I fell down a rabbit hole last week, and it led to unexpected results. Now would like to take you through that whole fall with me, so you too can learn everything I did as a result.

The Original Trigger

It all started when KnownOrigin announced it was going to shut down soon.

I had minted 2 NFTs there, so I was trying to understand what would happen once the platform was gone.

So, KO is shutting down….What does it actually mean for KO artists and collectors though…

The art is on the blockchain and is gonna exist forever, whether or not KnownOrigin is still around, right?

In the past week, while we were building something, Rick walked me through what was actually happening behind the scenes. So, let me try to explain it to you now.

Behind the Curtains

When you mint your art on KO, its smart contract creates a token (KODA) on the blockchain and sends it to your wallet.

That is the ONLY thing that is on the chain. Everything else beyond this point is not…

So, for example, if you wanna check my KO unsold art KODA token on Etherscan, this is all you see.

Looking at it makes my soul cry for help.

Where is the art name? The artist’s name? The image FFS…

They are in your art files, which are stored on IPFS. And the Koda token links to it. Basically, it points to where you can see what it represents.

Ok…

So now, we need to figure out where it points to, and we’ll see what it is…

Probably just a link to click and go and check those out yeah?... Nope

At this point - honestly, I didn’t even wanna know…

In short, it’s not straightforward - and to a non-techie brain, it makes no sense at all…

But once we could get there what would those art files be?

• Your Art (image, video, gif, music - whatever it is that you created and “minted”)
• Metadata File (title, your name, description, etc.)
• Cover Image/gif (if applicable)

IPFS???

Now, we need to understand what IPFS is and how it works.

Basically, it’s a distributed file storage, and it’s kind of cool (old enough to remember Napster?)

Guess what? It’s decentralized and distributed across a network of nodes.

Fine… so although the art is not on the blockchain, it will still live forever, but on IPFS, right?

Hmmmmm kind of.

Files to remain accessible must be "pinned" by one or more of these nodes. Pinning is the process of keeping a copy of the file available on the network.

So, what happens if a file is not pinned by anyone?

If no one pins the file and it is not frequently accessed, it could eventually disappear from the network.

For NFTs, if the files associated with the tokens are not pinned, the NFT will lose its associated art and metadata. This could lead to broken links or missing content in wallets and marketplaces.

The Future…

So imagine - no more pinning, no more art… and the only thing everyone sees is a KODA token with its unique number and a blockchain registry that x number of days ago it was minted.

Collectors scratching their heads…. Which Koda token was which art…

Artists panicking cause they feel like they lost their “immutable record on the blockchain”…

Damn!

Good news: there are many pinning services and by using them you yourself can pin those files and not worry about when KO goes away or for how much longer they would be pinning those files for you.

Announcement!?

All this was a long story to give you more context before making a “launch announcement” I guess…

And yes I know it feels so counterintuitive to mention it only at the end - and many marketers might not approve… But hey I don’t care…

Welcome SoulKeeper!

What the hell is SoulKeeper?

Well, it’s a tool Rick and I built for all KO artists and collectors.

For it, you don’t have to know any of the tech stuff - all you have to know is your KO wallet address (you don’t even have to connect it to the tool), and it’s very easy to use.

What it basically does is it finds all KnownOrigin art files that your KODA token links to and either you can download those and go and use any pinning service you prefer - or SoulKeeper will help you pin them through Pinata (the one we’re using for my Knownorigin NFTs at the moment). All that wouldn’t take you more than 10-15 minutes.

SoulKeeper is free to use. We genuinely wanted to help artists and collectors to make sure their art stays alive!

Try it out, and let us know what you think. If you know artists and collectors who might need it - please feel free to share it with them too.