FEATURED ARTWORKS OF THE WEEK
WELCOME TO ETH 2.0
A LETTER FROM MINT GOLD DUST CEO + FOUNDER KELLY LEVALLEY HUNT
On September 15th, nearly 2 million of the world’s population witnessed and recognized a historical event taking place, The Merge. The Ethereum protocol transitioned from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake.
Ethereum’s Proof of Stake makes validators the new consensus layer, and all historical Proof of Work transactions have been verified and merged into one Proof of Stake chain. What is important for all users in the community is The Merge did not change anything for holders / users. This means you do not need to do anything with your funds, wallet, or NFTs to adjust to Ethereum Proof of Stake. This has been the number one concern, but everything is the same for most everyone in the ecosystem. Thanks to the tremendous heavy lifting from the Ethereum dev community, we can use the old saying “As you were!”. If you are interested in learning more about Ethereum Proof of Stake and how it came to be, check out Vitalik’s new book, Proof of Stake.
Over the past few years of building Mint Gold Dust, there was often the request from our users to incorporate a layer 2 to scale transaction executions and to decrease transaction costs or fees. We worried that if we chose to build a layer 2 to reduce transaction fees, our artists could possibly forfeit royalties long term if, in the future, their NFT was sold on the Mint Gold Dust secondary market. As a result we decided to wait for The Merge to happen, and we are happy we did. The Ethereum devs are working to find the best way to distribute the burden of storing compressed data from rollup contracts, allowing for exponential growth in network capacity. Ethereum Proof of Stake needed to happen first to even think of this change order. Think of this progress as giant baby steps.
Within 48 hours of The Merge, Mint Gold Dust fortified and future proofed our platform, running on the Ethereum Proof of Stake network, providing our community with the most financially efficient, secure, and direct way for everyone curious to explore, create, and grow their collection of NFTs.
Mint Gold Dust’s core values have not changed, and neither have those of the Ethereum community. In fact, our values have only become stronger and more transparent. Mint Gold Dust looks for unique creators who encourage their peers and recognize the bigger picture, advocating for a new type of value system based on contribution and coordination. At our decentralized core, we offer our artists the ability to present their assets as editions by means of ERC-1155 tokens. We stay true to our commitment to offer split payment solutions for artists and collaborators while showcasing the thoughts of our creators and collectors in the Mint Gold Dust memoir section. We champion curation in the NFT space with our Curated Spaces, and we are dedicated to being fully decentralized. Plus, we align with partners to best connect with our community like Illust Space for geo-dropping, SmartSeal for NFC’ing physical objects, Gilded Finance for financial reporting for artists and collectors, and now Tokenframe for displaying NFTs.
We honor and value our artists, collectors, creators, as well as those who showcase our community – the galleries. One way we do this is by supporting and encouraging collaboration in the digital art space with our split payment payout system. With this feature, you can add up to 5 wallets for payment distribution, utilizing automatic on-chain payments upon bid acceptance by the creator. We believe that by utilizing the Ethereum network’s ability to split payments based on percentages set by the artist upon minting, we make it faster to participate in a growing ecosystem and help decrease the financial burden of the artists and galleries. In the future, galleries will be required to provide easier means of transacting for their collectors, and artists will require galleries to be financially transparent. As such, these split percentages are searchable and on-chain for provenance so all participants / collaborators are aware of what they are due upon a sale.
Recently, we examined the market of digital frame partners because we believe that being able to showcase NFTs is the ultimate flex. We recognize that collectors and galleries want to display NFTs easily, and Tokenframe owns the patent for connecting Metamask wallets, and those alike, to their frames within seconds. With ease of use, any of our community can come to the Mint Gold Dust site, click on an NFT, purchase the NFT, click on the Tokenframe icon, and purchase a corresponding frame.
As the market grows, Mint Gold Dust will continue to partner with more likeminded organizations who have similar values and a clear vision for the future of web3 while keeping the integrity of decentralization at the core of their existence. Mint Gold Dust will be encouraging galleries to get more involved with digital artists, provide education for artists and collectors, and exhibit the most unique creations from our community. We believe that people with passion and creativity can change our world for the better.
– Kelly LeValley Hunt and the Mint Gold Dust Team
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Check back in next week when we chat with curator JenJoy Royball about her recent collection “Machine Dialogues,” now on Mint Gold Dust.
