Shill Punks are an evolving set of NFTs on the XRPLedger, unlike some other collections I chose not to mass mint a large collection, and instead mint based on demand. This also allows for special items & events, such as Halloween & Christmas to be released at relevant times. As well as collaborations with other projects, for limited edition mints! It also means I can control the amount of Punks being gobbled up by whales, ensuring that the balance of the game side of things remains in check. These Punks were migrated from Binance Smart Chain as they originally utilised the platform called "Altura" to make them Smart NFTs.

Whats a Smart NFT?
In my eyes a Smart NFT is any NFT that has some inbuilt utility or mechanism that allows them to do *more* than a standard NFT. Any NFT can have utility that resides off-chain based on their token ID. And technically all metadata is stored off-chain.

However what Shill Punks can do that I consider make them Smart NFTs is the ability to change their metadata. This is why the metadata is hosted at this domain (https://theshillverse.com/) instead of on another hosting platform such as IPFS. I consider the longevity of the Shill Punks utility more important than the longevity of the metadata if the site was to go down for some reason.

I initially came across this idea through the platform mentioned previously, Altura. As a keen game dev, NFTs with changeable metadata seemed like something with huge potential. The main draw being forwards facing metadata that was visible on external marketplaces. Imagine a sword that grows & levels up with you and could be moved across multiple games!

Imagine a more real world example of Smart NFTs, real-estate. If you purchase a house that was 3 bedrooms & 1 bathroom and your proof of ownership was issued as an NFT. At a later date you renovate your house adding an additional Bedroom and bathroom. Later you decide to sell your house, you wouldn't want it to still point to outdated information stating your house was 3 bedrooms & 1 bath would you? This is where Smart NFTs shine. The official government body would like instead use SmartNFTs, or have NFTs point to an domain where they can control the data.

Keeping this data offchain is nothing new, but the combination of NFTs for proof of ownership & the ability to point to changing metadata is something I believe will be highly important for the mass adoption of NFTs in the mainstream. This does not displace the need or utility of a normal NFT and I do not believe that SmartNFTs will be the only type of NFT in the future.

That being said - the Shill Punks are a shining example of what SmartNFTs are capable of. Delivered through a simple web game with fun, but simple idle-like gameplay, the Shill Punks have metadata that changes regularly (multiple times a day). I believe they are the first example of Smart NFTs on the XRP Ledger and there's still so much more to come!

I hope this gave you some more insight into how poweful Smart NFTs can be - if you're looking for what you can do with your Shill Punks - checkout the sidebar or read this article