The Merge NFT Explained

The non-fungible token market has, in recent years, made tremendous progress. Novel NFT projects are entering the marketplaces, left and right. Recently, one project dubbed a masterpiece is the Merge NFT by Pak, which has made it to our list of “top five [most expensive NFTs](/news/article/most-expensive-nft sold”).

The project made record sales of more than $91.8 million by selling 312,686 units to 28,983 collectors within two days. But what makes it unique is that these are interactive and dynamic NFTs. They have an unconventional smart contract that gives them the merging power.

We understand that it can be quite a puzzling mechanism. Therefore, this article will explore the curious case of the Merge NFT.

What is the Merge NFT?

It is one of the projects of a highly acclaimed pseudo-anonymous digital art creator Pak. It is a collection of interactive NFTs launched in December 2021 with an open edition sale containing bizarre circle-shaped NFTs representing mass units.

However, these NFTs are unconventional as they can be combined as one. They are programmed so that one wallet address can only have one Merge at a time.

To break it down, if you already own an m(1) and go to buy m(2), both these mass units will be fused into one, making m(3). Their masses will add up, and the circle will expand.

m(1) + m(2) = m(3)

In essence, all the units of this collection are one. So, scarcity increases as tokens are fused into one.

How does ‘the merging’ mechanism work?

The mechanism is quite similar to the burning mechanism. When two masses are merged, the previous one is burned, and a new and bigger unit emerges.

Its mechanism works in two parts. Firstly, when these NFTs are being transferred from one wallet to another, it identifies whether the recipient address has a token or not. If yes, it proceeds with merging the smaller unit into the larger one. Essentially, the smaller token is burnt in this process. Meanwhile, at the back end, it tracks the number of merges.

The second part is for the shape of the new circle. An SVG generator is simply applied to create a circle based on accumulated masses.

What makes this NFT distinctive?

The Merge NFT project is distinctive in various ways. For one, it can be regarded as a single token as all of them can be fused if stored in one wallet. Secondly, it creates scarcity uniquely, that is, the 'true burn' process.

Unlike the usual burning, where 0xdead is used, NFTs are transferred to 0x0 to eliminate them from the smart contract.

The introduced smart contract may have various use cases. For example, play-to-earn games can use the mechanism to upgrade the players’ avatars, weapons, etc. Additionally, it can be used in credit cards to accumulate credit scores.

Bottom line

Though this NFT project may look bizarre, it is fascinating because of its innovative scarcity through which NFTs can be eliminated entirely. The possibility of one collector owning all the tokens as one is quite compelling. And this mechanism has several other use cases as well.