One of the core primitives of blockchain that’s what. Of all the DApps and blockchain networks out there, not many products have explored its possibilities. This is what initially sparked the creation of MurAll: a digital collaborative mural that “lives” on the blockchain with its entire history recorded on the blockchain. Meaning you can see the state change over time, or replay its history to see how it has evolved over time. The fact that all image data is hosted on the blockchain ensures that it is well distributed which in turn guarantees that it remains accessible to everyone without being shut down or censored.Â
Additionally, the censorship-resistant nature of the blockchain provides users who want to make a statement (no matter how controversial) a platform to do so. Further, the pseudo-anonymous nature of the blockchain will mean people are able to make art or statements on the canvas without fear of being identified unless they wish to claim ownership by making a transaction.
Unlike current blockchain art platforms which are centralized platforms with their own rules on who can be a part of their systems and what art is to be displayed, our ethos fits with the principle of complete neutrality that blockchain technology has enabled. We have leveled the playing field by creating a place that does not judge what it is to be an artist. Where those with status in the art world would be on the same level as artists just starting out. No gatekeepers, no application process, just a permissionless place to express yourself artistically without judgement.
Additionally, all artwork produced on MurAll is put on-chain in the event-log storage through our custom image compression mechanism, built from the ground up with blockchain in mind. This means all artwork is on one of the most secure, most distributed, and most reliable storage media available.
Using tokenomics over centralization
One issue with having a completely neutral protocol for drawing artwork is that it can be used for bad as well as good. This is why MurAll requires PAINT — a fixed supply token synonymous with real-life paint, in that once it is used for a drawing it cannot be used again. Just like you can’t take paint off a canvas in real life and reuse it, the PAINT tokens used in drawing on MurAll are burned as part of the transaction. We created enough PAINT to be able to cover MurAll in its entirety a maximum of 21,000 times, meaning MurAll has a finite lifespan. As more artwork is drawn on MurAll the supply of PAINT reduces, thus making the PAINT rarer, increasing its value. This ensures that only those who truly want to draw on MurAll will use the PAINT, and those who would only waste it will sell it to those who want to draw on MurAll regardless of the cost of PAINT.
Possible drawbacks of the PAINT tokenomics
One possible scenario that could play out at the beginning is that due to there being a large supply of PAINT initially artists would not be as incentivised to produce high quality art, as PAINT will be cheap and plentiful, potentially resulting in an initial phase of low quality art. Further, a possible consequence of the deflationary aspect of PAINT is that some people may want to draw solely in order to reduce the global supply of PAINT (i.e. to increase its rarity and therefore its value), thus those people may not produce high quality artwork on MurAll as their intentions are not driven by the desire to paint but are instead driven by greed. This is why we have yet another incentive structure, the process of painting on MurAll mints an NFT of the artwork you produce on MurAll.
As an NFT of your artwork is minted in the process of painting on MurAll, it is in the artist’s interest to paint something high quality/meaningful because they can sell the NFT later. Low-quality artwork or artwork without meaning will be a lot harder to sell if they can sell it at all.
In addition, due to the fixed supply of PAINT and its deflationary nature, the amount of NFTs possible to produce from MurAll is also limited since NFT’s can only be produced while there is PAINT to use on MurAll. Once the global PAINT supply runs out, no more MURALL NFTs can be minted, thus they have this additional rarity attributed to them.
We believe these 2 tokenomics working together in tandem will ensure high-quality content is painted on MurAll. Artists are expected to be incentivized and rewarded for producing high-quality art, thus circumventing the need for centralized control/censorship of the artwork produced on MurAll.
Since MurAlls release back at the end of January we've seen a surge in interest from artists:
- 215 paintings on Ethereum
- 1237 paintings on Polygon
Our Polygon implementation has also enabled artists to afford to cover the entire 2048 x 1024 pixel mural in a single image divided into pieces which was far too expensive to do on Ethereum. We are currently working on an NFT bundler to allow these individual pieces to be wrapped together and displayed as one.
Looking forward we have plans to grow our decentralized art ecosystem, including a truly decentralized marketplace governed by a DAO putting participants in control of the curation process, as well as fees generated by the marketplace to be shared among participants, and much more!
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