A Referable NFT Scheme

Existing NFTs confront restrictions of one-time incentive and product isolation. Creators cannot obtain benefits once having sold their NFT products due to the lack of relationships across different NFTs, which results in controversial profit sharing. This paper proposes a referable NFT solution to extend the incentive sustainability of NFTs. We construct the referable NFT (rNFT) network to increase exposure and enhance the referring relationship of inclusive items. We introduce the DAG topology to generate directed edges between each pair of NFTs with corresponding weights and labels for advanced usage. We accordingly implement and propose the scheme under Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) standards, indexed in EIP-5521. Further, we provide the mathematical formation to analyze the utility for each rNFT participant. The discussion gives general guidance among multi-dimensional parameters. The solution, as a result, shape the recognition of potential values hidden in isolated NFTs and raise the interest of communities toward the discovery of NFT derivatives. To our knowledge, this is the first study to build a referable NFT network, explicitly showing the virtual connections among NFTs.