The Mesh
The Mesh is a small NFT project that visualizes the social connectivity intrinsic to blockchain data. Each visualization is called a "node," and displays some properties of its owner, such as how many NFTs its owner has (background size and color), and when that owner has similar NFTs to others on The Mesh (shown with connections across tokens). But The Mesh is more than this. It's a fusion of a social network, a DAO and NFT to create a kind of integrated on-chain experience...
See Medium article with extensive background, motivation and details. The Mesh's ERC-721 contract deployed February, 2022.
Features
- Recoverable (100% on chain)
- Summonable [reveal()]
- Composable (SVG)
- Evolvable (dynamic, can change)
- Interactive (owners can call contract)
Nodes are immortal NFTs.
Panoptic tools
From the Medium article: "But crypto is doubly panoptic: The individuals in this panopticon can watch each other without knowing it. We are all under potential mutual observation, all the time."
1. View nodes and stats. Choose a node and this website will summon the NFT and its statistics from The Mesh contract, directly from the chain.
2. Leader board. Click "load leaders" and this website will use functions on the contract to calculate NFT balance and sort into a ranked list. Because we are loading data directly from the contract, this takes about 1 minute or so. The "Projects" column lists the balances for each of 5 historic NFTs The Mesh uses: CryptoKitties, KnownOrigin V2, Cryptovoxels, Avastars, Art Blocks.
3. Try your wallet. Even if you're not an owner on The Mesh, you can calculate your wallet balance that is used to generate your token on chain. This tool will show you this balance, and suggest a node you can view above that might be similar if you owned one. Note: must run "load leaders" above first.
4. Project cross-ownership. This tool uses the contract to calculate ownership trends across different projects. It will reveal a table showing how many of each type of NFT owners have in their wallet, and a tally of which NFT combinations tend to be in the same wallet. Note: must run "load leaders" above first.
Thanks to the amazing and generous Alchemy for web3 API services.
Resources
Project details and contract manual
Visit the full article on Medium here. A very detailed background to this project, along with extensive instructions on using Etherscan to interact with The Mesh:
The Mesh is a small, experimental NFT project that visualizes the social aspects of public blockchain. Everyone sees everyone, and we provably share ownership on tokens and other projects. Because of all this, we find ourselves in something like "social networks" that might live long into the future. Public blockchain and its data reveal our economic behavior, our ownership trends, and the NFT communities to which we belonged. The Mesh is inspired by visualizations of co-ownership that show how blockchain spontaneously generates whole new social communities—especially in the NFT space ... but The Mesh is more than this. It's also a fusion of a social network, a DAO and NFT to create a kind of integrated on-chain experience...
Contract and cheatsheet
Contract: 0x62595...E9A3a2. The Mesh contract on Etherscan, which includes verified code and access to read and write functions. Collectors have access to three write functions on the contract. Below are some screenshots with a description of how to use each. Click here to jump straight to these write functions.
Functions for collector interaction are makePost(), voteCharity() and updateCharity().
makePost() alters the Roman numeral on your piece, and also forces the contract to update the arrangement and colors of every single NFT, including your own. When you visit the Etherscan link above, go to this function and enter your donation, your token (node) number, and what message you'd like to post (0 to 9). Ether value must be between 0.001 and 0.05. This value will be sent to the current charity chosen as a majority vote across all tokens of The Mesh.
voteCharity() will alter the vote on your piece used to determine the community charity. The charity ID has to be one of 0, 1, 2, 3, 5 or 6 (see Medium post for explanation, e.g., 0 = SENS, 1 = Electronic Frontier Foundation, etc.). Enter your node number and the desired charity vote here.
updateCharity() does not require any input, and can be run at any time if the votes across nodes have changed enough that the community has selected a new charity. The charity is chosen based on which charity ID has the highest vote across all 72 tokens. If there is a tie, the contract chooses the lowest ID (e.g., if SENS has the same vote count as EFF, SENS is chosen since its index is 0).
Charitable donations
The Mesh is a charitable project, and proceeds from initial sales went to support UkraineDAO, a web3 initiative to give humanitarian assistance to victims of war in Ukraine. The Mesh donated several times to UkraineDAO, and can be seen on Etherscan in transactions sent to UkraineDAO's verified address (0x633b7...98e9C).
The project also supports other charities when owners interact with the contract. When owners update their piece on The Mesh, they have to send a small donation to the current charity selected by vote on the The Mesh (donation must be between 0.001 to 0.05 ETH). To learn more about the charities and vote process, see the project details above.
Why make this project charitable? Events of the past week make an answer to this question obvious, but it was my original goal to make this project charitable in nature. The ultimate symbol of connectedness and collectivity is a group of people fusing their energy and resources to effect change in the world. Each post on The Mesh does a bit of this. I've also been fascinated by crypto giving, which I've documented before... (more)
OpenSea collection and listings
Click here to visit the OpenSea collection and any listings. Note that a node's metadata is updated every time someone "posts" to The Mesh, and the node viewer above is always updated because it pulls directly from the contract. OpenSea can be updated with the refresh button on each node. Nodes are defined entirely on chain, and this button will force OpenSea to download fresh data from the contract.Community for owners
The Mesh owners can join the gm.xyz group takensxyz, a community for this project and others by Takens Theorem. There is an exclusive-access section of this new social platform, and The Mesh owners can request a layer_two token from Takens for access (see here for details). (Note: This used to be hosted on Snapshot.)Terms and conditions
The Mesh is an experimental project, use at your own risk. Each token is provided as-is and as-available without any and all warranty. By using the contract you accept sole responsibility for any and all transactions involving The Mesh. Like any project of this nature, there may be unforeseen errors or issues that are discovered during the course of deployment and use. These are important caveats, but I hope you like it.
Additional DAO-related terms of service: You may join The Mesh space on Snapshot to vote on proposals. Use of Snapshot to conduct business of The Mesh DAO is experimental, use at your own risk and no assurances or warranties are made of any kind. Note that proposal voting is reserved entirely for owners on The Mesh.