The evolving landscape of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is fraught with challenges, particularly in a multichain world where NFTs are dispersed across various blockchains. This dispersion results in a fragmented ecosystem, posing significant challenges to both users and developers.

Biggest issues with cross-chain NFTs

• Difficulty in exploring collections: Navigating and assessing the value of NFTs across various blockchains like Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum and other L1s/L2s can be cumbersome for users. The challenge escalates when leveraging NFTs across chains. Traditional bridging methods often fail to retain the unique value and metadata of the NFT during this process, adding complexity.
• Inconsistent floor prices: Without an aggregated view across chains, different floor prices can emerge on various marketplaces. This inconsistency can lead to confusion and inefficiency for users looking to trade or purchase NFTs.
• Concentration on a single Chain: The challenges in cross-chain navigation and floor price inconsistencies often cause cross-chain NFT collections to aggregate on a single chain where the dominant market is located, limiting their exposure and potential.
• Challenges for developers in adding value: Though creating a basic ERC-721 NFT collection is relatively straightforward, developers face the hurdle of adding value to these collections. The isolation of blockchains impedes integration into larger ecosystems or the development of unique utilities for holders.
• Lack of a cross-chain marketplace: The absence of a marketplace that supports cross-chain trading and showcasing of NFTs restricts their trading and exposure across chains.
• Integration complexities: Developers face technical challenges in integrating different types of networks such as EVM and Cosmos, which can slow down innovation and pose security concerns.

Cross-chain transfer of NFTs requires not just the movement of the token but also the preservation of its uniqueness, history and associated data across different networks, which is inherently more complex compared to the transfer of fungible tokens. Additionally, NFT standards and metadata structures may vary between different blockchains, making it more challenging to establish a universal protocol for their transfer. That is, until now.

MintDAO, in collaboration with Axelar, is addressing these challenges head-on by integrating Axelar's cutting-edge General Message Passing (GMP) technology. This collaboration empowers creators with an end-to-end NFT management platform, while Axelar GMP facilitates seamless cross-chain communication, ushering in a new era of liquidity and accessibility in the NFT space.

What is MintDAO?

MintDAO provides an end-to-end approach to NFT management, enabling creators to focus on their art while MintDAO tackles the complexities of management and promotion. Through cross-chain integration, NFTs issued with MintDAO access broader markets and ecosystems, across Web3.

MintDAO has pioneered an innovative approach to NFTs through its partnership with Axelar. By integrating the capabilities of General Message Passing, MintDAO overcomes the traditional constraints of standard NFTs. MintDAO's NFTs are inherently built for cross-chain interoperability, simplifying the bridging and minting process across different chains. This not only enhances the liquidity and accessibility of NFTs but also addresses the challenge of market fragmentation, paving the way for a unified, multichain NFT marketplace.

Creating a basic ERC-721 NFT collection is straightforward. MintDAO handles the complex parts beyond minting, providing technical expertise and tools needed to add value to these collections through custom utilities and integration into broader ecosystems. A success-fee model aligns MintDAO with clients for a focus on mutual success. Furthermore, MintDAO is currently working on a cross-chain marketplace, once again utilizing General Message Passing for secure and efficient transfer of NFTs and coins across networks. This collaboration has already facilitated over 20,000 secure cross-chain transactions involving NFTs.

GMP enables cross-chain NFTs

Axelar General Message Passing (GMP) stands apart from standard bridges, like the Polygon Bridge, by facilitating not just the transfer but also the interaction of NFTs across multiple blockchains. While traditional bridges merely move assets through a lock-and-mint or burn-and-mint approach, often losing the uniqueness and metadata of NFTs, GMP retains the NFTs on their native chains and synchronizes their state across chains. This is achieved through cross-chain function calls, which essentially bring the program to the asset.

Axelar GMP enables MintDAO’s cross-chain transfers in several ways:

• Cross-chain utilities: NFTs remain on their native chains, while state is synchronized cross-chain to enable seamless interaction with tokens across multiple chains, enhancing utility and accessibility.
• Enhanced liquidity: With Axelar GMP, NFTs are not bound by the limitations of a single chain, thus improving their liquidity as they can be traded on multiple marketplaces.
• Secure coin transfer: GMP's ability to transfer not just data but also fungible tokens renders complex cross-chain transactions secure and efficient, creating one-click user experiences.

General Message Passing has been instrumental in empowering MintDAO's innovative efforts. The collaboration between the two focuses on harnessing GMP's cross-chain capabilities to dismantle barriers between different blockchains in the NFT ecosystem. This synergy has enabled MintDAO to launch NFT collections, such as the Robot NFT collection initially minted on the Ethereum blockchain, that are not confined to a single blockchain but can be accessed and traded across any blockchain connected to Axelar’s network.

Conclusion

As the NFT market continues to evolve and cross-chain capabilities become increasingly significant, the partnership between MintDAO and Axelar stands out as a game-changer. GMP addresses key pain points in the NFT space and sets the foundation for a more connected and fluid ecosystem.

Explore more at MintDAO and Axelar to learn how you can engage with and benefit from the evolving world of cross-chain NFTs.