERC-721. Attributed NFTs can be the solution, and it has huge potential to scale to a variety of applications, moving traditional financing onto the blockchain.

EIP-5725  Created a transferable unlocking NFT interface, which can release the underlying tokens according to a certain period of time. This means that NFT is the carrier of unlocked tokens, or can be unlocked according to a predetermined curve to achieve its final use value.

EIP-5753 A lockable NFT extension is proposed to disable token transfers during the lockup period. This enables safer NFT collateral in Defi lending or yield farms. Holders can choose to lock the NFT under their account instead of depositing it in an external contract to achieve the same result, but the protocol is less risky and less likely to lose the NFT.

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4. NFTs as utility tools

In addition to being a viable awarding tool, NFTs are also being used as utility tools to support gaming apps and club memberships. What is the potential for NFT utility value? We expect an infinite amount of practical value, inheriting user behavior and characteristics from Web2. A new EIP is proposed to support the practical value of NFT.

EIP-5050  It is suggested that NFT should define the way of interacting with each other through action messages and discovery protocols. This could allow creators to constantly interact with holders, or for games to connect to their NFT characters. Additionally, it heralds the potential for NFTs to become a connecting node for users to interact with each other and use NFTs as phone calls or social media. The token contract will be discoverable and usable by applications so that games and other applications can have a layer for interacting with NFTs.

EIP-5643  Propose subscription NFTs to embed expiration and recurring payment schedules for active subscriptionssecondary title

5. NFT as an identity token

Soul-bound tokens and naming services have been popular ways of representing on-chain identities. They all rely on NFTs to carry identities and represent their unique characteristics and properties. EIP has been adding support for SBT and its ecosystem, and we expect the zkID technology stack, that of on-chain privacy-preserving identities, to be ready soon and in the EIP standardization pipeline.

SBT was originally inEIP-4671 proposed in , aiming to create non-transactional tokens as proof of holding and achievement. It was developed as a certificate issued by an institution and cannot be revoked or transferred. However, EIP-4671 failed to become a standard on Ethereum and was shelved. It didn't dampen the enthusiasm for SBT, but kickstarted more immediate development and EIP in the SBT space.

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6. NFT for richer content

Currently, NFTs need to rely on external storage to hold PFPs or other media, which leads to possible interoperability issues when displaying and using NFTs in various metaverses and marketplaces, as linked files may exist in different formats or not use. We believe that in the future NFTs themselves will be able to accommodate richer content for use across any intermediary platform and multiverse.

EIP-4955 is the first step to improving NFTs with richer content: vendor metadata extensions. It simply adds a new field to NFT metadata so that vendors are free to store app-specific JSON data, and NFT marketplaces and metaverses can leverage NFTs by rendering custom metadata. For example, metadata could include a custom 3D representation or other properties of the NFT.

EIP-5489 A hyperlink extension is proposed to add clickable functionality to all NFTs to direct users to specified webpages. If NFT becomes the main media and information carrier in the Web3 world, NFT needs an alternative way to attach more content than on-chain. Hyperlink standards are an important step forward in enabling the dissemination of information of any kind.

EIP-5773  Specifies an interface for multi-asset tokens, with context-sensitive asset types. Each NFT can be displayed in the corresponding format according to the access mode, such as displaying PDF files as e-reader formats, 3D model assets as game formats, etc. Embedding various assets in different contexts directly into NFTs can create a smoother and more fulfilling user experience.

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7. NFT of physical assets

An important step in realizing the widespread application of blockchain is to connect the real world and the blockchain world. Digi-physical is a common term used to describe the combination of digital and physical experiences and assets. NFTs are a promising vehicle for digital-physical product and service relationships.

EIP-4519 An interface is proposed to represent physical assets through NFTs, with the ability to generate or restore accounts. It links NFTs to unique physical assets to enable applications related to physical sensors and assets. The specification is a strong indication of the full integration of physical assets into blockchain cryptographic schemes, although more work is needed to achieve full physical layer and blockchain integration.

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8. NFTFi with Advanced Metrics

With the continuous increase of permissions, relationships, lock-up periods, and practical value in NFT,The valuation and trading of NFT requires a more refined mechanism to reflect the market's different assessments of the value of each part of NFT. The continuous advancement and enrichment of EIP shows the evolution path of NFTFi. In the future, there will be more levels of details and more refined user experience, and at the same time, it will face more difficult tasks to ensure a smooth and smooth user experience.

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9. NFT as EOA (Externally Owned Account)

Finally, NFTs can become their own entities.It can serve as the holder's wallet, identity, or EOA in general.This can limit how much one can track on-chain, build the NFT's history and reputation, and enable more NFT ownership structures.

EIP-6066 The signature verification method of NFT is standardized to easily verify the signature of ERC-721 and ERC-1155 contracts. It essentially expands the utility of NFTs from an asset to own, to an EOA with the ability to interact, pay, and approve transactions. NFT can become a steward or role in the Web3 world, enriching the current ownership experience.

We can imagine that as NFT becomes a sovereign on-chain entity, anyone can freely establish the intellectual property of NFT. Additionally, using relationships or permissions enabled EIP schemes, users can create hierarchical signatures or interact with NFT bundles in entirely new ways.