►
Description
OpenSea was one of the first NFT marketplaces to integrate Filecoin and allow for creators to freeze metadata, making NFTs more persistent and verifiable. And with that you're not just buying a URL pointer! Hear from OpenSea Co-Founder and CEO Devin Finzer as he gives an honest appraisal of that experiences and talks about what the Filecoin/OpenSea relationship looks like in the future.
A
A
A
little
background
on
us
I'll
go
through
these
pretty
quickly.
But
what
is
openc?
Well
we're
a
peer-to-peer
non-custodial
marketplace
for
nfts.
We
also
build
a
lot
of
tools
that
allow
collectors,
creators
and
partners
to
get
involved
in
a
new
economy
around
the
internet
and
we've
been
around
since
late
2017.
A
We
allow
any
nft
to
be
bought
and
sold
through
a
set
of
smart
contracts,
something
that
maybe
people
don't
always
recognize
about
us.
Is
that
nfts
go
far
beyond
just
collectibles
there.
They
can
be
really
all
sorts
of
things
so
on
openc
there
are
experiments
in
there.
Of
course,
a
lot
of
art
projects
there's
a
lot
of
collectible
projects,
but
there
are
also
projects
around
music
and
audio.
A
There
are
also
things
like
ens
names,
which
are
more
like
domain
names,
there's
photography
and
then
one
of
the
areas
that
I'm
really
excited
about
is
gaming,
so
virtual
worlds
and
other
games
have
nft
components
to
them
and
can
be
bought
and
sold
on
openc
trading
card
games.
Event,
tickets,
there's
really
a
very
wide
design
space
for
nfts,
despite
the
recent
growing
popularity
of
more
collectible
focused
nfts.
A
A
A
The
first
is
erc20,
which
many
of
you
are
already
familiar
with,
and
this
is
basically
a
mapping
from
address
to
integer
which
denominates,
how
much
of
this
particular
coin
user
an
address
owns,
there's
erc
721,
which
maps
unique
identifiers
so,
for
example,
crypto
kitty
number
one
to
their
owner
right.
So
erc,
721
sort
of
says
this
unique
identifier
is
owned
by
this
individual
or
this
wallet.
A
And
then
a
new
standard
that
has
been
sort
of
emerging
and
popularized
over
the
last
few
years
is
erc
1155
and
the
interesting
thing
about
this
standard.
Is
it
almost
combines
erc,
721
and
erc20
in
a
single
smart
contract?
So
it
says
there
might
be
many
different
classes
of
things
and
each
of
those
classes
are
fungible
within
each
other.
So
you
could
have
a
class
of
swords
and
a
mapping
of
addresses
to
number
of
swords
and
then
a
class
of
shields
and
a
mapping
there
separately
and
what's
interesting
about
1155
is
it
can?
A
So
looking
deeper
now
to
talk
about
sort
of
where
filecoin
and
ipfs
come
into
play,
it's
important
to
understand
the
anatomy
of
one
of
these
standards.
So
if
we
look
at
erc
721,
the
really
important
methods
to
to
think
about
our
owner
of
is
one
of
them
an
owner
of
basically
tells
you
for
a
particular
unique
identifier
who
is
the
owner
of
that
particular
nft
right.
So
that's
really
one
of
those
core
methods
that
kind
of
encapsulates
what
nft's
or
digital
ownership
is
all
about.
A
Now
the
question
becomes:
let's
say
that
we
have
a
an
nft.
How
do
we
actually
tell
the
world
what
that
nft
looks
like
right?
So
let's
say
we
have.
You
know
cryptokitty
number,
one,
two,
three,
four
five!
Well,
how
does
the
world
know
that
you
know
that's
a
a
blue
cryptokitty
with
you
know
this
description
and
these
attributes
and
all
this
sort
of
rich
metadata
associated
with
it.
That
is,
you
know
it's
not
intuitive
right
from
looking
at
the
standard.
A
You
know
you
see
all
these
different
methods,
but
you
know
where
does
it
say
what
the
token
id
actually
is
like
what
kind
of
nft
it
is,
and
so
there
that's
where
token
metadata
comes
into
play.
So
if
you
look
at
the
erc
721
standard,
there's
this
method
called
token
uri,
which
returns
a
url
or
uri
that
tells
the
world.
Where
is
the
metadata
associated
with
this
nft?
A
So,
for
example,
this
token
uri
might
return
an
http
url
and
that
http
url
marketplaces
such
as
openc,
can
go
and
grab
the
data
from
and
and
and
sort
of
get
a
sense
of
what
this
thing
is.
So
as
an
example,
here's
some
metadata
that
if
you
grab
it's
actually
the
metadata
returned
from
that
url.
You
can
see,
there's
an
image,
a
name,
a
description
and
a
an
external
url,
and
so
these
are
how
these
this
is
a
little
bit
of
a
diagram
on
how
all
this
fits
together.
A
So
you
have
the
erc
721
contract,
which
of
course
has
owner
of
which
tells
us
who
owns
the
nft,
and
then
you
have
the
token
uri,
which
returns
a
string
and
takes
actually
to
take
in
a
token
id
here
and
returns
a
string,
and
then
this
uri
returns
the
metadata
and
you
can
see
this
is
an
image,
a
screenshot
of
how
this
item
would
look
on
openc.
You
can
see
the
name
is
here.
A
The
description
is
is
right
here
and
then
there's
all
these
different
traits
and
properties,
and
on
openc
we
actually
go
and
kind
of
grab.
All
of
that
metadata
cache
it
in
our
own
servers
so
that
it
can
be
easily
served
to
the
user
without
us
having
to
go
directly
to
the
blockchain
and
directly
to
the
source
of
truth
and
the
other
interesting
thing
about
this
is
you
know
now
that
there's
a
standard
for
for
metadata?
A
These
items
can
live
in
multiple
different
applications.
So
this
this
is
a
different
like
looking
creature,
but
you
can
imagine
the
same
creature
that
shows
up
on
openc
can
then
be.
You
know,
brought
inside
of
a
virtual
world
like
this
one,
which
is
called
a
crypto
voxels,
and
this
this
open
metadata
standard
really
allows
any
application
to
go
and
build
an
experience
around
the
nft.
A
But
the
point
is
that
anyone
can
go
and
build
an
application
that
uses
this
nft,
because
it's
sort
of
standardized
to
some
extent
so
that
I
believe
this
is
just
the
same
slide.
But
so
the
challenge,
of
course,
is
that
we,
you
know
if
we
look
at,
for
example,
some
of
these
urls
here
right.
You
can
see
that
this,
the
image
and
the
url
itself
is
just
some
server
right.
So
in
this
case
it's
storage
on
google
apis.
A
You
know
it's
hosted
on
google,
the
image-
and
you
know
we
that
that's
not
great
right,
because
we
really
want
this
metadata
to
stick
around
and
to
be
permanent
right.
So
that's
where
ipfs
and
filecoin
really
come
into
play
is
sort
of.
Where
do
we
host
this
metadata
for
for
nfts?
Of
course,
we
could
store
them
stored
on
chain,
but
storing
entire
images
and
lots
of
text
on
change
tends
to
be
pretty
expensive.
A
So
that's
where
openst
kind
of
you
know
started
to
work
more
closely
with
ipfs
and
filecoin,
and
we
really
wanted
to
create
an
experience
for
people
creating
nfts.
That
would
allow
them
to
have
permanent
storage
of
their
their
metadata,
but
we
did
have
some
design
requirements
on
our
side.
So
on
our
side
we
really
wanted
a
a
flow
that
was
easy
to
use
and
wouldn't
be
extremely
high
costs
for
every
single
user
right.
A
So
what
we
came
up
with
for
our
end
product
was
allowing
people
to
mint
nfts
for
free.
So
I'm
not
going
to
talk
about
it
in
this
talk,
but
we
have
a
system
whereby
users
can
mint
nfts
what
we
call
lazy
minting
so
without
having
to
submit
an
unchanged
transaction
and
we
default
to
metadata
that's
stored
on
our
own
servers.
A
We
did
this
asynchronously
on
our
back
end,
so
we
would
have
a
queuing
system
that
went
and
uploaded
the
metadata
and
our
front
end
would
kind
of
pull
for
for
monitoring
the
status
there
and
then
we
also
at
openc.
We
do
everything
through
graphql,
so
we
had
this
sort
of
like
wrapper
api,
that
made
a
lot
of
this
stuff
more
convenient
for
for
the
front
end.
A
So
yeah
now
I'll
go
into
a
quick
demo
of
how
this
looks
on
our
website
so
fix
that
screen.
So
for
those
of
you
who
aren't
familiar,
openc
has
a
testnets
environment,
so
it's
called
testnets.openc.io
and
what's
interesting
about
this
test.
Sense
environment
is
it's
sort
of
a
version
of
openc,
but
everything
lives
on
the
rinkeby
blockchain,
which
is
I'm
sure.
Many
of
you
are
familiar.
B
A
A
So
this
is
our
creator
tool,
so
I'll
go
here
from
inside,
so
you
click
create,
and
this
allows
users
to
create
brand
new
nfts
in
sort
of
a
self-serve
way
without
having
to
go
and
deploy
their
own
smart
contracts
and
develop
them
to
follow
with
themselves.
So
if
we
go
here
and
upload
a
new
image,
we'll
say
ipfs
test
nft.
A
You
can
give
it
numeric
traits,
so
this
is
just
kind
of
me,
demoing
stuff.
You
can
also
do
other
things,
but
we'll
skip
those
and
let's
go
now
is
so
we're
all
ready
to
create.
We
click
create
and
because
I've
already
signed
my
with
my
ethereum
wallet
you'll,
you
see
that
I
didn't
actually
have
to
submit
any
transactions
to
do
this,
because
I'd
already
authenticated
with
my
ethereum
wallet
and
now
the
nft
is
sort
of
lazily
created,
so
it
hasn't
actually
been
minted
on
chain.
A
But
when
we
first
sell
it
it
will
become
minted,
and
what's
nice
about
this
again
from
a
design
perspective
or
from
a
user
experience
perspective?
Is
we
can
onboard
users
a
lot
more
easily
without
having
to
you
know,
have
them
pay
tons
of
money
and
gas
right,
because
at
the
end
of
the
day,
open
z
is
really
a
product
that
attempts
to
sort
of
make
this
technology
more
accessible
to
mainstream?
And
so
we
we
really
wanted
to
make
it
as
easy
as
possible
to
create
your
first
nft
now.
A
But
you
know
we
go
here
into
details
and
we
see
that
we
have
the
contract
address.
The
token
id,
but
the
metadata
is
editable
right
so
because
the
metadata
has
been
put
on
openc
servers.
It
means
that,
like
we
can
go
and
edit
it
right
and
what
we
want
to
do
is
we
want
to
actually
create
an
nft,
that's
completely
decentralized
and
does
not
is
not
editable
by
users.
A
A
A
A
We
can
look
at
the
details
again
and
instead
of
saying
editable,
you
can
see
that
the
metadata
is
frozen
and
if
we
click
on
this,
we
can
actually
see
the
ipfs
url
for
for
this
particular
metadata.
So
you
can
see
you
know,
the
image
was
actually
uploaded
to
ipfs
right
under
slash
image
and
then
the
rest
of
this.
The
properties,
the
external
url
name,
description,
are
kind
of
what
we
see
here.
The
other
note
here
is
that
we
we
actually
well
you
know.
A
A
So
in
terms
of
future
opportunities,
I
think
one
this
is
sort
of
more
broadly
speaking
to
where
could
nfcs
go
in
the
future?
Well,
I
think
there's
actually
a
lot
of
room
to
improve
on
metadata
standards
and
make
them
richer
and
more
interoperable
and
just
allow
you
to
represent
all
sorts
of
things.
You
know
you
can
imagine
broadcasting
that
something
is
an
event
ticket
or
a
game
item,
or
something
like
that.
A
There's
opportunities
for
on-chain
composability
and
then,
of
course,
there's
like
tons
of
opportunities
to
expand
to
new
blockchains
and
also
to
layer,
two
scaling
solutions
and
yeah.
Just
the
last
thing
is
that
openc
is
actively
hiring
developers.
So
you
know
we're
always
looking
for
folks
to
join
the
team
either
on
the
like
sort
of
blockchain
side,
or
even
just
people
who
are
excited
about
building
consumer-facing
applications
on
top
of
blockchains.
B
B
A
Yeah,
well,
I
think
I
mean
I
I
can
bring
that
to
my
team
and
and-
and
you
know
see
if
they
have
any
feedback,
but
I
do
think,
like
you
know,
for
the
most
part,
the
nft
storage
api
was
really
friendly
to
use.
I
think
I
don't
know
what
the
state
of
like
nft
tutorials,
that
sort
of
bundle
together
like
issuing
nfts
and
and
and
having
metadata.
A
So
the
developer,
like
we
try
to
make
our
creator
tools
as
easy
as
possible
and
kind
of
simple
for
for
users,
but
I
think
anything
that
helps
like
a
developer.
Go
from
zero
to
fully
decentralized
nft
with
metadata
would
be
valuable
right.
So,
like
just
a
sort
of
higher
level
api
for
for
doing
that,
yeah,
I
think,
would
be
cool,
but
that
might
already
exist
so.
A
Someone
had
people
have
uploaded
metadata,
which
is
I
mean,
maybe
it's
not
a
huge
number,
but
I
do
think
that
this
is
a
pretty
like
hidden
sort
of
power
user
feature
and
the
fact
that
it's
been
growing,
I
think
in
august
it
looks
like
it's
25
000.
So
significantly
up
from
that,
I
think
devon.
I'm
pretty
excited
about.
A
You
know
that
number
of
people
using
the
feature
and
again
it's
you-
know
it's
sort
of
a
feature
that
is
really
just
for
people
who
are
creating
nfts,
not
just
people
who
are
buying,
but
then
yeah
the
ins.
To
answer
your
question
yeah,
I
I
think
it's
a
good.
It's
a
good
question
of
whether
all
the
data
needs
to
be
decentralized.
A
I
guess
I
guess
maybe
it's
just
sort
of
a
practical
consideration
like
if
you're
building
a
game
where
the,
for
example,
a
lot
of
games,
sort
of
generate
their
game
items
deterministically
based
on
like
the
properties
of
the
thing
right.
It's
it's
hard
to
manage.
Like
uploading,
you
know
to
a
decentralized
file
system
for
every
single
different
game
item
and
then
the
other
point
there
is
just
like
you
know.
If
the
game
goes
away,
then
the
game
item's
kind
of
not
very
useful
anymore.
A
So
even
if
the
metadata
was
like
stored
on
some
on
the
on
a
decentralized
file
system,
well,
you
can't
play
the
game
anymore
right.
So
it's
like
there's
already
sort
of
a
central
point
of
failure,
and
so
how
much
does
it
matter
whether
the
the
metadata
is
centralized
versus
not
what's
kind
of
happening.
B
I
see
yeah,
that's
a
good
point.
I
hadn't
really
thought
of
that,
although
I
guess
there's
this
broader
narrative
that
you're,
like
your
skins
or
your
characters
in
one
game,
if
that
game
fails,
maybe
you'll
be
able
to
take
it
into
a
different
game,
and
so,
if
you
really
love
that
character,
maybe
that
is
worth
it
to
have
that
you
know
persistent
over
web
3.
yeah.
A
I
think
in
the
future,
like
yeah,
it's
more
of
a
practical
consideration
like
in
the
future
when
we
have
like
unstoppable
games
that
are
like
built
on
peer-to-peer
systems
and,
like
you
know,
there's
no
more
games
like
centralized
game
server.
I
don't
know,
maybe
that
I
think
that's
much
further
down
the
road,
but
when
you
can
create
those
sorts
of
things,
I
think
having
everything
be
decentralized
super
important,
but
a
lot
of
games
are
just
like
sort
of
this
hybrid
right
now.