Hicathon Sept 2021 - 3.2 Splitting sales, collaboration made easy


Bringing Collaborative NFTs On-Chain

How a small group of community members is making collaboration easier on hic et nunc

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“One of the most surprising and beautiful things to emerge from the Tezos ecosystem this year has been around the community surrounding hic et nunc. Artists, developers, and collectors all working with and for each other to build something that benefits all users.” 

Above are opening comments from Shaman as he presents the work done by the Working Group 3.2 during the post-hicathon. Over the past month, the group, including ztepler1x1ShamanMichal Noelson, and Ktorn, has been creating a new contract that would give artists the ability to split revenue automatically and on-chain. 

Connecting and engaging with other artists has always been a huge part of the hic et nunc community, and many artists have taken part in collaborations since the early days. However, up until now, artists needed to manage these engagements off-chain, requiring artists to put in a lot of time, effort, and trust to manage the overly complicated interactions. 

This is precisely the issue that the Working Group 3.2 set out to tackle. The question the team needed to ask was: 

“How do you make something that can be experimented with but also maintain the provenance of the NFTs created?” 

Introducing the signed collaboration contract, a contract that allows creators to mint, and share sales and royalties with whomever they like while making the NFT provenance clear and transparent to all that wish to collect. 

The collaborative contract was created with creativity in mind, so artists are welcome to use it how they please, and the opportunities are truly limitless. You can create a contract where every sale goes to many benefactors for charity events or to create a circular economy. You can put a collaboration contract as a benefactor of another collaboration contract. For example, if you are a part of a  collab with a video studio creating video music NFTs you could create a contract that would include every collaborator from the studio. 

Here everything is automated.

PIX, a collaboration project with Shaman and Anderlaxe, was the first to test out the signed collaboration contract. However, other collaboration projects are beginning to roll out, such as a collaboration with OMGiDRAWEDit and Matthew Plummer-Fernández. With this collaboration, 244 editions sold on the primary market, with 54 sales on the secondary market within the first 12 hours of the signed collaboration contract's conception. Sales were split automatically between the two creators, who also decided to donate a percentage to the Working Group 3.2 team, who were the ones that were able to make this possible. 

But collaborations between artists aren’t the only possibility with a signed collaboration contract. Another amazing element about this new contract is that it makes donating to nonprofits or other organizations extremely simple. You are able to easily add benefactors to your contract, making giving back and contributing to charitable contributions much easier.    

How will you be able to create a collaboration contract?

At the moment signed collaborations are ready to be implemented, the group is just waiting for final input from Raphael Lima, founder of hic et nunc, for the possibility to merge onto the platform. When added, you will be able to find the item “Collaborate” in the menu navigation. Where you will be able to easily paste or bulk-paste addresses which will auto-split between all collaborators. With just a few clicks and copy/pastes, you will be able to have your collaborations up in no time. You will also be able to see all your collaborative projects on your profile under “Manage Assets”, where you’ll have options to sign into a contract to manage them.

Below you can see a few screenshots from 1x1’s demo during the post-hicathon: 

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Collaborate will be an option in the navigation menu. 

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Options around how to split the contract. By default it will auto-split. 

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Have the option to add benefactors.

This can be used to help fund non-profits and other organizations. 

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Other artists and collectors can see which collaborators have signed the contract under each piece linked to the collaboration contract.

Projects like this will help create a greater exchange of ideas between artists. Techniques will evolve, new genres will appear, styles will cross boundaries, and the hic et nunc community will be able to collaborate in many unique and creative ways. 

A special thank you to the Working Group 3.2 for turning this idea into a reality, we look forward to seeing this project come to life and make an impact across the world.