Like other Web3 projects and blockchains, the Internet Computer also has a young, but burgeoning NFT ecosystem. The IC’s NFT ecosystem can be found by going to the Dfinity website homepage, clicking on Ecosystem, then selecting the NFT tag (see picture below).
Although not as big as platforms such as Solana and Ethereum, the Internet Computer has its own niche, its own NFT creators and marketplaces, and its own tech and standard to support NFTs.
NFT Projects On The Internet Computer
1. Origyn
Sector/Use case: Tokenizing/NFTizing real-life objects
“Origyn is a foundation that combines intelligent technologies and decentralized computing to identify, authenticate and unlock the powers of ownership for the world’s most valuable objects. Origyn brings NFTs to life with biometric data and unique ownership experiences to power brands, creators, artists, marketplaces, consumers, and industries with guaranteed certificates of authenticity.”
Essentially, Origyn is an NFT technology service for luxury goods and other valuable real-life objects with a really solid digital certificate product. Origyn has raised $20 million dollars from investors such as Paris Hilton and Polychain Capital.
2. ICPunks
Sector/Use case: NFT art collection, NFT marketplace
ICPunks were the first NFTs introduced on the Internet Computer — and they’re 10,000 randomly generated, unique collectible clowns with proof of ownership stored on the IC blockchain.
3. NFT Village
Sector/Use case: Internet Computer NFT data aggregator, search
NFT Village is an IC DApp that serves as a NFT search engine, data aggregator, and dashboard for IC NFT attributes and other information.
4. Entrepot
Sector/Use case: NFT marketplace
“Entrepot is a trading post where users can store and trade digital assets on the Internet Computer in a decentralized, non-custodial way.”
Entrepot was developed by ToniqLabs and it’s one of the more developed applications on the Internet Computer, with a large NFT collection and over $3 million in NFT trading volume. The platform has very low fees (1.0%), it’s non-custodial, there are custom collections, and it’s the first NFT marketplace and DeFi solution on the IC.
5. NFTAnvil
Sector/Use case: Wallet, NFT minting
NFTAnvil is an Internet Computer wallet, mint, and marketplace in the Anvil Protocol ecosystem. Its differentiator in the NFT space is that it uses Anvil’s auto-scaling multi-canister token architecture. However, its main use is for NFT minting, which is pretty straightforward.
6. Internet Astronauts
Sector/Use case: NFT art collection
Internet Astronauts are a collection of 10,000 end-to-end on-chain NFT collectibles that are built and hosted on the Internet Computer. These NFTs will give holders certain benefits and privileges on IC DApps. These NFTs can be bought on the Entrepot app and NFT marketplace.
7. Wild & West
Sector/Use case: NFT art collection
Wild and West is an NFT collection of 500 NFTs that are available on the Entrepot NFT marketplace. These NFTs were featured at the 2021 NFT NYC event.
8. ICKitties
Sector/Use case: NFT art collection
ICKitties are a set of 10,000 kitty NFTs minted and hosted on the Internet Computer. The NFTs have unique items and features that define their rarity as well as their Kingdom, which gives it a GameFi and Metaverse connection to it in being able to interact with other NFT worlds and collections. Most interestingly, these NFTs sold out in under 6 minutes after their release.
9. ICSnakes
Sector/Use case: NFT gaming
ICSnakes in its current form is just an NFT collection, but their team of software engineers are planning on turning them into a game where every user can play for fun and receive rewards with their unique avatar.
10. Blockchain Heroes
Sector/Use case: NFT art collection
Blockchain Heroes is a top-selling NFT collection on the Entrepot marketplace. The NFTs are a set of 50 super heroes inspired by real-world blockchain and crypto personalities.
11. iCircle NFT
Sector/Use case: NFT art collection
iCircle NFT is the first generative NFT project, which means it’s art based on mathematics, coding, and nice aesthetics — thus resulting in attractive and beautiful art. iCircle NFTs are sold on the Entrepot marketplace. As you can see by now, most Internet Computer NFT collections are on the Entrepot marketplace.
12. NFT Studio Marketplace
Sector/Use case: 3D NFTs
NFT Studio Marketplace is a 3D NFT marketplace that can be purchased with ICP. What’s innovative about these NFTs is that they’re not .gif recordings, but actual 3D code as the NFT — moreover, the marketplace includes interactive NFTs as well as playable game NFTs.
The strengths of the Internet Computer blockchain (scalable, low-cost, and smart contracts) are what allows this type of DApp to be created.
13. ICP Squad NFT
Sector/Use case: NFT avatars, metaverse
ICP Squad NFT is an engage-to-earn (E2E) NFT — where the group wants to reward the Internet Computer ecosystem for using different DApps. What they’re doing that’s exciting is they have an interface of customizable avatars that will be valuable assets to take into the Internet Computer metaverse as it develops.
14. Dstar
Sector/Use case: NFT identity marketplace
Dstar is an Internet Identity (II) trading marketplace where users can trade, purchase, or sell their anonymous blockchain-based authentication accounts. Dstar is interoperable with the Plug wallet where buyers can search for and purchase Internet Identity numbers that are up for auction. This is a very interesting use case of NFTs in that it’s related to identities and accounts, which is a well-known blockchain solution.
15. PokedStudio Bots
Sector/Use case: NFT art collection
PokedStudio Bots is an Entrepot NFT collection of 10,000 unique bots designed by digital artist, Jonathan Ball. One of these NFTs called the “Ultimate Master Bot” sold for 3,000 ICP (roughly equal to $170,000), marking it as the largest single NFT purchase on the Internet Computer. The roadmap for these NFTs include metaverse and gaming experiences.
16. Plug
Sector/Use case: NFT wallet
Plug Wallet is (as its name suggests) an open sourced wallet that can be accessed on Fleek, a browser extension that allows access to ICP tokens, Cycles, and other tokens. It can be thought of as similar to Metamask, but with greater security, interoperability, lower fees, and more of an inclusive feel in being able to navigate the Internet Computer blockchain. It can hold, store, and manage NFTs, tokens, and connect to DApps on the IC.
17. MetaSports Basketball
Sector/Use case: NFT sports
MetaSports basketball is a great IC invention that’s made to satisfy the NFT, metaverse, blockchain-sport lovers. It’s essentially an open basketball metaverse built on the Ethereum and Internet Computer blockchains — “where NFT players of all shapes, species, and origin can compete to become basketball superstars on teams owned and managed by the players.” By analyzing this project, we can think of something like NBA 2K, but much more customizable through the inclusion of NFTs and other additional attributes that can’t be added on Xbox or Playstation.
18. Nuance
Sector/Use case: NFT blogging
Nuance is the world’s first blogging platform built entirely on blockchain. Nuance is aiming to bring NFTs into blockchain + content ownership. So it’s unclear exactly how this will play out the moment, but the publishing industry is ripe for blockchain disruption, especially around things such as copyright, plagiarism, and access to special written content.
19. Dmail
Sector/Use case: NFT email
Dmail is a Web3 email solution where users can send and receive blockchain encrypted messages. Interestingly, these email addresses are owned by the users as NFT assets, of which there’s also a natively built marketplace. This means each user will be identified by an NFT domain account which is the unique access to their Web3 gate. It’ll be interesting how Dmail takes this innovation forward by eliminating data barriers and improving on data identifiers.
Summary
Although the Internet Computer NFT ecosystem is small in total size compared to other blockchains, it has a host of interesting projects being built and DApps being developed that will more and more quickly bring it up to par with the big players. It’s still very early in NFTs, and as the industry keeps experimenting with different ideas and gaining additional investment, we’ll likely see the Internet Computer’s NFT ecosystem take off.
