09/12/2021 NFT Cloud Initiative Aims to Allow Collectors to Own Their Data

Visualization of the decentralized data cloud.
Visualization of the decentralized data cloud.Cere Freeport

Three years ago, Fred Jin and Kenzi Wang had an ambitious idea: What if they created one of the world’s first decentralized data clouds? “It was obvious that a consumer-focused data ecosystem was needed,” Jin said. “We believed that people should own their data and choose which applications to connect that data with.”

Currently, major companies like Google and Amazon own the data clouds where the majority of our information is stored. That has become a sore point for NFT collectors, who are increasingly worried about storing these valuable assets on clouds owned by those companies.

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Launched this past week, Cere Freeport aims to offer a solution. After setting up its own decentralized data cloud that uses blockchain technology, the Cere team built a platform specifically forNFTs. There, users can mint their NFTs, and store a smart contract on a decentralized cloud. In doing so, Cere is able to cut out middlemen, and the data that makes up their NFT is completely owned by Cere users.

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Afterward, a Cere-minted NFT can be sold on other platforms. Collectors who have bought NFTs on other NFT platforms can use the Cere Freeport to store their new assets on Cere’s decentralized cloud.

Smart contracts of NFTs are often stored on the blockchain, but artworks themselves are not because they are too large to be hosted there. In lieu of a work, a link hosted by a platform like OpenSea or SuperRare appears in its place. These links are fragile things, however. They can be lost if the company that mints them goes under or misses a bill, or for less extreme, random reasons. (In fact, URLs stored on and off a peer-to-peer network known as the InterPlanetary File System were breaking with such frequency that the website checkmynft.com was launched.)

Collectors have continued their search for solutions for how to best protect their digital assets, and Cere hopes to help in that regard. There is, of course, competition, however. Blockchain-based tech companies focused on data storage, among them CXIP and RubiX, already exist, but in order for them to function properly, there has to be mass adoption of their services. It’s still unclear who will win out.

“The space is so new, and there aren’t really best practices yet,” said Wang. “People are kind of lost—they’ll mint their NFT, but they don’t know what to do next.”

Arts

https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/cere-freeport-nft-weaknesses-1234611160/

Interesting NFTs
#56151
By OthersideDeployer
Pending Gerbil #10/23
The #PendingGerbil drew his breath nervously. Fail Dropped Dropped and Replaced There were nothing in this world he feared more. He looked at the chords that crossed the abyss in front of him. They were loaded with pending gerbils, clinging for their life. No open space to be seen. The world machine creaked under the load. As the wheel turned and settled on a new block with a load bang, the chords vibrated, and short shrieks were heard as tired paws lost their grip and the gerbils fell into oblivion. #PendingGerbil closed his eyes, sent a short prayer to @VitalikButerin, and took the leap. Written by: @Werekitty1 Pending Gerbil is a very special collaboration with NonFunGerbils (https://nonfungerbils.com/pendinggerbil)
CloneX #18468
20,000 next-gen Avatars, by RTFKT and Takashi Murakami
Christmas Sleigh
First Christmas-themed Visual Toy. For this work the artist has created a fantastic sleigh, ornamented in detail and with all the Christmas spirit that transports us to childhood, illusion, innocence. With its gift wrapping machinery, its Santa, a snow globe, the nutcracker, the European-style village and its soundtrack (first time with music) it is a whole Christmas mosaic for the imagination.
Alex in Wonderland
A figure, Alex, stands mostly naked in the midst of a physical and psychological maelstrom. He is clad only in nostalgic 80’s era socks, on a tenuous island between active waters and a variety of shark denizens. Sharks on the right side of the image are all beached, including a shark with a quartz crystal snout, an orange shark wrapped in a life buoy, and a shark further in the distance wearing an 80’s style shirt with the number “88”. On the left side is the largest shark, wearing bright glossy red lipstick and brandishing prominent teeth with braces. She is cordoned off from the figure by a roped float divider, and within her thought bubble is a warning symbol. Behind the figure, hovering in the air, are Grey aliens emerging from the distance, out of a series of elliptical UFO shaped interdimensional membranes. The Greys take on the visual form of spermazoa ostensibly impregnating the interdimensional thresholds. As is typical, these Greys inhabit a zone just behind the unconscious topology of Alex’s dissociative mind. Though Alex’s bottom half is representative, his top half mutates into a psychological cornucopia. In a manner akin to “Auto-Erotic Sphinx”, a predecessor work, the figure has self suctioned—an act of sensual infatuation, enjoyment, and exploration. Upward exists the figure’s primary conscious eye, adorned with a revolutionary beret emblazoned with a Bitcoin badge. The figure’s summit features the nose of a fighter jet facing off against video game Bullet Bills, one of whom is marked by a communist North Korean star. A cropped section of a UFO observes the contest. Alex’s mind branches both left and right. To the left is more singular embodied consciousness, manifesting two eyes and a Ganesh trunk grasping crayons. The right branch dissociates upward diagonally, emerging into an array of eyes, faces, teeth, tail, a unicorn horn, and much more—all of which participate in expressing his unconscious being; a democracy of psychic factions representing thought impressions and associations. All illumination and darkness– fernal, infernal, high consciousness and corporeal underbelly–reside in this realm. In the distance are relatively languid, light clouds, and against the firmament hovers a colossal distant eye peering over the scene and far beyond. This painting possesses underlying genetic traits with previous works such as “Auto-Erotic Sphinx with Toys”, “Dionysus”, and “Fuku-Shiva”. The work serves also as a nod to an earlier period of art inspiration during late teens and early twenties— born out of the nakedness, vulnerability, curiosity, and wonder inherent to coming of age and all subsequent psychedelic revelation.