a project by @sooshisan 🍣

Introduction

Token Metadata Descriptor is defines a way to extend Metaplex’s token metadata accounts on-chain. This implementation is a specific implementation for how how any account can be extended on-chain and takes advantage of the update authority field maintained by the metadata.

The protocol is written in such a way that it can be as simple or complex as a creator wants. It also lays a path for additional extensability, but we’ll get to that later ⌛

Overview

There is mostly 1 flavor of Solana NFTs today: token account associated with Metaplex metadata’s standard (unified standard = good, btw), which points to some off-chain JSON on Arweave, IPFS, a CDN, or is served by some arbitrary service running on the cloud. Furthermore, this usually means that a collection is always curated before any NFTs are ever minted.

<aside> 💡 As far as I know, it’s not possible to generate an NFT on-chain, on Solana today. But, that’s about to change 🛠️

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If we look at other ecosystems, there is sooo much more experimentation (🧪, 🧪) with respect to form-factors - there are traditional PFPs with off-chain metadata, PFPs with metadata stored on-chain (Loot, Nouns, Moonbirds, Onchain Monkeys, Chain Runners, etc), generative on-chain art collections (Autoglyphs, Deafbeef’s collections [🐐], etc), on-chain generative art infrastructure (Art Blocks, FxHash, etc), and so many more.

Please note - this is just a short list of mostly Ethereum projects. There’s a lot of innovative work being done across. That being said, there’s massive opportunity for Solana builders, collectors, and general art enjoyoooors.

I built this as a separate an open-sourced and independent building block. Anyone is welcome to submit change requests, fork and modify, or build on top of it. I do hope there is eventual consensus around an on-chain metadata standard. Hopefully this can kickstart a broader community conversation.

In the technical description section, I’ll the current specification, some limitations, and a few ideas regarding what’s possible today. I’m likely missing a lot of details, and that’s where you come in - feel free to leave comments, drop a DM on twitter, open a PR, etc.

Solana NFTs Today vs. On-chain metadata (new)