Using Charged Particles: For ARTISTs

Ben Lakoff

Published in

Charged Particles

7 min readFeb 19, 2021

It’s time to DO MORE with your Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).

Shouldn’t your NFT do more than JUST be a provably scarce digital collectible?

It’s time to demand more functionality from your NFTs.

The Charged Particles Protocol enables any NFT to be “Energized” and transformed into a basket containing other ERC-20 tokens, even other NFTs.

The Energized NFT’s can be used as on-chain savings bonds, asset collateralization, or as gaming items where, for instance, you can have an “on-chain” battle and interest from one Energized NFT can be discharged and won without touching the principal asset.

For ARTISTs, this enables you the ability to deposit ANY token inside your piece of rare digital art (NFT).

The amount deposited can be time-locked inside the NFT, and through an integration with Aave’s aTokens, programmable yield from these DeFi yield-generating assets is just a few clicks away.

The sky is the limit as this technology provides the infrastructure for the future of NFT finance.

How it Works

Our goal with Charged Particles is that when viewing ANY Non-Fungible Token (NFT), the first thing you ask is “Does it have a CHARGE?” Are there tokens inside this NFT.

Charged Particles is a new protocol layer, enabling a new world of NFTs.

We publicly launched on 17-Feb-20 releasing the first decentralized application (DApp) on top of the Charged Particles Protocol, focused on Art/Collectible NFTs.

Users can mint their own NFTs or choose to purchase & energize other Particles created by Charged Particles Users.

Particles can be energized with ANY ERC-20 token (even other NFTs!), but for yield — Aave’s aTokens will be the primary interest-bearing asset available the Charged Particle Protocol. This changes the game for NFTs, giving artists near-infinite flexibility with their Art NFTs.

Yield-bearing aTokens with programmable charge is just one of the many assets that NFTs can hold. Have a number of speculative tokens or your own social tokens? Deposit any/all of them inside a scarce NFT — all possible. Additionally, users can easily deposit tokens / assets into OTHER user’s NFTs.

The NFTs created via Charged Particles are still standard non-custodial NFTs that can be sold on popular marketplaces like Rarible or OpenSea, but you’re enabling them to easily hold other ERC-20 tokens and have programmable interest.

How to use Charged Particles DApp — For artists

First time with NFTs?

The first step ist to understand what NFTs are… and are not. Highly recommended to read OpenSea’s Non-Fungible Bible. It has everything you need to get started.

I actually interviewed Devin Finzer (OpenSea co-founder) on this YouTube video, if you’d prefer to watch a discussion about NFTs. Another great video to watch is the Bankless Interview with Jake Burkhman & Andrew Steinwold.

Next up is getting familiar with Web3 and tools like MetaMask. Once you’re ok with these, then (perhaps) you’re ready to dive in and start creating NFTs.

Minting a NFT with Charged Particles DApp

Website of our DApp: https://app.charged.fi/go

Steps:

Click Login and Login with your Web3 wallet provider of choice (e.g. MetaMask)
After logging in, you can click “Mint Particle”

You should see the above screen.

Next Steps:

Choose File — Right now we recommend smaller files, <10mb. And recommend jpg, png, or gif. We’ll be adding additional support later.

Next steps:

Choose your NFT’s Name, Description and additional properties (optional).
Enable (or not) creator royalties — enabling a % of interest or % of resale value going back to the artist
MINT and create your NFT :)

You’ll have to confirm a few actions in MetaMask to finish this step.

Charged Particles doesn’t charge any fees, but you will be responsible for Ethereum Gas Prices.

Energizing a NFT with Charged Particles DApp

After your NFT is created, you will be able to see it from you “Manage” Page.

You can also see all of your NFTs you’ve created, or own on this page (Manage).

You should see the above screen — looking at the NFT you’ve created on Charged Particles.

As an owner/creator of the NFT, you’re able to:

Set Price
Set Time Lock
Energize
Discharge
Release

Each of these actions is explained below in further detail.

You can also open the “Particle History” and see recent transactions (buy, sell, transfers) of this NFT.

After clicking “Energize”, you’ll see the above screen.

Next Steps:

Choose assets you’d like to deposit into the NFT
Aave aTokens, or ANY token (input contract address, next release)
You’ll have to confirm a few actions in MetaMask.

After NFT has been “Energized” — your NFT now has assets deposited in it and you can see it in your NFTs Smart Wallet (MKR, in the example).

From this screen you’re also able to:

Set Price — Owners of the NFTs can Set Price for these NFTs to make them available for sale, at that price, on the Charged Particles Marketplace. Users can purchase your NFT directly from it’s link even if it is not listed in the Marketplace.
Set Time Lock — Charged Particles allows for you to lock the principal amount deposited into your NFT (time lock). This is available per asset, or for all assets contained by your NFT
Energize — Process of depositing assets to an NFT.
Discharge — The process of collecting the charge from a charged particle
Release — The process of collecting the principal amount from a charged particle.

You can share this link to prospective buyers of your NFTs (on social medias, please make sure to tag @definft too!).

It’s important to note that anybody with the link can energize your NFT — even if they don’t own it. So don’t be alarmed if additional assets show up inside your NFT. You still own the NFT (until it’s sold) and only the NFT owner can Release the assets.

We’ve stripped down many of the features enabled by the Charged Particles Protocol for launch. Additional features to be added:

Ability to deposit ANY Token (paste contract address) — this includes assets outside of the Aave aToken ecosystem. Speculative Tokens, Social Tokens, LP Tokens…. Even other NFTs!
Programmable Interest — Interest generated by the assets in currently is able to be directed back to the artist / creator. In a subsequent update, interest can be directed to additional 3rd party wallets (e.g. a charity of your choice, any other wallet).
Burn to Release — With this function, the NFT needs to be destroyed to reclaim the principal amount that it contains.

We’re shipping updates quickly! Stay Tuned!

Selling a NFT with Charged Particles DApp Marketplace

The NFTs created via Charged Particles are still standard non-custodial NFTs that can be sold on popular marketplaces like Rarible or Opensea, but you’re enabling them to easily hold other ERC-20 tokens and have programmable interest.

You’ll notice that Charged Particles has a Marketplace tab. It’s located here: https://staging.charged.fi/go/market

Curation for the Charged Particles Marketplace is currently selected and curated at the sole discretion of the Charged Particles team.

We reserve the right to curate the content on the platform without explanation. That said, no content which could be considered even remotely offensive to anyone will be considered.

Please let us know in the discord if you have an Artist you’d like to see featured!

We believe in Progressive decentralization of the Platform, and future marketplace listings will be decided by the community.

About Charged Particles

Charged Particles was started in late 2019 in an attempt to combine NFTs and DeFi in a novel way.

Charged Particles allows users to “Do more with their Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).” Offering near-infinite flexibility and creativity within this growing space.

With Charged Particles, any NFT can be transformed into a basket containing other ERC-20 tokens, even other NFTs. The Principal amount can be time-locked inside the NFT, and through an integration with Aave’s aTokens, programmable yield from these DeFi yield-generating assets is just a few clicks away.

Charged Particles is backed by top web3 investors in the space, and the Protocol & DApp go live on MainNet on 17-Feb.