The most high-profile Bitcoin NFT project recently is undoubtedly the Quantum Cats series to be released by the Taproot Wizards team.
Quantum Cats「Quantum Cat」
Putting aside the strong influence of the Grand Wizard in the Bitcoin NFT ecosystem and the influence of players on holding Quantum Cat to have a better chance of obtaining the Grand Wizard white list, Quantum Cat is a very interesting project. Quantum Cat uses evolutionary inscription to describe itself - each Quantum Cat will continue to change in a deterministic way as time goes by and the story line develops.
What will Quantum Cat look like in one year?
We know that the Bitcoin mainnet does not have smart contracts, and the content of the inscription is fixed once it is burned. How does Quantum Cat make the inscription image constantly changing? Rhythm BlockBeats explores this interesting question with you. After exploring this issue, we will also find that Bitcoin NFT has entered a new era.
Changes in “Quantum Cat” – Recursion + Pre-signed Transaction
CTO of Taproot Wizards Great Wizard@rot 13 maxiMentioned in the tweet that in order to realize the dynamic changes of Quantum Cat, they used the following technology:
- Recursive inscription
- Pre-signed transactions
- Symmetric encryption
- Client load management
Everyone must be familiar with recursive inscriptions. In short, recursive inscriptions enable inscriptions to refer to each other and access content. There is JavaScript code in the recursive inscription. When you use a browser to view the inscription that contains JavaScript code, the browser will execute the code in the sandbox and finally display the content obtained by running the code.
It is easy to understand that image changes are achieved by referencing other inscriptions on the chain. However, if other inscriptions are already on the chain, the referenced content will be transparent, and there will be no surprises. what to do? A pre-signed transaction is used here - if the referenced content is an inscription that has not yet been chained, the displayed result will naturally be 404 Not Found. Pre-sign the transaction that implements the Open Picture action, but do not broadcast it. When the pre-signed transaction is broadcast one day, the referenced content will appear, and the Quantum Cat image will change.
Symmetric encryption is to ensure that no data will be leaked before the user sees the updated image, preventing the surprise from being compromised. What should be mentioned here is that Quantum Cat actually has two insurances. The first insurance is to add an extra layer of mapping. Features such as background, body, nose, etc. are all assigned as layers. Each quantum cat will point to a JSON file, and its ID will be mapped to a new short ID, and then map the short ID to the features inscription ID. This JSON file is called a layer connector. Before the Layer Connector is put on the chain, holders can only see that they have referenced the Layer Connector, but they do not know what characteristics will be assigned after execution.
This first insurance was to prevent the trouble of directly quoting the inscription. Even if the directly quoted inscription can be delayed on the chain to keep it secret, the characteristic rarity of Quantum Cat can still be calculated based on the number of citations.
The second level of insurance is symmetric encryption, which is used to prevent sudden increases in mining fees after the open map transaction is uploaded to the JSON file. If the transaction cannot be completed in the first time, the code of the JSON file will be leaked before opening. What to do? We had to encrypt each layer symmetrically.
As for client load management, it is not directly related to the dynamic changes of Quantum Cat. It is just to provide users with a good experience when browsing a bunch of Quantum Cat and to prevent network timeout and browser thread pool exhaustion. .
In addition to the method of Quantum Cat, there is also the recursive + Sat Endpoint method of Pizza Ninjas.
Variation of Pizza Ninjas - Recursion + Sat Endpoint
Sat Endpoint is actually a function that greatly enhances recursive inscriptions. By using the Sat Endpoint function, you can re-record it on a Satong, and you can also retrieve and display different versions of the inscriptions that exist on a Satong. If the technological innovation of Quantum Cat is more for its artistic narrative (a tribute to OP_CAT) and artistic behavior (progressive drawing), then Pizza Ninjas using Sat Endpoint is more about creating breakthroughs in functionality.
Not only that, Sat Endpoint actually has a trust advantage compared to smart contracts.
Although inscriptions are immutable, Sat Endpoint can utilize reburning to enable inscriptions to be upgraded in a manner permitted by the holder. The right to change the smart contract is in the hands of the project party/developer, but on Bitcoin, the situation is completely different - it can be understood that a software will be released in multiple versions, and users can choose to stay in their favorite/more stable version. The old version can also be upgraded to the latest version, because only the NFT holder has the right to re-record. Moreover, NFTs that use different versions of smart contracts (actually a .js file) will still remain intact in the same series, and will not split into multiple NFT series due to contract changes like Ethereum.
The Pizza Ninjas diagram illustrates this well - developers publish different versions of .js files, and the holder chooses (burns) which one
Of course, whats more, Sat Endpoint actually turns a simple work of art into a Token-gated programmable small computer, which implements the applications CRUD (create, read, update, delete) in a re-burning manner. Then view the inscription through various inscription browsers and you can directly run the code on the inscription. We have seen this in the early days of Ordinals when someone recorded the classic game DOOM. With Sat Endpoint, unlimited creativity and imagination can be unleashed on a single inscription. Taking Pizza Ninjas as an example, the team designed custom JavaScript code to provide holders with an emulator of Nintendos classic game console SFC. The holders can re-burn the SFC game ROM into it, turning their Pizza Ninja into A gaming console running on Bitcoin.
As various masters continue to explore the Bitcoin ecosystem, there will be more geek explorations like NFT game consoles. Pizza Ninjas proposed a concept Art as Application (AssA) in this regard.
Conclusion: The times of Bitcoin NFT have changed
The numerous new features brought by the Ordinals protocol update and the influx of funds have made the entrepreneurship threshold for Bitcoin NFTs higher and higher. It can be said that the era of grassroots entrepreneurship in which burning images had to be downloaded on the website and where fairness and free were the main narratives has passed. Your most intuitive feeling may be that the quality of pictures is getting higher and higher, but if you look into it carefully, there are actually two main development directions.
narrative scarcity
The existence of inscription numbers makes Bitcoins narrative competition extremely cruel. For example, the emergence of Nodemonkes squeezed out the first native 10K PFP narrative that originally belonged to Bitcoin Frogs. Rare satoshis, ancient satoshis, etc. have almost become standard configurations for NFT projects that want to build a leading NFT project on Bitcoin.
Technical innovation
From the most famous Quantum Cat and Pizza Ninjas to the less influential Shadow Hats and Fomojis, one of the main reasons why these projects have caused widespread discussion in the English circle is that they use recursive inscriptions as the basis to bring users through technological innovation. Come to new discussion points/artistic charm and interactive fun. Although the current inscription still looks like a picture, it is actually engraved with code. What everyone sees is only the result of the code execution or rendering. This cannot be accomplished without a technical team familiar with Bitcoin.
Of course, human resources can also be said to be a matter of money in the final analysis. Quantum Cat spent US$66,000 to optically engrave its 3,333 cats. Even if grassroots entrepreneurs had the technical ability, it would be difficult for them to shell out such a large amount of money to put the inscriptions on the chain.
Even so, the development of the Bitcoin NFT ecosystem is still in its early stages. The aesthetics of the development direction of technological innovation are actually quite bland - like generative art, it requires us to explore the stories behind it in detail to appreciate the deep charm. However, it is difficult to tell a story in direct and beautiful words like generative art. If you go deeper, it is all code, code, code, and its appeal to non-computer fanatics is still relatively limited. I think that new gameplay that provides users with easy perception like Pizza Ninjas is the right answer. Quantum Cat is more supported by the extremely high expectations of the Great Wizard.
Outside of these two tracks, the construction of community and culture is also a track where there are still opportunities in Bitcoin. For example, Bitcoin Puppets has been compared with Milady by some players.
It is the rapid development of Bitcoin NFT that has created changes in the Bitcoin NFT era. As an ordinary player, although the sales price of new Bitcoin NFT projects is getting higher and higher, which makes me unable to bear it, I am still excited about the new things that are constantly emerging.
