ERC-1155: non-fungible tokens on steroids

ERC-1155: non-fungible tokens on steroids

…or let’s cut CryptoKitties

First of all, I want to make sure that there are no kitties hurt! This article is more about art treasures, real estate properties, and business shares. Let’s see how does the kitty get into our wallets…

ERC-20

The ERC-20 token standard is well known. When someone creates an individual cryptocurrency on Ethereum blockchain, it must fit the ERC-20 standard. ERC-20 tokens are supported by each Ethereum wallet. They can be easily stored and transferred into and between the wallets. For a long time, it has been enough, but then the kitties came…

ERC-721

The ERC-721 standard describes the NFT (non-fungible token). The ERC-20 tokens are fungible, meaning that each token is just like the other one. From the user’s side, the only important thing is the quantity of the tokens. It is more like money. Meanwhile, NFTs are unique. ERC-721 standard was introduced in a crypto-game called CryptoKitties on Ethereum. This is well-known as slowing down the Ethereum network to an unusable speed.

But forget about the past. Kitties were wholly unique entities in this game. There was only one piece of each kitty existing. Unique tokens were representing the kitty on the network, and the owners were changing them between each other. As the kitty tokens were compatible with ERC-20 standard backward, kitties could have been stored in our wallets too. Though, a special application was needed to make transactions with them.

For the first sight, CryptoKitties had no meaning. As the token was representing a kitty, the same way as a car, a real estate, an art treasure (example: PO8- Bringing Marine Archaeology to the Blockchain) or any kinds of asset. So it can be used for many things. Just imagine, the sale of a real estate. Instead of contracting a lawyer and an estate agent, we just put the token representing the real estate on a smart contract. After the property is being purchased, the token is transferred to the buyer. We can even make an art treasures auction on Ethereum network using only smart contracts.

The idea of ENVIENTA project is crowdinvesting with ERC-721 on the platform. It means that, the investors would get business shares in startups which are represented by tokens. However, there is a little problem with NFTs. They cannot be divided. So, despite the title of the article, CryptoKitties cannot be cut! According to that, business shares can be represented by NFT only if we create a given amount of unique (but literally different) new tokens for the company. This is not a proper solution but finally, the magic items have arrived…

ERC-1155

The ERC-1155 standard is a recommendation of the Enjin project. The project aimed to create a common organic platform for swapping the magic items of different games on Ethereum network. Magic items were represented by tokens too, but — compared to CryptoKitties — here, it is allowed to exist different types of one item. The smart contract that is representing the magic items is a special token contract. This might contain more unique tokens, therefore each token exists in a given number. (eg: 5 pcs of magic gloves, 10 pcs of magic swords etc.).

You might obviously have questioned how do we get it from crowdinvesting to magic items? Well, as in the case of CryptoKitties, think it further here, as well. As NFT can represent real estates, an ERC-1155 “sub-token” can represent business shares in a company. Everyone own an equivalent amount of tokens as her or his share percentage in the company. So we can launch an ICO (or even crowdinvesting campaign), where investors buy business shares instead of tokens.

That’s how CryptoKitties have transformed into real properties and magic items into business share tokens.

Source: https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/issues/1155