What are Secret NFTs?
Secret NFTs are non-fungible tokens that—unlike their ERC-721 cousins—have additional privacy features like private metadata and ownership. This protects collectors by shielding their identity and empowers creators by enabling them to control who can access their work, how, and when.
Creators can leverage Secret NFT’s private metadata to create experiences not possible with non-private NFTs, like embedding secret links to high-quality images and creating game items with hidden abilities.
And with sensitive data encrypted on-chain, Secret NFTs enable a host of real-world applications like digital identity authentication and blockchain-based subscription services.
How privacy unlocks the full potential of NFTs
Right now, NFTs are public. You can go on Etherscan and look up entire collections, view their metadata including links to the artwork, and see what wallet owns each NFT.
This is already a problem for coins and tokens, but even more so for NFTs as they’re non-fungible, i.e. unique. If someone shows off their NFT online, it’s much easier to link their identity to their wallet address.
Public NFTs also raise skepticism: what’s the use of owning an NFT if everyone can view it? How can NFTs empower creators if anyone can access their work?
This is where privacy features make a world of difference.
Privacy for NFTs:
#1 Protects NFT owners and collectors
With private ownership, NFT owners can keep their wallet address secret while still being able to show off their NFT collection. This protects NFT owners from hackers and scammers—especially collectors of high-value NFTs.
#2 Gives creators true ownership of their work
Creators can use Secret NFT’s private metadata to control who can access their work. You can still display your work online, by showing a sample or watermarked version of your work publicly. But you can give only those who paid for the NFT access to the high-fidelity version.
#3 Opens up a world of creative possibilities not found elsewhere
Secret NFT’s privacy features enable you to incorporate real surprise and create the experience you’re looking for. You can create gaming quests with hidden loot boxes, poker games where no one can use chain analysis to gain an advantage, and artworks that reveal themselves over time.
#4 Dramatically expands the use cases of NFTs
With privacy, NFTs can store sensitive data without exposing it on the blockchain, enabling use cases like identity authentication solutions, real estate ownership recorded on-chain, and NFT-based ticketing services.
The use cases Secret NFTs enable
With these benefits, Secret NFTs can realize a host of use cases across a variety of industries. Here’s an overview to give you a taste—but keep in mind that we haven’t explored the true potential of NFTs yet by far:
How Secret NFTs work
Secret Contracts
Secret’s smart contracts encrypt input, output, and state by default, and are the foundation of Secret NFT’s SNIP-721 standard.
The SNIP-721 standard
SNIP-721 is the smart contract standard for Secret NFTs, modeled after Ethereum’s ERC-721 standard. Next to the “regular” NFT properties, Secret NFTs contain the option to make ownership private and an optional private metadata field.
Access control with permits & viewing keys
The encrypted i.e. private data within Secret NFTs can be viewed using permits and viewing keys. These can be created, regenerated, and shared by the owner of the NFT.
Getting your first Secret NFT
Stashh
The first full-stack platform and marketplace that supports Secret NFTs—revolutionary NFTs with private ownership and metadata.
Legendao
The play-to-mint NFT platform, powered by Secret Network, that enables top artists, brands, and NFT creators to launch their NFT projects in a unique, gamified way.
Create your own Secret NFT collection
Want to create your own Secret NFT collection? Reach out to our community to find out what the requirements are and how to get started.