Something very exciting happened over the past week. Two major artists did primary drops on Nifty Gateway with tokens created via their own Manifold Creator contracts! Both drops performed exceedingly well, and set the stage for their long term vision. We'd like to give a shout out to Nifty Gateway for supporting this and providing creators with new avenues to create digital art.
Micah Johnson and Aku
With Aku, Micah Johnson is creating an entirely new universe for his character. It makes sense for Aku’s Chapters to live within the same smart contract and collection. His drop was the very first Nifty drop that used a non-NG smart contract and has opened the door for many other creators to do the same.
How did this work?
Aku Chapter 3 was an Open Edition sold on Nifty Gateway. Normally, Open Editions are minted using a Nifty Gateway smart contract, which is also controlled by them. In this case, Micah was able to use Manifold’s app extension framework to give Nifty Gateway permission and access to mint the Open Edition just for this drop.
The app extension (which you can see here) codified the drop format and provided Micah with full control over what he allowed Nifty Gateway to do. In a sense, this app extension represents the agreement between the artist and the selling marketplace. In this case, Micah’s Nifty Gateway app extension for Aku Chapter 3 defined:
The NFT metadata
The total number of editions to be minted (which he confirmed with NG after the Open Edition sale, and codified using the activate function)
The wallets that could mint the NFTs (in this case, Nifty Gateway’s minting wallets)
The destination of the minted NFTs (in this case, Nifty Gateway’s omnibus)
We think this pattern of using app extensions to enable marketplaces to sell works from an artist will become the norm, since it provides the following features:
The NFTs minted come from the same underlying artist-controlled Manifold Creator contract. This provides provenance and authenticity to the NFTs.
The app extension codifies the selling agreement. It contains the drop format, the number of NFTs allowed to be created, and what those NFTs are. It puts full control of this agreement in the hands of the creator and is explicit and on-chain.
The creator is giving the marketplace permission to mint and sell their pieces, and not just use their name to create NFTs
In our opinion, this is a major leap forward in terms of creator control and ownership of their inventory.
Steve Aoki and Dominion X + Ether Cards
Steve Aoki’s Dominion X drop also set new ground, being the first Nifty Gateway drop to use a combination of a Manifold Creator contract AND Ether Cards. Like Micah, he wanted to have a single cohesive source for the Dominion X universe, and he created a Manifold Creator contract to represent these NFTs. Manifold’s flexible application framework meant that he could create NFTs using features from other companies as well, and in this case, it meant creating a set of Ether Cards for the drop.
The drop was two parts and made use of two app extensions. First off was an NFT redemption, which gave current Character X NFT holders the ability to claim a free NFT. This was accomplished using a derivative of Manifold’s redemption extension contract, but with added Ether Cards functionality. This utility really highlights the open aspect of the Manifold Creator contracts and app framework, enabling creators to add NFT features from anywhere.
The second part of the drop was the Nifty Gateway sale. Again, Steve Aoki and the Ether Cards team used the app extension framework to codify the rules of the drop (499 blind packs) and add Ether Cards support to Steve Aoki’s main Manifold Creator contract.
What does this mean for creators?
The adoption of creator-minted NFTs on the major marketplaces means that creators have unlimited freedom with respect to what they can create for their fans. The limit of creativity is no longer dictated by the marketplace. With Manifold Creator contracts, artists have complete ownership over their supply and flexibility over what their NFTs can be, who they work with, and what features to add in the future. We can’t wait to see what happens next!