The world’s first living nft?
How BLOCKv and the Decentralised Dance Party brought the internet’s favourite dog to life
Introduction
When people say the word NFT, a dancing dog draped in disco attire is probably not the first thing that comes to mind! Then again, we’ve never been a fan of convention at BLOCKv… That’s why when we were approached by a group of party enthusiasts who dreamed of creating world peace through a global dance movement called the Million Doge Disco, we thought it sounded so bonkers, it might just work. This is how the Disco Doge was born: an interactive, customisable, dancing NFT designed to reward those who signed up for the Million Doge Disco that combined the augmented reality gameplay of Pokemon Go with the character customisation of a tamagotchi in one Dogecoin fuelled party package. So far the project has been a massive success, with over 40,000 people signing up to the waitlist and the story being covered by CoinMarketCap, CoinDesk, Yahoo Finance, Altcoin Daily, the BadCrypto podcast and many other news outlets. In this blogpost we’re going to break down some of the project’s various features and explain how we used BLOCKv’s NFT platform to bring the internet’s most endearing dog to life.
Feature Showcase
Instant redemption of cryptocurrency by wrapping Dogecoin inside of dynamic NFTs
Overview
Perhaps the standout aspect of this project was the packaging of cryptocurrency inside of a dynamic NFT. Every Disco Doge (also known by its catchier name, the Dogeagotchi) up for grabs contains one Dogecoin, with many thousands of other Dogecoins being spread across the world for players to find. Every player who completed their Proof Of Partying (POP) protocol also received a ‘Coin Blaster’ in their welcome pack, a one time use item that spawned Dogecoin all around a user when dropped on the map. Picking up a Dogecoin and giving it to your Dogeagotchi increases its happiness and loyalty towards you and raises the overall value of the Dogeagotchi by one Dogecoin. Thanks to some development wizardry players can choose to ‘redeem’ the Dogecoins contained within their Dogeagotchi to an external wallet. Technically achieving this feature was challenging, as whilst the BLOCKv platform automatically generates an Ethereum wallet address for users whenever they create an account, facilitating the transfer of Dogecoin to user accounts required an additional new integration with the Dogecoin blockchain separate to the existing BLOCKv system. The Back-end team used the dogecoin API to wrap a Dogecoin within a 3D Dogecoin NFT, which enabled the BLOCKv platform to adapt its pre established infrastructure to facilitate the transfer of cryptocurrency.
A closer look at the Dogecoin NFT, which contains one Dogecoin within it
Redemption
Once a user has collected some Dogecoin NFTs from the map, they can cash it out at any time by heading to the Disco Doge NFT and selecting the Redeem button. Here they’ll be prompted to choose how many coins they want to redeem via a drop down menu that changes dynamically depending on the amount of Coins that are contained within their Dogeagotchi. Once they’ve selected the amount of coins they’d like to redeem, they can either enter their unique wallet address, or use the built in QR code scanner to scan a QR code associated with their address in a seamless manner (users can find the QR code for their target address by using a tool like Dogecoin blockchain explorer). The BLOCKv platform then enacts the transfer to the target address, taking a flat transaction fee of 1 Dogecoin, regardless of the size of the transaction, to cover the operating costs.
An overview of the redemption process
The BLOCKv platform was created as a user-friendly interface layer for the blockchain, and as today’s world increasingly warms to the concept of cryptocurrencies: decentralized finance and programmable NFTs can provide user-friendly experiences for both users and creators.
From an end-user perspective, BLOCKv NFTs represent a simplified, highly visual method of owning and interacting with unique digital objects that maintains the security provided by blockchain technology, whilst shielding users from its inherent complexity.
From a development perspective creatives, developers and businesses can use BLOCKv’s NFT platform to create universally understandable visuals for transferring cryptocurrency and other digital assets to and from end users. When users open up their wallet for the first time and are greeted with the somewhat literal visual of a set of golden coins, it brings an almost physical sensation of ownership to what was previously a highly technical and heavily digitized experience. We dare to say that the sense of heft users experience when sending other users visually stimulating NFTs opens up a previously untapped audience to developers for product distribution.
For crypto and token developers, the process of introducing and onboarding first time purchasers to their platform can be a challenge. However, this latest development means cryptocurrencies and token creators can run incentivised onboarding campaigns that raise awareness around their project by distributing tokens wrapped in programmable NFTs across social media channels for new users to claim.
The Doge Disco demonstrates that NFTs can successfully integrate with a leading cryptocurrency and provide end users with a frictionless, user-friendly method of cryptocurrency transfer, in this case by using only an email address. Our belief is that entertaining, newsworthy and user-friendly projects like the Doge Disco will help create and expand public awareness around how digital asset ownership is a viable, desirable and a logical progression of our society. This is how we aim to progress the concept of Web 3.0 (or the Metaverse) from theory to lived experience.
Proof Of Partying Protocol
Captcha for the Tiktok generation
One of the foundations of the Million Doge Disco project was that it should be based on the principle of DOGE - Do Only Good Everyday. Of the many good things humans have invented, dancing may be one of the best. This is why we decided to secure all Disco Doge NFTs with Proof Of Partying protocol, a highly sophisticated verification process that ensures only people who submit a video of themselves dancing to social media with a special ‘doge salute’ at the end can get their hands (paws?) on one. This not only ensured only those in the party spirit were able to get in on the action, but also helped massively boost the organic reach of the project.
Check out the Doge Disco Tiktok to see some of the best submissions in action
Augmented Reality representation of NFTs
Bringing Disco Doges to life
Since it’s launch we’ve been continually updating the Doge Disco experience to provide the best experience to users, and one of the newest features is the ability to dance with your Disco Doge in Augmented Reality to music. The Proof Of Partying protocol has led to hundreds of people submitting videos of themselves dancing and we wanted to give Disco Doge owners a fresh new way to create new content to spread the word of the Million Doge Disco movement. This feature is activated whenever a user opens the AR view after dropping their Disco Doge NFT on the map. The front facing camera opens and the player’s doge will dance around them, allowing them to dance and interact with them in augmented reality.
Emotional changes based on user behaviour
“Treat her better boy, if having her at your side’s something you enjoy”
Mac Demarco, 2014
Just like a real dog, a Dogeagotchi’s emotional state will change in response to the way a player treats it. Regular interaction, feeding and dancing with your doge will result in the doge’s happiness score staying high, whilst neglecting a doge’s emotional and physical needs will upset it, resulting in the doge’s happiness decreasing over time.
Happy doge, sad doge, cardboard box
Character customization
the many faces of Disco Doge
To enable doge character customisation we created a number of different ‘faces’ that the Disco Doge NFT would display depending on what items a user had equipped. These ‘faces’ are the user interface layer of the BLOCKv NFTs and can change in response to a number of predetermined inputs and factors. These include, but are not limited to; the passing of time, user input (i.e. by the pressing of a button on the ‘face’ of the NFT), a user scanning a QR code or other predefined image and by combining one NFT with another. With the Dogeagotchi you can change the doge’s face by putting accessories (such as this fetching pair of sunglasses) on your doge, but we’ve found the applications for this feature are almost limitless. We’d love to see this functionality implemented in future in a digital board or card game, where a player could view their character’s statistics on their mobile device, whilst only their character model would display on a laptop or tv screen.
From sad doge to rad doge
Combining NFTs together to create new NFTs
More flexibility for clients and developers, more functionality for users
In addition to Dogeagotchis changing their ‘mood’ or ‘loyalty’ according to a number of set parameters, users can also accessorise their doge with a number of disco themed accessories to get them in the party mood. Once users have found an accessory, they can combine it with their doge to give it a visual overhaul and stats boost. This action is not purely aesthetic; adding a pair of sunglasses to your doge is a fundamental, recorded change in the ‘state’ of both NFTs that increases the doge’s loyalty score and happiness level.
How does this work?
The Dogeagotchi NFTs have ‘brain’ code, which contains a set of rules governing how the NFT will respond to a change in its state. The doge’s brain actively monitors the NFT for any change to its state and if a change is detected, it will run the rules to decide on a response. Allowing our NFTs to determine its behavioural response by running a query on a set of rules instead of a limited set of predetermined outcomes gives developers much greater flexibility in implementing future functionality and interoperability. These non-fungible tokens, once they are emitted, exist permanently as digital objects. Therefore, programming NFTs to respond to generic rules allows creators to balance the immutable nature of blockchain ledger technology with the ability to roll out as yet undecided on future content that’s compatible with emitted NFTs. Looking beyond the scope of the disco doge NFT, we think the ability to combine NFTs together is perfectly suited within the context of unlocking exclusive content or digital goods, as a way of problem solving and even as a means of increasing the value of items a user owns by combining multiple iterations of the same NFT into one.
Conclusion
We hope you’ve enjoyed this peek under the bonnet of the disco doge and gained some insight into how BLOCKv can power a wide variety of digital objects. This NFT is only the first stage of the multi stage plan that is the million doge disco, where we’re working with the Million Doge Disco team to unite the world through the power of dance, so be sure to keep an eye out for further updates.
If you’re interested in learning more about how these types of intelligent, customizable NFTs can help your project, then get in contact at info@blockv.io and we’ll be in touch.