Storing EDA

Art is timeless, therefore we want to save EDA (encrypted digital artefact) somewhere it can exist forever. In the web3 world, forever means as long as there is at least one computer in the network supporting certain protocols.

There are 2 possibilities where to store a digital artefact:

1. On-chain

2. Off-chain

It's important to note that wherever EDA is stored it is available publicly. It's like uploading a file to the Internet, and everybody can download it. Thankfully, the original picture is hidden inside EDA.

On-chain storage

This path is controvertial. Blockchain is intended to be a publich ledger, not a storage system. However, artist decides where the artwork will live. The most popular options nowadays are:

• Ordinals on the Bitcoin blockchain

• Use the Internet Computer storage

• Arweave blockchain (though it can be viewed as off-chain, as an NFT is actually minted on another chain)

Off-chain storage

This can be any storage, however, we must be sure to have an immutable reference to EDA forever. Therefore, we wouldn't want to store it on a personal computer nor even on a cloud provider, as moving (copying) a file isn't an option. In a physical world we don't repaint Van Gogh's pictures claiming that this is the new original, do we?

We have a couple of options where to store EDA off-chain:

• Use another blockchain for storage. For example, we can mint an NFT on Tezos blockchain, while pointing to the content stored in Arweave or Internet Computer.

• Use IPFS

At Silvermind we (currently) prefer IPFS. However, it's the choice of artists and the beliefs of collectors, where they like to participate and transact with each other. In other words - market dictates those choices.