I was just looking yesterday at the NFT platforms available on the Hive blockchain and the conditions and fees to mint NFTs. And to tell you the truth I felt that we have some rudimentary NFT technology while the market is exploding with innovation and diverse use cases. A first barrier that I have encountered besides being vetted as an author, was the fees that are incurred to mint NFTs. But if you don't know, nowadays the platforms are featuring lazy minting - meaning that the NFT is minted when the seller buys it and even the minting fees are included in the buyers price. That makes life way better for the sellers and also ensured that the NFTs are minted based on demand and not just minting a bunch and after that burn them as they didn't sell. I wanted to start an NFT project on the Hive blockchain and I was discouraged by what we have here. This should not be seen as negative critics, I surely appreciate everything it is done here, just that compared with what the market offers I think we are far away. Maybe this will be bettered in the future or who knows, maybe I will even establish a better platform if I come up with the technology needed for that, the money to fund it and if the infrastructure supports it. But until now I want to emphasize what features I would like to see also on any NFT platforms running on the Hive blockchain.
Lazy NFT minting
As I see it, the lazy NFT minting allows newbies or unsure creators to list the digital assets without paying upfront gas fees, thus eliminating financial risk. In this formula, instead of being minted immediately, the NFT is only created on the blockchain when a buyer makes a purchase. This lowers entry barriers for new artists and reduces the financial risk of experimenting with collections and different forms of art. It also moves the cost of minting to the buyer at the point of sale, even if that can be part of the overall price in order not to have it as a surcharge. Seeing implementations on NFT platforms of lazy minting I find this makes these NFT platforms more accessible, flexible, and creator friendly compared to more traditional platforms.
Multi-Chain NFTs
I think at some point Splinterlands supported this by minting NFTs on both Hive and WAX blockchains, but if I am right they dropped the bridge meanwhile. Looking at other options I see that NFT platforms are increasing the support of multiple blockchains and allow NFTs to be moved (“bridged”) between chains. I believe that this reduces transaction costs and addresses scalability and gas-fee problems as instead of minting on Ethereum you can do it on Base, Polygon, Arbitrum and other such cheaper infrastructure options. Nowadays interoperability between chains is becoming more standard and those supporting thing can grow their business by capturing value from different ecosystems.
Subscription NFTs
We saw Subscriptions functionality implemented by the InLeo community, but I think a better representation and shape for that should be through NFTs. Buy monthly NFTs or time limited ones minted on buying with specific metadata and based on that you receive specific services and perks on the Hive blockchain. There can be different interpretation for the NFTs that can offer subscription utility, but these can be extended to other use cases as well. Get airdrops, get priority in presale, get tickets to online of physical events like HiveFest or anything else our imagination can come with and which can be shaped into an NFT metadata.
NFT rental and leasing models
We have this in Splinterlands, but I believe this should be extended to the Hive blockchain to let owners to rent out their assets (in-games, metaverse land, membership NFTs, delegations, token borrowing etc.) for a limited period. This should enable owners to earn passive income and allow others to access utility without full purchase for a specific period of time.
These are just some examples that went through my mind, but the most that I am missing on the Hive blockchain is the lazy minting and besides this a bigger buyers marketplace. Having a cross-chain platform would remove those limits and bring more exposure for the Hive creators. I know that there are really good artists on the Hive blockchain and it would be great to be able to offer them the tools to make the most from their talent. I like creativity and art, I am not talented in any way, but I enjoy trying few things here and there and see if that works. And who knows, maybe in the future we'll have a better NFT platform in the core of the Hive blockchain to expand our creativity from writing to also visual content.