Recently, a Spore DOB-0 protocol on Spore GitHub has caught my great interest.
Spore is a universal digital object creation protocol deployed on the CKB blockchain. It supports various content types such as images, links, videos, audio, text, and code (such as Lua scripts and Markdown), and the generated Digital Objects (DOB) are not only tamper-proof but also fully stored on the chain.
The Spore DOB-0 protocol is the first protocol built on top of Spore and is more application-layer oriented, similar to the difference between the HTTP and TCP protocols. According to the description, this Spore DOB-0 protocol aims to create a flexible DNA byte rendering process, in simpler terms, it explains how to parse the DNA of a Spore DOB. Although the content of this protocol is brief, its potential is immeasurable.
Implementation of the Spore DOB-0 Protocol#
The Spore DOB-0 protocol sets a new standard for the "text" content type, which is to store the most important thing of a DOB, the DNA, in a Cell on the CKB blockchain, rather than ordinary text. Then, the on-chain Decoder decodes the DNA based on the Pattern, and finally, the front-end renders and displays the DOB to the user.
Specifically:
- When users forge a DOB, the on-chain contract reads the current block height and Cell ID, and hashes them to obtain the DNA of the DOB.
- The Decoder deployed on the CKB blockchain decodes the DNA according to the Pattern defined by the creator or artist. The Pattern is a sequence of bytes, which can be binary numbers, strings, or any format determined by the Decoder. The creator or artist needs to define and upload the Pattern before users forge the DOB. The Pattern defines which bytes represent what attributes, how to assign values, and specifies the location of the Decoder's code, etc.
- Finally, the front-end (wallet, browser, trading platform, etc.) renders and displays the DOB based on the content decoded by the Decoder.
From the above process, we can see that creators and artists need to create Patterns and Clusters in advance. In the Pattern, creators and artists need to define and assign various attributes of the DOB. Therefore, the Pattern is like a codebook that determines how the Decoder decodes the DNA of the DOB.
It is reported that to reduce the user threshold and facilitate operations, the development team will later release a tool that allows creators and artists to create a Cluster Cell on the chain that already includes the Pattern, just like completing a fill-in-the-blank exercise. A Cluster is similar to the concept of a Collection, but more flexible and independent than a Collection. By creating a Cluster and filling in the corresponding ID in the DOB, users can forge Spore DOBs belonging to that Cluster. Therefore, the Cluster can also be seen as the directory index of Spore DOBs.
For protocol developers, they need to deploy the Decoder contract on the CKB blockchain and make its address public in advance. The Decoder acts as a decipherer or decryptor, and its main responsibility is to decode the information expressed by the DNA string according to the "codebook" (the Pattern mentioned above). As CKB is a permissionless public chain, in the foreseeable future, as more and more DOBs adopt the Spore DOB-0 protocol standard, more and more developers will deploy various Decoders, and even customize Decoders for specific projects, for creators and artists to choose from.
For users, as long as they know the Cluster ID announced by the creator or artist and fill in the ID when forging a DOB, it is very simple and easy to forge a Spore DOB belonging to that Cluster.
Originating from Loot, Beyond Loot#
The inspiration for the Spore DOB-0 protocol comes from Loot. Loot is randomly generated adventurer equipment stored on the Ethereum blockchain. It consists of only a few lines of text, without numbers, images, or anything else intentionally omitted, allowing others to interpret and use them in any way.
Loot includes the attribute pool, which is the Pattern, written in the contract. The Decoder and Pattern are tightly coupled, so one Loot contract can only correspond to one Loot NFT theme. The Spore DOB-0 protocol decouples the Pattern and Decoder, further enhancing composability. The same set of Decoders can be combined with different Patterns to create completely different DOB themes.
Loot only has one dimension in terms of random number generation, which is generating a random number, and then all attribute pools use this random number. When forging a DOB using the Spore DOB-0 protocol, a DNA string is generated, and different attribute pools in the Pattern use specific segments of the DNA as random numbers, expanding the dimension of randomness.
Furthermore, in terms of overall design philosophy, Spore DOBs are more aesthetically pleasing than Loot.
First, forging a DOB requires obtaining CKB tokens as "raw materials", and melting a DOB allows the retrieval of the occupied CKB. This gives DOBs a physical and spiritual existence, as well as the concept of life and death.
Second, the world is composed of time and space, and PoW is essentially a decentralized clock, while a Cell is a space that can store any content type. The combination of PoW and Cell allows the CKB blockchain to build a decentralized universe. In this decentralized universe, when a DOB is born, it hashes the time and space (block height and Cell ID), and the result is its "birth chart" (DNA). Therefore, there is a certain randomness in forging a DOB using the Spore DOB-0 protocol, which echoes the randomness in the birth process of living organisms in real life.
One characteristic of a hash function is collision resistance, which means that changing a single character in the input information will produce a completely different hash value. This ensures that each DOB has a unique DNA, just like the DNA of each living organism in the real world.
The word "Cell" in Chinese means "cell", which stores DNA, the most important information of an organism. By cultivating cells, we can eventually obtain a living organism, which can continue to mate, reproduce, and evolve. DOB forged using the Spore DOB-0 protocol has great flexibility and composability. Users can enrich the content expressed by the DNA according to their preferences and showcase it in the community through various means such as painting, modeling, music, and textual descriptions. They can even integrate AI models on the front-end, allowing DOBs to evolve continuously with the iteration of the AI models.
Spore has many advantages over Loot, such as the ability to transfer DOBs on-chain without transaction fees (miner fees), and each DOB is backed by CKB tokens, etc. It is recommended to read the previous article "Understanding Spore, the Digital Object Creation Protocol on CKB" and refer to the Spore documentation, which will not be further introduced here.
Future Vision of the Spore DOB-0 Protocol#
DeFi Lego blocks have made everyone realize the powerfulness of "composability". Different DeFi protocols are used in combination, layered integration, consolidating and expanding the boundaries and heights of the DeFi world. The Spore DOB-0 protocol separates Pattern, DNA, and Decoder in its design, which brings flexibility and composability, providing unlimited possibilities for future ecological development.
"From one, comes two; from two, comes three; and from three, comes all things." Since the DNA only contains the most important attributes of a DOB and has a high level of abstraction, DOBs forged based on the Spore DOB-0 protocol are the "one", and anyone else can continuously build, improve, enrich, and supplement this "one" and create secondary and tertiary creations based on DOBs. For example, people who like images can feed the decoding result of the DOB DNA to AI drawing tools like Midjourney to generate images in various styles. People who like movies and TV shows can feed the decoding result of the DOB DNA to AI video tools like Sora to recreate the DOB in movies and TV shows. People who like literature can set the DOB as a character in a novel, and so on.
In addition, DOBs forged using the Spore DOB-0 protocol have openness and scalability. Other blockchain projects can reference these DOBs (Cell is a referenceable storage unit). For example, a full-chain game or a GameFi project can directly reference DOBs as the underlying database for character, weapon, equipment, and other item information in the game project. Moreover, the same set of DOBs can be used in different games, breaking the limitation of traditional Web2 games where items, weapons, etc., cannot be used across games.
In conclusion, the openness, flexibility, composability, and scalability of the Spore DOB-0 protocol provide unlimited imagination and possibilities. No one can accurately predict what will happen in the future, but the ecological development based on the Spore DOB-0 protocol is definitely worth looking forward to.