How Pastel Network Protects and Stores Artist’s NFTs

The cryptocurrency space has been plagued with scams, phishing attacks, and other types of theft throughout the sector surrounding non-fungible tokens (NFTs). However, there have been specific projects that have been purpose-built as a means of combating this.

The Issue with NFT Project Developers and Buyers

In 2022 alone, over $100 million worth of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were stolen in a variety of different scams.

Thieves made off with an average of $300,000 per scam, according to a report from Elliptic, who ended up collecting data through open-source research across numerous social media websites.

This gives us an indication that the community, or at least a specific portion of the community, is susceptible to scams, and there has yet to be any groundwork or custom-built solution around solving this dilemma.

However, Pastel Network, and its SmartMint solution, aim to combat this on a global scale and reach just about any serious NFT creator or collector so they can maintain ownership over their NFTs no matter what.

Theft of NFT Art

Where there is art, there will always be plagiarism, and this is just a part of the industry. However, creators can take steps towards combating this as much as possible. There have been numerous solutions integrated from the NFT marketplace that let artists combat fraud and plagiarism.

For example, one of the most popular NFT marketplaces, OpenSea, has created numerous technical systems that aid the team in promoting authentic content and reducing fraudulent ones.

There's a verification mechanism that identifies authentic accounts and a copy protection tool that features image recognition technology for NFT scanning.

However, these tools take effect after the NFT has been created, and NFTs can be created on numerous other blockchains.

This means that artists have to go out of their way to essentially report fraudulent NFTs or duplicates, which makes the entire process tedious. So, how convenient would it be if all of this was available by default?

Pastel Network: A Quick Overview

Before we dive too deep into SmartMint, it is important to first understand what it runs on.

SmartMint is powered by Pastel Network, which is a fully decentralized, developer-friendly layer-1 blockchain serving as the preeminent protocol standard for non-fungible tokens ("NFTs") and Web3 technology.

Pastel was created to bring mission critical Web3 infrastructure to the ecosystem. Pastel enables existing layer-1 blockchains, decentralized applications, or third-party enterprises to protect creators and collectors. From digital collectibles & media to documents & applications, users and developers are able to certify asset rareness and truly store data forever. And Pastel can provide this to the entire ecosystem as it can integrate seamlessly across Layer1 and Layer-2 decentralized applications (dApps) and provide numerous benefits related to the sphere of NFTs.

Out of all of the features it implements, two stand out the most and can aid creators tremendously.

Pastel has developed a near-duplicate NFT detection tool – Sense. Sense leverages the power of deep learning to assess the relative rareness of NFTs and certify their authenticity in an effort to detect any counterfeits, scams, or copyright infringement.

Then there's the NFT data and metadata storage solution – Cascade. Cascade is a protocol that allows users to store data permanently in a highly redundant, distributed fashion with a single upfront fee. It allows creators to have peace of mind when storing their NFTs knowing that they will never have to deal with centralized storage failures or any IPFS pinning and errors.

IPFS stands for InterPlanetary File System and is one of the most commonly used methods of storage in the blockchain space; however, it has had pinning issues historically.

The SmartMint Solution to The NFT Theft Dilemma

We now have a much higher level of understanding as to how the underlying Layer1- blockchain works; let's go over how the blockchain is combatting NFT theft.

SmartMint, by default, is a no-code NFT minting platform.

This means that creators can easily create as well as manage their NFTs.

What separates SmartMint from other minting tools is the fact that each creator gets to create and keep their own custom smart contract and retain full ownership over it.

Additionally, creators benefit from the aforementioned Pastel infrastructure – specifically the near-duplicate NFT detection system (Sense) and permanent NFT data storage (Cascade) play a major role in its overall functionality.

Anyone can create an NFT in the form of PNGs, JPGs, SVG, or .MP4 files if they are videos.

Through SmartMint, creators can mint on Ethereum, Solana, Pastel, and other networks.

They can launch NFTs in the form of NFT drops, where SmartMint is the back-end management platform.

The platform also has full OpenSea and other secondary-marketplace support. This means that even before the NFTs get minted on OpenSea, they are fully certified and given a relative rareness thus protecting creators and their art from copymint, fraud, and theft.

By having ownership over their smart contracts, each creator will gain full control over how their NFTs are created, which means that they can have a higher amount of detail when it comes to the management of the NFTs and a better overview of how their collections are constructed. They also have insights into connected cryptocurrency wallets.

However, if creators minted their NFTs directly on a marketplace instead, the marketplace would likely retain ownership over the smart contracts associated with the NFTs.

Pastel can protect NFT artists and creators, as well as future buyers. These solutions, powered by Pastel Network, are aimed at making the NFT space a lot safer even for those who are creating, buying, or selling NFTs for the very first time.

Begin using SmartMint today