ed4n takes the familiar open edition mint pay a fee, get an NFT — and adds a live elimination game on top.
You mint. You're alive. Then, every 4 minutes, half the remaining tokens get randomly eliminated by verifiable on‑chain randomness. The last four standing split the prize pool. If your token gets cut, you can buy someone else's "alive" token on any NFT marketplace and jump back in.
It's part survival game, part market for probability, and entirely on‑chain.
you can find a comprehensive paper here(wip);
ed4n (WIP) | Notion
ed4n: The Survival Game for Digital Art
1. An artist creates a game They upload artwork, set a mint fee, and burn some $ed4n tokens to launch. The smart contract locks, and no one can change the rules.
2. You enter Pay the mint fee. You get an NFT. Your artwork shows a green "ALIVE" badge. Of your fee: 45% goes to the artist, 45% goes to the prize pool, and 10% buys back and burns $ed4n.
3. The cuts begin Minting window closes. Now, every 4 minutes, anyone can trigger a cut. Chainlink VRF randomly eliminates roughly half the remaining alive tokens. Your metadata updates instantly — green to red, ALIVE to ELIMINATED.
4. You're not stuck Got eliminated? Go to the secondary market and buy an alive token from someone willing to sell. The closer to the final four, the more expensive those tokens get — but they're always available if you're willing to pay the market price.
5. Four survivors win When only four tokens remain, the game ends. They split the prize pool. Their metadata turns blue "WINNER." The rest become collectors' artifacts of the battle.
To create a game, artists burn $ed4n tokens. The protocol also uses its 10% fee to buy back and burn more $ed4n from the market. Every game, every cut, every prize pool feeds back into the token's scarcity.
$ed4n would be launched by burning token.works Ten Thousand Tokens NFT #1397 — whose on‑chain artwork happens to show an "M" glyph (for Miracle, the creator) that rotates into an "E" (for ed4n).
In a normal raffle, if your ticket loses, you're done. In ed4n, your eliminated token is proof you were here(doesn't get burned just removed from the pool), but your game isn't over. You can buy someone else's alive position.
Sellers get to cash out early rather than risk elimination. Buyers get to re-enter at a price set by the open market. A token with high survival odds costs more. A token one cut away from winning costs a premium.
This creates a live odds market where:
You can sell early to lock in profit
You can buy in late at higher cost but higher odds
You can stack multiple alive tokens to increase your chances
A wealthy player could buy up the remaining field if the prize pool is big enough
The game doesn't stop at the mint. It runs on the marketplace.
Open editions made art accessible, but they lost urgency. Mint, receive, move on. ed4n gives the format a pulse.
Artists earn immediately and get sustained attention as players return every 4 minutes to watch cuts, trade tokens, and talk about the game. The artwork itself changes state — alive, eliminated, winner; creating a living canvas that evolves with the competition.
Players get more than an NFT. They get a position in a game they can trade, hedge, and strategise around.
ed4n is a bet that art and competition belong together. You mint, you survive, you trade, you watch the cuts, and if you're one of the final four, the prize pool is yours.
No central operator. No hidden rules. Just an open edition, a shrinking field, and a market that never closes.