FAQ
What is 4tuna.art?
4tuna.art is the first decentralized on-chain generative art minting platform on Cardano. It uses the $TUNA blockchain for entropy generation, but is not affiliated with it.There is no token for 4tuna.art.
What is the $TUNA blockchain?
miner miner
│ │
┌───────────┐ │ ┌───────────┐ │ ┌───────────┐
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ block │ ▼ │ block │ ▼ │ block │
│ 102 ├─────►│ 103 ├─────►│ 104 │
│ │ │ │ │ (tip) │
│ │ │ │ │ │
└───────────┘ └───────────┘ └───────────┘
The $TUNA chain is a decentralized and permissionless blockchain implements Bitcoin-style PoW within a Cardano smart contract.
Miners submit solutions and compete for production of new blocks of the chain.
What can the $TUNA blockchain be used for?
Randomness is required for many applications like games or randomized art mints. Cardano is deterministic and from within the scope of the smart contract also does not allow access on pseudo-random fields like its block hashes. This makes using randomness very hard. Classic solutions to this problem are:- oracles: often centralized or hard to make manipulation resistant
- commitment schemes (zk): limited use and introduce overhead
The $TUNA blockchain introduces a new option for randomness generation with its proof-of-work mechanism. It works similar to an oracle for which everyone can submit a new value, but it is only accepted if SHA256(SHA256(block_header)) is below a dynamic difficulty boundary.
The difficulty is adjusted regularly to maintain a block time of 10 minutes.
How does minting with 4tuna.art work?
┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐ ┌───────────┐
│ │ │ │ │ │
│ block │ │ block │ │ block │
│ 102 ├─────►│ 103 ├─────►│ 104 │
│ │ │ │ │ (tip) │
│ 1a5b78901 │ │ 233a8a112 │ │ │
└─────┬─────┘ └───────────┘ └─────┬─────┘
take │ │ current
randomness │ │ state
▼ ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ 4tuna.art minting smart contract │
│ │
user ────►│ - takes randomness from $TUNA blocks │
│ - ensures uniqueness │
│ │
└─────┬───────────────────────────────────────────┘
│
│
▼
┌────────────┐
│ │
│ generative │
│ art NFT │
│ │
│ 1a5b78901 │
└────────────┘
What are the advantages of smart-contract based minting?
Permissionless access to the contracts on the blockchain and storing all data on-chain makes sure the art will survive for as long as the blockchain itself exists - possibly forever! Open data and specifications allows 3rd party providers to easily integrate the smart contracts in their products, for example to display the NFTs in their wallets etc.
┌──────────────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐
│ │ │ │
│ │ │ 4tuna.art │
│ ┌──────────────┐ │◄──────┤ website ├───┐
│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ 4tuna.art │ │ └──────────────┘ │ ┌───────────────────┐
│ │ contracts │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ ┌──────────────┐ └───┤ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │◄──────┤ 3rd-party ├───────┤ user │
│ │ │ │ │ website/tool │ │ │
│ └──────────────┘ │ │ │ ┌───┤ │
│ │ └──────────────┘ │ │ │
│ │ │ └───────────────────┘
│ │ │
│ │ permissionless │
│ Cardano │◄─────────────────────────┘
│ blockchain │ access
└──────────────────────┘