TPCourses24 — History Of NFT Origin

Under the wave of blockchain in 2017, the ERC-20 protocol was widely adopted. At the end of the year, Dieter Shirley, a Canadian, created and released the ERC-721 protocol. Different from the ERC-20 protocol with the homogenous and replaceable features, ERC-721 is also a protocol standard, but it gives token the indivisible, irreplaceable and unique characteristics. Because of that, the first NFT (Non-Fungible Tokens) was created based on this protocol.

CryptoPunks (8-bit pixel-style digital images of human and animal characters) launched by Lara Labs took the lead in applying the ERC-721 protocol, generating 10,000 unique Punk images, and creating the first NFT on the Ethereum blockchain.

Soon after, CryptoKitties also applied the ERC-721 protocol, and its every kitty and generator was unique, which became the most popular NFT project in 2018. The popularity of CryptoKitties caused the congestion and even paralysis of the Ethereum network. However, the CTO of this project was Dieter Shirley, the inventor of the ERC-721 protocol.