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I understand that for instance a picture of an NFT can be saved, and recreated, and the picture itself would be the same as the copy of it.

But what if instead of copying the picture, I copy the base URI in the smart contract of the original NFT? If the picture is for instance stored in a decentralized storage network, like Arweave, and I would copy the base URI pointing at the picture.

I think I would effectively have the same NFT except on the blockchain it could be verified, that chronologically the first minted NFT is the "original".

Is there any other mechanism to prove which one is the "original", or only the minting date?

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Hi developer advocate from Chainstack here.

An NFT is actually a smart contract that keeps the owners' information. Taking BAYC as an example, its address is 0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118a18a936f13d.

On etherscan you can get the owner's information on the read contract tab, there is a function called ownerOf, fill in the tokenId and you can find out who is the token owner.

This is why sometimes blockchains are called "ledgers": it keeps records. When someone claims he owns BAYC, it means his address is stored in "0xbc4ca0eda7647a8ab7c2061c2e118a18a936f13d", and this is what "ownership" of NFT truly means.

Hope that clarifies your doubt, happy coding!

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  • This is not an answer to my question. BAYC is one of the most famous example, but if Alice would create a new NFT, and Bob would create a another NFT pointing to the same URI, meaning having the same metadata, is there any other way to verify which is the original other than minting date. In both smart contract you could verify the ownership, but how would you know which one is the "original"?
    – curiousTrader
    Feb 2 at 9:15
  • If I change my stackexchange username to "Elon Musk". Would you think I am the real one?
    – Wuzhong - Chainstack DevEx
    Feb 2 at 13:23
  • In fact there are many people scammed by fake NFT/tokens. You have a valid point here. I guess the only way is DYOR, find the real one. Uses a renown market place.
    – Wuzhong - Chainstack DevEx
    Feb 2 at 13:26
  • Seems like you misunderstand my question. I believe an answer would be, if I would upload a picture to Arweave, I would include a hash or even my public address into the metadata of the picture. So if in theory two wallets would mint the same NFT (meaning they would have the exact same smart contract, with the same URI pointing to the same picture) at the same time, I would only be able to prove which is the "original", by checking the metadata of the picture. Since timestamp does not provide legitimacy, because they were minted at the same time.
    – curiousTrader
    Feb 2 at 15:24
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    Aha, I see where the miscommunications come from. When you say owning an NFT, do you mean the picture in Arweave? Taking BAYC as an example, any smart contract that points to the URI can claim that they are the real BAYC. Because NFT = picture in Arweave, is this correct? I have a different understanding of NFT though. I think the contract address itself = NFT. Not the picture. What is valuable is your own address stored in the BYAC token address. Anyway having metadata in Arweave is a good idea.
    – Wuzhong - Chainstack DevEx
    Feb 3 at 7:47

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