“My daughter is six. Could I help her understand the difference between ERC Tokens on Ethereum?”

“It’s mine.”

“No, it’s mine.”

My children were shouting down the walls, trying to ascertain ownership of a ball.

“It’s mine.”

On it went like mild delirium.

“Technically,” I said, channelling the parenting techniques of my father. “It’s mine.”

And it got me thinking about NFTs as proof-of-ownership and child-friendly utility for smart-contracts.

You see, children need NFTs in their life.

They do.

More than the local car dealership needs Dynamic NFTs.

More than the local musicians needs to connect with their fans through gated content and exclusive back stage access.

More than the games companies need NFT shields and swords and wizardy things for their wizardy games.

Forget art, membership, ticketing, video game assets, domain names and passive income.

Everything about NFTs is, intentionally or not, designed for children.

I showed Luca a right-click-save of a Stoner Cat.

“That’s mine,” he said.

“No,” Alice said. “It’s mine.”

My delirium grew.

Tremors.

Not the 1990 movie about underground snakes.

My hands.

“It isn’t,” I said, and looked up the wallet address on EtherScan because, you know, I’m a great dad and I’m always fucking right. “It belongs to 0xdaaa85ad8ab068172821a4d71755aec1c40822c0r.”

They could have bought an ENS domain name. I was trying to teach my youngest the alphabet.

Confused by the unsettling amalgamation of numbers and letters, Luca started drawing rainbows on the fridge.

Which left Alice and I to speak about ERC-1155s, ERC-721s and Toy Provenance.

I wondered…

Could I use an ERC-1155 to batch-track all of my children’s toys?

Multiple assets on a single smart-contract.

If I turned their bedroom into a play-and-earn NFT game, there would be no more arguing over who owned what.

Obviously Panda and Space-Bee would need their own ERC-721 token, but the rest of the toys would fit easily into the infinite capacity of an ERC-1155.

“You’ll know which toys are yours and which are your brothers and we can prove it using this charming code.”

“I know which toys are mine,” Alice said. “All of them.”

“Your brother would disagree. Did you know an ERC-1155 supports semi-fungible tokens?”

“What’s a semi-fungible token?”

“You know those tickets you have for the circus next month? Once the circus has left town, your ticket will mutate. It will go from being one-of-three thousand tickets giving entry to a circus to a one-of-a-kind NFT collectible you can keep all your life to remind you of when you were young.”

“Luca cried last time we went to the circus. I want an ERC-721.”

“You have 700 toys. That’s 700 ERC-721s. You only need one ERC-1155. Imagine your brother sends all of your toys to your cousin, you know how reckless three year-olds can be. With the ERC-1155, we’ll be able to reverse the transaction. Can’t do that with an ERC-721. Maybe Panda and Space Bee shouldn’t be ERC-721’s after all. Besides, I’ve written a royalty clause into the smart contract. When you are six you sell what you don’t want to Luca and take ten percent of the profits of future re-sale.”

“What about my circus ticket?”

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Thanks for reading.

Before you leave, make sure to click the subscribe button. Here it is, look

And If you’d like more, check out my book, literary NFTs or fanfiction.

Follow me on Twitter

And, because I ask a lot.

Listen to my web3 podcast, Thinking On Paper where my co-host and I speak about writing, culture, art, the human condition, blockchain, NFTs, freedom, self-sovereignty, music and bi-directional value exchange.

“My daughter is six. Could I help her understand the difference between ERC Tokens on Ethereum?”

“It’s mine.”

“No, it’s mine.”

My children were shouting down the walls, trying to ascertain ownership of a ball.

“It’s mine.”

On it went like mild delirium.

“Technically,” I said, channelling the parenting techniques of my father. “It’s mine.”

And it got me thinking about NFTs as proof-of-ownership and child-friendly utility for smart-contracts.

You see, children need NFTs in their life.

They do.

More than the local car dealership needs Dynamic NFTs.

More than the local musicians needs to connect with their fans through gated content and exclusive back stage access.

More than the games companies need NFT shields and swords and wizardy things for their wizardy games.

Forget art, membership, ticketing, video game assets, domain names and passive income.

Everything about NFTs is, intentionally or not, designed for children.

I showed Luca a right-click-save of a Stoner Cat.

“That’s mine,” he said.

“No,” Alice said. “It’s mine.”

My delirium grew.

Tremors.

Not the 1990 movie about underground snakes.

My hands.

“It isn’t,” I said, and looked up the wallet address on EtherScan because, you know, I’m a great dad and I’m always fucking right. “It belongs to 0xdaaa85ad8ab068172821a4d71755aec1c40822c0r.”

They could have bought an ENS domain name. I was trying to teach my youngest the alphabet.

Confused by the unsettling amalgamation of numbers and letters, Luca started drawing rainbows on the fridge.

Which left Alice and I to speak about ERC-1155s, ERC-721s and Toy Provenance.

I wondered…

Could I use an ERC-1155 to batch-track all of my children’s toys?

Multiple assets on a single smart-contract.

If I turned their bedroom into a play-and-earn NFT game, there would be no more arguing over who owned what.

Obviously Panda and Space-Bee would need their own ERC-721 token, but the rest of the toys would fit easily into the infinite capacity of an ERC-1155.

“You’ll know which toys are yours and which are your brothers and we can prove it using this charming code.”

“I know which toys are mine,” Alice said. “All of them.”

“Your brother would disagree. Did you know an ERC-1155 supports semi-fungible tokens?”

“What’s a semi-fungible token?”

“You know those tickets you have for the circus next month? Once the circus has left town, your ticket will mutate. It will go from being one-of-three thousand tickets giving entry to a circus to a one-of-a-kind NFT collectible you can keep all your life to remind you of when you were young.”

“Luca cried last time we went to the circus. I want an ERC-721.”

“You have 700 toys. That’s 700 ERC-721s. You only need one ERC-1155. Imagine your brother sends all of your toys to your cousin, you know how reckless three year-olds can be. With the ERC-1155, we’ll be able to reverse the transaction. Can’t do that with an ERC-721. Maybe Panda and Space Bee shouldn’t be ERC-721’s after all. Besides, I’ve written a royalty clause into the smart contract. When you are six you sell what you don’t want to Luca and take ten percent of the profits of future re-sale.”

“What about my circus ticket?”

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Thanks for reading.

Before you leave, make sure to click the subscribe button. Here it is, look

And If you’d like more, check out my book, literary NFTs or fanfiction.

Follow me on Twitter

And, because I ask a lot.

Listen to my web3 podcast, Thinking On Paper where my co-host and I speak about writing, culture, art, the human condition, blockchain, NFTs, freedom, self-sovereignty, music and bi-directional value exchange.