The South China Morning Post (SCMP) recently released its full white paper on the ARTIFACT NFT metadata standard for tokenising history, as well as announcing SCMP’s inaugural NFT collection on Flow that were drawn from its 118 years old media archives, called “ARTIFACTs by SCMP“.
ARTIFACT’s metadata structure will be built on the Flow blockchain originally created by Dapper Labs, they are the company behind NBA Top Shot video collectibles and the partner of choice for world-renowned digital collectibles and consumer-facing decentralised applications. The Flow blockchain is known for their reliability, scalability, speed and high quality UX that are essential factors for establishing ARTIFACT’s global NFT marketplace and eco-system.
ARTIFACT 1997 Series
SCMP’s white paper gives readers a preview into the visual design and rarity levels of the new NFT collection “ARTIFACTs by SCMP” that will feature the first use case of the ARTIFACT standard. Their launch concept will come in the form of “Base Series” and “Thematic Drops“, released in boxes. This will include the inaugural “1997 Series” that showcases significant historical events from that year, containing a randomised bundle of ARTIFACTs presented by collectible cards.
ARTIFACT Cards Mockup
“We are delighted to join the Flow ecosystem and partner with a major global blockchain innovator in Dapper Labs. This partnership is essential for creating world-class NFT experiences of our historical archives. Through our ARTIFACT whitepaper, we look forward to inspiring other ‘guardians of history’ to share our vision of making history more discoverable, connected, and collectable,” said Gary Liu, SCMP’s CEO.
“SCMP’s innovative approach to transform its ledgers of historical journalism with blockchain technology has all the markings of being a game-changer. We’re proud for SCMP to launch this visionary project that reanimates meaningful historical moments and we’re excited they have chosen Flow to be the foundation of ARTIFACT’s launch protocol,” said Mickey Maher, SVP, Partnerships, Dapper Labs.
The ARTIFACT whitepaper has a comprehensive outline on the proposed governance structure and the development of a dedicated NFT marketplace. There is a global council of experts from various cross-disciplines that will help to co-develop ARTIFACT’s metadata structure that instils NFTs with the comprehensive context and provenance needed to establish historical significance and value, this also helps to raise their discoverability, connectivity and collectibility.
This project will be governed by a non-profit foundation and solicit participation from museums, archives, universities, publishers, art galleries, and other institutions. A marketplace will be specifically developed for this purpose, from the minting, to the sale and trade of ARTIFACTs to serve the global community of historical NFT issuers and collectors.
For more information and details on ARTIFACT’s governance, NFT marketplace and technology can be read in the full whitepaper here. More details on the launch of the “ARTIFACTs by SCMP” will be announced soon.
* Information and pictures courtesy of South China Morning Post *
These three topics, Blockchain, Crypto and NFT, you would probably not be hearing it for the first time, and you would probably not reading it for the first time on my TGH Technology and Business Portal/Blog. Prior to NFT becoming a hot topic in the most recent 1-2 years, I had already started learning about blockchain and crypto. I won’t be the first mover as you can see, I started off learning to know and understand more about those new fields of technology before entering the platform.
Photography by Ryan Cheng
The time has come for me to publish an official update that I am entering into the new technology fields – Blockchain, Crypto and NFT. This would be a short write up and sharing of the new technology platforms that I am entering into.
Blockchain
This is the first part that I learnt even though I heard about cryptocurrency before this blockchain technology. There are many articles written about blockchain, you can easily google those articles and find out more about those articles writing in depth about blockchain. I would try to summarise, describe blockchain and write it a short paragraph.
In a short summary, blockchain is a decentralised shared digital ledger that contains records known as blocks, that are used to record transactions and tracks your assets in a network. Once the information are recorded into the shared digital ledger, no one can change or tamper with that transaction.
With smart contract that can built into the blockchain, allowing it to operate under a set of conditions that can be automatically carried out when they are met, taking away trusted third party to act as an intermediary between entities. Using blockchain gives users the benefits of greater trust, greater security and more efficient.
Crypto
Crypto, or cryptocurrency, what is it all about? It is a digital or virtual currency secured by cryptography that is based on decentralised networks based on blockchain technology. There are different types of cryptocurrency available in the market, the first cryptocurrency was BitCoin that most people would know.
There are a number of advantages and disadvantages of cryptocurrency. Personally I see potential in cryptocurrency, its future growth, developments and applications. Some people might be very bullish, while some are not in favour of cryptocurrency.
NFT
NFT a.k.a. Non-Fungible Token, they are tokens that represent ownership of items that are unique such as artworks, photographs, videos, audio etc. They are secured by the Ethereum blockchain network. Non-Fungible in short, means non-interchangeable, it’s unique and you can’t replace with other things due to the nature of their unique properties.
NFT could be used in the following sectors such as Digital Art, Collectibles, Music and many more. As a photographer, the world of NFT opens up a new field for us to showcase and sell our photography works.
I would address NFT from a photographer/digital artist perspective on my TGH Photography and Travel Portal/Blog without going too much into the technical and technology aspects. This is a work in progress, I am planning to curate my photography works for NFT for viewing on my TGH Photography portfolio website. As for which NFT platform would I be choosing/using, I would share in due course as I am still doing my research on the various NFT platforms.
Cybersecurity
With increased visibility and reliance on the internet and social media for our business and daily living, cybersecurity will also rise in importance and protecting our key personal and digital assets. This topic had been on my website coverage starting some years back, with me entering into blockchain, crypto and NFT, cybersecurity needs to be even more of an ever presence.
Currently, I am receiving updates from a small group of technology firms that are into cybersecurity. Moving forward, I hope to build up more media relations and apply the cybersecurity setup into my crypto and my technological devices e.g. laptop, tablet and smartphone.
FX Trading
After I finish setting up my crypto trading, blockchain and NFT, along with my cybersecurity protection, I would proceed to revive my FX (forex) trading again. Since crypto trading and FX trading have investment trading fundamentals that can be applied to both sectors, I feel this would be the time to revive my FX trading.
Why I enter into Crypto, NFT and FX?
This global pandemic has taught us many lessons, severely disrupted and changed our way we live and work. A new hybrid future of work is upon us, how we run our business has also changed significantly.
Depending on one business or one source of revenue is not going to be sufficient in this modern economy whereby our knowledge and skills may not be enough if we do not adapt and change, up-skill, relearn and learn new knowledge and skills. The downfalls from this ongoing global pandemic further reinforce a need to diversify my revenue streams.
Running a photography business may not be enough, diversifying into NFT is part of my photography business plan to diversify. Entering into crypto and FX trading are part of this trio of Crypto, NFT and FX to be another source of revenue.
This trio of crypto, NFT and FX would be one of my other revenue sources that I am building up. More than just blockchain technology that is the foundation of cryptocurrency, the potential and capabilities of blockchain technology in other aspects of the business world are right up there for us to explore and expand.
Entering into blockchain, crypto, NFT and FX does not guarantee success and big revenue, there will be risks involved in a journey filled with lots of potential in my humble personal opinion. I would write and cover more on them down the road, from the technology and business aspects, such as in the areas of fin-tech, blockchain and cryptocurrency.
This is probably a lengthy introduction, going in-depth into blockchain, crypto, NFT, cybersecurity can be even more lengthy, technical and at times might be complicated and confusing for some.Combining my photography business and my coverage of technology, I would like to play a role in the NFT segment for photographers.
Although this ongoing global pandemic has disrupted our daily living and how we work, the massive disruptions in a good (also a forced acceleration) way to make us relook, change, adapt and adopt to take us into a new future of work, how we live and how we prepare ourselves in a constantly evolving world that we live in.
Technology (Consumer and Enterprise), Business, Social Media and Digital Marketing
