ERC-721 tokens are the core of the NFT ecosystem Ethereum and many other blockchains have given rise to. They democratize accessibility to creative expression by providing new avenues to artists. In March 2018, Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 721 officially recognized this token standard. This enables development and use of a wide variety of applications from metaverse-related games, digital art, and other virtual collectibles. Over a decade later, ERC-721 by William Entriken, Jacob Evans, and Nastassia Sachs has fueled the mainstream adoption of NFTs. It just continues to evolve on just about every blockchain.
ERC-721 tokens are distinguished by two key characteristics: Token ID and Metadata. These characteristics achieve the unique nature of each NFT and allow NFTs to represent a wide array of assets. These tokens are widely supported by popular crypto wallets including MetaMask, Rabby Wallet, Best Wallet and Trust Wallet. This common accessibility makes it possible for a NEW broad audience to tap into them.
One of the most high-profile uses of ERC-721 tokens has been in the digital arts and collectibles space. Beeple's "Everydays: The First 5000 Days," which sold for $69 million, exemplifies the high-value assets that can be represented by these tokens. ERC-721 tokens are foundational to the creation of gaming and metaverse assets. You can feel their influence in highly successful games such as The Sandbox, Decentraland, and Ember Sword.
The ERC-721 standard gained early recognition through projects like CryptoKitties, which demonstrated the need for a dedicated token standard for unique digital assets. Dieter Shirley, one of the creators of CryptoKitties, understood this requirement, which resulted in the creation of ERC-721. The popularity of CryptoKitties highlighted scalability challenges, with the project at one point "slowing the Ethereum network to a crawl." - [consensys.io]
ERC-721 tokens are foundational to PFP (Profile Picture) minting collections such as CryptoPunks, Bored Apes, and Pudgy Penguins. What these collections demonstrate is the immense interoperability and ecosystem support that the ERC-721 standard provides. Now projects like CryptoPunks have established a laser cutting edge paradigm for selling collectible digital art.
ERC-1155 offers an alternative semi-fungible token standard that ERC-1155 tokens can be converted into unique NFTs. ERC721 is still king, the most widely used NFT standard out there. Creative uses continue to emerge all the time. Consider, for instance, Uniswap, which employs ERC-721 tokens as representations of liquidity pool positions in its V3 protocol. Specific ERC-721 tokens, such as those in Gary Vaynerchuk's NFT collection, "grant access to the annual VeeCon conference." - [veecon.co]
