Last Friday, the JoyID wallet officially launched the first Spore DOB Marketplace based on the UTXO order book trading model, and the trading of the first DOB asset - Unicorn Box - has been opened.
DOB (Digital Object, Digital Asset) is a cryptocurrency issued by the Spore protocol through the CKB blockchain. The Spore protocol is not entirely the same as the NFT protocols that many people are familiar with, as the DOBs generated by the Spore protocol are not only immutable and fully stored on-chain, but also establish an intrinsic connection between content and value. Specifically, generating a DOB requires acquiring CKB tokens as "raw materials," and the amount of CKB minted determines the size of the storage space for that DOB on-chain, while destroying the DOB allows the retrieval of the occupied CKB. This mechanism ensures that holding Spore DOB is equivalent to occupying CKB, thereby reducing the circulation of CKB within the ecosystem, which will positively impact the secondary market for CKB - as more CKB is occupied, their value is expected to increase. This creates a healthy symbiotic relationship for the creators and holders of Spore DOB and the overall CKB ecosystem.
In today's article, we will provide a detailed introduction to the Spore protocol for creating digital objects on the CKB blockchain and its many innovations.
Origin of the Spore Protocol#
According to the team, the Spore protocol was conceived a year ago, largely inspired by Ordinals. Since Bitcoin does not support smart contracts, there are many things that Ordinals cannot do; from a technical perspective, Ordinals is a very simple protocol, yet many people are interested in it and many are using it. Thus, the Spore team considered how to expand the Ordinals protocol from the perspective of CKB, leading to the creation of the Spore protocol.
The Spore team believes that if Bitcoin supported smart contracts, Ordinals would likely resemble Spore. In other words, if CKB is viewed as an upgraded version of Bitcoin, then Spore is an upgraded version of Ordinals.
Features of the Spore Protocol#
1. Supports various content types, providing more creative space#
Unlike many small image NFTs in the Ethereum ecosystem, the Spore protocol is not limited to static images or offline links; it also supports various content types such as video, audio, and text, giving creators more creative space.
2. All content is on-chain, allowing users to truly own it#
NFTs based on the Ethereum ERC-721 protocol, such as CryptoPunks, store only the imageHash in their smart contracts, while the images are stored on centralized larvalabs.com servers; if the server goes down, those images are lost. Similarly, for Bored Apes (BAYC), its smart contract stores an IPFS address, meaning those images are actually hosted on IPFS. In other words, the vast majority of Ethereum NFTs that people are familiar with have their content stored off-chain, with only a link stored on-chain. In contrast, the content data of DOBs minted through the Spore protocol is completely stored on the CKB blockchain (in Cells).
From a technical perspective, the actual owner of NFTs under the Ethereum ERC-721 protocol is the smart contract, which designates which addresses own which NFTs and grants them operational permissions. In contrast, a DOB minted through the Spore protocol is essentially a Cell (an improved version of UTXO), which is portable and entirely controlled by the user, as Cells can only be unlocked by the user with their private key; smart contracts cannot manipulate these Cells. This is why if there is an issue with the smart contract of an Ethereum NFT, all NFTs could potentially be rug-pulled; whereas on the CKB blockchain or a UTXO model blockchain, only the leakage of the user's private key could lead to asset loss. This difference is fundamentally due to the distinction between account models and UTXO models.
3. Each DOB has CKB as its value support#
Storing any type of asset on the CKB blockchain requires occupying CKB; one CKB token equals one byte of space on-chain. Therefore, if you want to create a 200-byte Spore DOB, you need to purchase 200 CKB to occupy the on-chain space.
This is interesting because the blockchain is inherently an infinite virtual space, yet a limited resource has been created, and the Spore protocol amplifies this point. Each CKB requires a significant amount of electrical resources and computing power from miners; using CKB to mint Spore DOB is akin to using gold extracted from ore to create jewelry. Since the raw material gold itself has value, this piece of jewelry is valuable regardless of its craftsmanship. The underlying value of Spore DOB comes from the CKB it occupies, while the value of CKB derives from the entire blockchain network.
The value of gold jewelry is naturally higher than that of raw gold, so the value of Spore DOB will also naturally exceed the value of the CKB it occupies. If we no longer like this piece of gold jewelry, we can destroy it to reclaim the raw gold; similarly, if you no longer want this DOB, you can destroy it and retrieve the occupied CKB.
This mechanism ensures that holding Spore DOB is equivalent to occupying CKB, thereby reducing the circulation of CKB within the ecosystem, which will positively impact the secondary market for CKB - as more Spore DOBs are created and held, more CKB will be occupied, further reducing its circulation. The decrease in circulation will drive up its price, thereby increasing the value of Spore DOBs that use CKB as "raw materials." The wealth effect from the appreciation of DOBs will attract more people to mint and hold DOBs, ultimately creating a positive feedback loop for CKB.
4. No transaction fees, providing a better user experience and privacy protection#
DOBs minted through the Spore protocol will automatically deposit an additional 1 CKB during minting, so future transactions of the DOB will not require additional gas fees. In a non-congested network, 1 CKB can cover the miner fees for over 7000 on-chain transfers.
Eliminating transaction fees can enhance user experience and make it easier to reach a broader audience. Imagine wanting to gift a CryptoPunk to a friend outside the crypto space; they would first need to learn how to register an Ethereum wallet, understand how to securely store their mnemonic phrase and private key, and then provide you with their wallet address. After receiving the CryptoPunk, if they want to transfer it to someone else, they would need to buy ETH on the market and transfer it to their wallet to send the CryptoPunk, all while learning about gas fees and how to set them. With Spore DOB, you can simply have your friend open joy.id in their mobile browser, follow the prompts to create a JoyID wallet in seconds with just two fingerprint scans, and if they want to transfer the Spore DOB to someone else, they don't need to buy CKB for gas fees or even understand what gas fees are; they just input the recipient's address and scan their fingerprint twice to transfer it, which is very convenient.
No transaction fees also provide better privacy protection. The UTXO model inherently emphasizes privacy, as wallets on UTXO chains automatically change addresses with each use; in contrast, wallets on account model blockchains (like MetaMask) do not automatically change addresses.
Blockchain data is public, and everyone can see it. If you consistently use the same address, all operations are linked to that address, allowing anyone to analyze your behavior. Vitalik once wrote an article about implementing stealth addresses on Ethereum. When user A transfers assets to user B, a temporary one-time stealth address is generated on the blockchain, and user A transfers assets to this stealth address, allowing user B to operate the assets at that address, which only the two parties know belongs to whom; others cannot determine the true owner of that address through on-chain data. While stealth addresses can be implemented on Ethereum, UTXO blockchains have had similar functionality for a long time, so stealth addresses are not an innovation of Ethereum.
Moreover, the stealth address solution on Ethereum is not perfect. Imagine user A sends an NFT to user B's stealth address 1, while user C sends an NFT to user B's stealth address 2. If user B wants to gift these two NFTs to a friend, but neither stealth address has ETH to pay for gas fees, they would have to transfer ETH to those stealth addresses, which would expose their identity. Alternatively, they could use various complex protocols to have someone else pay the gas fees, but that would complicate the process. Thus, the stealth address solution on Ethereum is not flawless.
This can be done perfectly on CKB. Certain wallets on CKB (like Neuron) automatically create multiple addresses and change addresses with each use. If user A owns 100 Spore DOBs, each DOB can be stored in different addresses, and during transfers, since Spore DOBs come with transaction fees, user A can easily transfer these 100 DOBs to others.
5. Contracts are non-upgradable, ensuring DOBs remain unchanged#
NFTs based on the Ethereum ERC-721 protocol often have upgradable contracts, allowing for bug fixes or the addition of new features through multi-signature or other methods.
In contrast, the Spore protocol deployed on the CKB mainnet has non-upgradable contracts. If there is a bug in the contract, the developers cannot do anything about it; a bug is simply a bug, a flaw that is part of that version. If we refer to the deployed Spore protocol as version 1.0, if we want to add more features, we can only deploy a new contract rather than upgrade Spore v1.0. This means there will be many different versions of Spore DOB in the future, some minted through Spore v1.0, others through v2.0... A DOB minted with v1.0 will not suddenly upgrade to v2.0 or have features you dislike added or features you like removed.
With this design, Spore DOB becomes an eternal entity in the digital world of CKB, with all its content data stored on-chain. As long as the CKB chain continues to operate, this DOB will always exist. Additionally, since the Spore contract is non-upgradable, you don't have to worry about the DOB you hold changing; if it was minted through the Spore v1.0 contract, it will always be version 1.0 and will not change. In the real world, a piece of jewelry crafted using a particular technique does not change into the appearance of a new technique just because a new casting method is developed; hence, antiques exist in the real world. Therefore, we can consider Spore DOB as a simulation of the real world.
6. Code reuse, no fear of deletion, greatly facilitating developers#
Issuing NFTs on Ethereum requires redeploying the NFT contract, as Ethereum's smart contracts contain both logic and state, which cannot be separated. Logic represents the rules governing how NFTs can be traded and transferred and what functions they can have; state records which addresses own which NFTs.
For Spore DOB on CKB, logic and state are separated, meaning that when issuing NFTs, there is no need to redeploy the Spore protocol; it can simply reference this protocol standard. Specifically, Cells are referenceable storage units, and CKB serves as a shared library for code and data for smart contracts running on it, making code reuse on CKB easy. This saves time, as developers do not need to repeatedly deploy the same code, and it also saves space on-chain, reducing deployment costs.
Code reuse does not require concern about someone modifying the code stored in the dependent Cells, as Cells are immutable, meaning no one can modify them. Even if the owner of a Cell directly deletes it from CKB, no one will suffer a loss because anyone who has a copy of the code (such as those running full nodes or complex light clients) can redeploy the same code on-chain, and the code hash reference remains valid; we just need to use a new dependent Cell to construct the transaction. For more on this, it is recommended to read the article "CKB, Version Control and Blockchain Evolution" by CKB Chief Architect Jan Xie.
7. Supports Cluster, improving transaction efficiency#
The Spore protocol also introduces the concept of Cluster, which allows multiple DOBs to be packaged into a collection for direct transfer and trading, improving efficiency.
8. Supports contract plugins, offering better scalability#
The Spore protocol has excellent scalability and can support plugins written by other developers for this contract. When calling the Spore contract, the script parameter can specify which Spore contract plugins to use, empowering DOBs to achieve more functions.
Of course, if the Spore protocol and its plugins cannot achieve the desired functionality, developers will need to write and deploy a new DOB minting protocol. CKB is a very flexible blockchain that can implement various protocols and standards.
9. Can freely flow between different UTXO chains#
According to current plans, the Bitcoin layer asset issuance protocol RGB++ will go live at the end of March, at which point DOBs issued on the CKB blockchain can leap to the Bitcoin mainnet through RGB++, becoming digital objects on the Bitcoin chain.
In addition to Bitcoin, DOBs issued on CKB can also become digital objects on other UTXO chains in the future through isomorphic binding technology and Leap operations.
More Playful Aspects of the Spore Protocol#
The aforementioned Cluster concept can help the Spore protocol achieve more playful applications. For example, a mascot DOB can have accessories like glasses, earrings, and necklaces designed for it, and these accessory DOBs can be traded as a Cluster along with the mascot DOB for competitions. In other words, Spore DOBs are like LEGO bricks; we can use different LEGO bricks to create different puzzles, fully engaging the creativity and imagination of the holders.
Additionally, we can innovate on the storage content of Spore DOBs. Imagine if we want to issue an avatar-type DOB; instead of directly storing images on-chain, we could innovatively store only keywords representing avatar features, such as short hair, black eyes, high nose bridge, big mouth, fair skin, male, and then use a certain on-chain or off-chain decoder to decode it. This decoder acts like an artist, drawing the avatar based on these keywords.
The interesting part here is that the keywords written on-chain are immutable, but the decoder can change or evolve. Because the same keywords will yield different avatars when drawn by different AI models, or even different versions of the same AI model. This means that this DOB has the ability to change and evolve, which is very intriguing.
Spore is a very flexible and well-scalable digital object creation protocol, and we believe that through everyone's brainstorming, we can achieve even more innovative applications.
In Conclusion#
CKB Chief Architect Jan Xie once said:
"When we initially designed CKB, we aimed to build a digital world or universe. A world or universe consists of two dimensions: time and space, and PoW is essentially a decentralized clock (for specific discussions, refer to Gregory Trubetskoy's article), a technology that can create time within the digital realm. UTXO, or CKB's Cells, represent space on the chain, where data is stored. By combining PoW and Cells, we can achieve a decentralized universe. In this universe, everything we do is essentially a mapping of our real world."
In this "real virtual world" built on the CKB blockchain, Spore DOB is an on-chain digital object that closely resembles physical items in the real world: its creation requires using raw material CKB, and it can be destroyed to reclaim CKB when no longer desired; it has versions, can remain unchanged like antiques, and can also innovatively possess the ability to change or evolve. The underlying Spore protocol, with its flexibility and scalability, provides more possibilities for DOBs.