Proposal: New Solana NFT Spec

Victor Pontis
Apr 3, 2022

​Current Issues

​The current NFT spec is pretty bad for a few reasons:

  • ​every NFT requires multiple accounts (3+)

  • ​the token account address can change (and the token account is not always the associated token account of the current NFT owner)

  • ​the NFT holder can transfer the NFT to a diff token account which can make any existing escrow / marketplace accounts invalid

  • ​it’s hard to get all of the NFTs for a given wallet

  • ​the editions part of the spec is very confusing

  • ​it’s hard to group collections — not built into the original version of the spec and slow to query

  • ​it’s really hard to get all of the activity (transfers / etc) for one NFT since one tx may include the mint while another tx includes the token account

​This all stems from the first problem — an NFT is a bunch of different accounts but it should really be just one account.

​A Path Forwards

​NFToken + One Account

​In this new spec, we will have an NFToken program that we will use instead of the Tokenkeg program.

​An NFT will be represented by an account that is a PDA of the NFToken program and it will have the following fields:

  • ​address — the ID of the NFT will be it’s address on the Solana blockchain

  • ​data — the rest of the fields will be stored in the data

    • ​holder — address (notice how I didn’t call this owner)

    • ​delegate — has ability to transfer the NFT to someone else

    • ​metadata_url — max 128 characters, you will want to use short URLs. the URL will store offchain metadata‚ spec https://docs.opensea.io/docs/metadata-standards

    • ​name — max 32 utf-8 characters

    • ​image_url — max 128 characters, name and image_url are nice to have on chain since this is the basics of what’s required for most NFTs

    • ​collection — points to the address of the collection (explained below)

    • ​creator / update_authority — the account used to sign the message to mint this NFT

​Common Queries

​Get All NFTs for a Wallet

  • ​getProgramAccounts

    • ​program = NftToken

    • ​memcmp: holder = wallet

​Transfer NFT

​NFToken will have a transfer instruction that can be signed by either the holder or the delegate. After the transfer ix, the delegate is zero’d out.

​Set Delegate

​The holder can sign an instruction to set the delegate of the NFT.

​Mint New NFT as Creator

​To create a new NFT, you will call the mint instruction on the NFToken program and you pass in all of the data for the newly created NFT.

​Update NFT

​The update_authority has permissions to update the following fields:

  • ​name

  • ​image_url

  • ​metadata_url

​Marketplace Actions

​List NFT

​To list an NFT, you will:

  • ​update the NFT delegate to the marketplace custody account

  • ​create a listing account that represents the sale information

​An NFT will still show up in your wallet while it is listed on the NFT marketplace.

​Update Listing

​To update a listing, you update the listing account on the NFT marketplace. You don’t need to interact with NFToken

​Cancel Listing

​You can delete the listing account which should zero out the delegate field.

​You can also zero out the delegate field yourself without getting permission from the NFT marketplace. They would have to update the listing account on their side and delete it.

​Execute Sale

​The delegate which is controlled by the marketplace can transfer the holder field after which the delegate field is zerod out.

​So the NFT marketplace will make the transfer after seeing that a sale is executable.

​Collections

​We want to support collections from the inception of this protocol. While we support collections, not every NFT needs to be on a collection.

​The NFToken program will also create PDAs that represent collections:

  • ​address — this is the ID of the collection

  • ​data

    • ​name — 32 characters

    • ​image_url — 32 characters

    • ​metadata_url — 128 characters

    • ​update_authority

​Update Collection

​The update_authority can update the name and metadata_url for the collection

​Add NFT to Collection

​To add an NFT, we will need signatures from the NFT update_authority and the collection update_authority.

​Remove NFT from Collection

​The collection update_authority can remove an NFT from its collection. This does not require permission from the NFT update_authority.

​Further Work

​If you're interested in pushing this spec forwards, @-me on Twitter.