The Current NFT Landscape

The use of the term “gas wars” has become a common place in the NFT ecosystem as of late. As new NFT projects launch on the Ethereum blockchain, the competition to “mint” these projects is growing as well. while many NFT collections are selling out in minutes, raising millions for the founders, there is often 2 to 3 times more spent on “gas” by the users minting these Ethereum NFT’s.

“Gas” refers to the fee required to successfully conduct a transaction on Ethereum. This fee goes directly to Ethereum miners who provide the computer power that’s necessary to verify transactions and keep the network running. Each time you attempt to buy, sell, list, de-list an NFT, you’ll need to have some additional ETH in your wallet on top of the cost of the NFT so that you can pay for gas each time you place a bid, settle an NFT you won in an auction, or transfer an NFT to another wallet. As mentioned above, gas can be expensive when the Ethereum network is congested. Two things determine the price of gas: how quickly you want the transaction to be completed and how busy the network is at the time of your transaction. If gas prices are too high at any given moment, you can wait until gas goes down in price. You can also submit your ideal price and wait until the network processes it. Check out https://ethgasstation.info/ for the current gas prices (Pro Tip: ‘GWEI” is the base unit of Ethereum for gas. You can think of it like a penny to the US dollar).

The term “gas wars” refers to the extra fees collectors are paying the Ethereum Blockchain (aka the miners) to prioritize confirming their transactions in an attempt to “win” a mint by getting into the upcoming block first. In many cases, when a project has a lot of buzz prior to launching, collectors will increase their gas much higher than the recommended amount in order to incentivize the miners to prioritize confirming their transaction over other transactions vying to make it into that block in order to secure one of the NFT’s they are trying to mint.

This fixed-quantity, fixed-supply system used by NFTs is somewhat flawed as it causes market inefficiencies and negative externalities, the most obvious being the “gas wars” we have all experienced when attempting to mint $ETH based NFT’s on launch day. What is worse than the system getting congested and collectors with less liquidity being priced out of drops is that a LOT of people are losing HARD when the amount of gas they set isn’t enough and their transaction fails, leaving them out a couple of hundred or even a couple thousand dollars in gas. When your transaction fails your gas is lost FOREVER.

This is why we have chosen to launch the “Acid Dragons” Generative NFT Collection on Polygon (Matic)

‍

What is Polygon (Matic)

“Polygon, previously known as MATIC network, is an interchain scalability solution that gives an infrastructure for creating blockchain networks that can interface with each other. It intends to bring the adaptability and scalability of alt chains along with Ethereum’s security, liquidity, and interoperability.”

Ethereum ($ETH) continues to be the most effectively utilized blockchain globally, especially in the NFT space. As an open-source, decentralized blockchain, it offers smart contracts as a POS (Proof-of-Stake) framework.

However Ethereum’s fast adoption has resulted in excessive and prohibitive costs where in many cases charges often cost more than the value of transferred sum, especially in cases of minting NFT’s. This is because Ethereum has a great measure of clients using the network, which remarkably brings down exchange scalability. We feel that this prohibitive byproduct will eventually lead to the NFT ecosystem reaching a point of congestion that makes it practically unusable to the average collector.

Polygon (MATIC) is one solution that can be used resolve these issues and it is already being supported by OpenSea. Polygon clients utilize the MATIC side-chain to execute and cooperate with different Ethereum-based decentralized apps. Many users enjoy using Polygon for its extremely low gas fees, with transaction fees cheaper than $0.001 and rapid transaction speeds. NO GAS WARS and NO LOSING GAS ON MINT DAY.

If you are interested in learning more about how you can purchase NFTs on Polygon via OpenSea, check out my other article where I give step by step instructions on how to buy Polygon, Add it to your MetaMask and swap it to ETH on Matic MainNet.

‍

“We need to move NFTs onto the layer 2 ecosystem to cut fees. However, doing that *right* requires good cross-rollup portability standards, so the ecosystem can avoid getting locked into one particular L2.” - Vitalik Buterin (Founder of Ethereum)

‍

Other Networks to Explore in the NFT Space

What is Solana?

Solana is different to Bitcoin but offers similar features to Ethereum. It differentiates itself from Ethereum’s network by providing faster transaction times, lower fees and a programming capability that focuses on flexibility.

Solana can currently handle over 50 000 transactions per second, more than Ethereum and Bitcoin combined, and at a fraction of the cost. Developers can also write and launch customizable applications in multiple programming languages on the Solana blockchain.

Solana’s native cryptocurrency, SOL, is used to pay for executing programs and sending transactions.

Get $SOL on Binance

Purchase NFT’s with SOL

1. Get $SOL on Binance or any other exchange that supports Solana
2. Download https://phantom.app/ and send $SOL to your Phantom wallet

3. Visit any marketplace offering Solana NFT’s such as https://solanart.io/, https://solsea.io/ or https://digitaleyes.market/ and connect your phanton wallet

4. Browse NFT’s and purchase anything that catches your eye

‍

Conclusion

The teams behind “Acid Dragons” and “Turtle Time” are part of a larger collective called "metaseed" that is working toward making NFT space more accessible to everyone. This includes Artists who may not have the technical skills to mint a collection and collectors who may not have the liquidity to participate in “gas wars” on the Ethereum blockchain. We are BIG believers in the utility and opportunities presented by NFT’s. The use cases for NFT’s span FAR beyond collecting digital art. In order for this amazing technology to reach a level of widespread adoption it is important that the community of creators, collectors, builders and developers make decisions as a community to adopt use cases and solutions that improve market efficiencies and improve the user experience as a whole for everyone.

More about “Acid Dragons”

Acid Dragons is a generative NFT project consisting of 4,000 of 40 million+ combinations of the trippiest randomized dragons, incorporating elements of ancient cultures and mysticism.

Launch Date: 9/12/2021 at 7:30 PM EST

Price: FREE, Just pay for gas.

You can use this website to get enough $MATIC to cover gas for FREE: https://macncheese.finance/matic-polygon-mainnet-faucet.php

Website: https://aciddragons.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/acid_dragons

Discord: https://discord.gg/gD7bf8jmvN

‍

‍

‍

Check out “Turtle Time”collection

Turtle Time was launched as a FREE mint on the Polygon network and has done 2 ETH in volume on the secondary just 48 hours after its release. This project minted in an hour with minimal mint cost to the collectors. Turtle Time NFT is a social experiment for the NFT community. As creators, the team chose to remove two major barriers for our potential collectors, one being a pricey mint fee and two being subjecting our early adopters to exorbitant gas fees and risk of losing gas on failed transactions. The Turtle Time Team is hoping to show that by prioritizing the collector experience, you can organically grow a community, share your art freely, and still create a profitable collection experience for creators and collectors alike.

Website: https://www.turtletimenft.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/turtletimeNFT

Discord: https://discord.gg/gD7bf8jmvN

‍

‍

Written by @atownbrown

‍