Artist Creates And Then Destroys Art To Launch CallistoNFT

Article published in Cointelegraph on December 3, 2021.

In helping launch a new standard for non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, Callisto Enterprise partnered with one of the largest art galleries in the Czech Republic, and one of the country’s best-known artists, to host an event in which art was created, locked onto the blockchain, and then destroyed.

The event was held just outside of Prague at ARTEFIN, a showcase for contemporary art. Amid a collection of ultra-rare Ferrari, Bizzarrini, Maserati, and other automobiles, onlookers watched Czech artist Patrik Hábl spread black, blue, and gold paint across a canvas. Then, using a technique he’s known for, Hábl created an abstract landscape by sweeping a piece of wood across the globs of paint.

A photographer nearby captured the finished art, which will become Hábl’s first NFT.

Afterward, the artist spilled black paint across his work, and a day later set fire to the piece, completely destroy the painting.

Afterwards, the artist spilled black paint on his work, completely destroying his artwork.

The reason: To symbolize Hábl’s belief in NFT technology, and his desire to immortalize his art in digital form on the blockchain.

Hábl’s NFT will help launch CallistoNFT, a new standard of security and convenience in the quickly emerging world non-fungible tokens.

The original NFT standard dates to 2017 and ERC721. Though NFTs have been around for several years, and despite their widespread popularity, they have certain flaws and lack important features. To address those, Dexaran, the security engineer and smart-contract developer who founded the Ethereum Commonwealth and Callisto Network, has created the CallistoNFT standard.

The advantages of the CallistoNFT over the existing ERC721 standard include:

• Built-in trades: Buyers and sellers of NFTs no longer need to meet in a centralized marketplace, where costs are involved and where nefarious characters can hack into the systems. Instead, buyers/sellers of NFTs can express their desire or buy/sell directly in the token contract. In practical terms, this means that a buyer could find an NFT on-chain and offer a sum of money to the owner, even if that NFT isn’t listed on a marketplace anywhere. If the owner accepts the offer, the contract is executed immediately.

• Monetization for NFT creators: Developers and creators earn the free for the NFTs they create, rather then losing some of that money to the marketplace. The fee is built directly into the NFT contract. Moreover, the contract is a layered solution, meaning it’s possible to remove the fee, or the make the fee fixed or flexible as an NFT is sold and resold over time.

• Communication model for smart-contracts: The existing ERC721 standard for NFTs does not include any communication model. As it stands now, ERC721 effectively operates silently. When a buyer sends a transaction, the seller’s wallet essentially receives a message, “Hey, I, the buyer, have just done X.” Silently, the seller’s balance updates, but it does not notify anyone of this event. If the receiving address is not intended for storing tokens, that address can neither reject nor return the mistaken transaction. CallistoNFT fixes that.

• Standardized Properties: As we all know, NFTs are unique, one-of-a-kind blockchain assets. However, the format in which their data is stored is not defined by ERC721. Moreover, the functions that retrieve this data from individual NFT contracts are not defined either. Combined, that makes it more difficult to build general-purpose software (think: wallets or blockchain explorers) that can easily gather a standardized collection of data for use in some fashion. CallistoNFT aims to standard this function inside the contract.

What’s clear is that NFTs are going to become relevant to everyday life in the very near future – and not just for collectors of art and other NFT utility tokens.

Rather, they will serve as everything from movie tickets to driver’s licenses, from passports, to airplane tickets, to “key cards” that provides access to locked website and even physical structures.

By improving and strengthening the standard the powers an NFT, Callisto Network aims to ensure that the future is safer, more secure, easier to navigate, and more convenient.

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