Is “On Chain” a Really Big Selling Point for NFTs? I’m Gonna Say “No, Absolutely Not.” Here’s Why. | by Jim Dee, OG Web3 Dev & Generative NFT Code Expert | Generative NFT Programming Articles | Jul, 2023

NFTs, Generative NFTs, Permastorage

Storing on-chain is cool and tech-savvy, but it’s expensive and no one cares.

Sometimes when generative NFT clients come to me, they bring preconceived notions of what matters most in generative NFT sets. A few times, they have insisted that everything be “on-chain.” Usually what they mean by this, in a tech sense, is that they want the image literally stored on the ETH blockchain like how the Punks and some other sets are.

“On-chain” has this image of superiority among certain people, as it is sometimes touted by NFT sets as a strong selling point. The implication is that because such NFTs are permanently and unchangeably embedded in the ETH blockchain itself, anything else is completely unreliable in the long run.

I get that thinking, of course. And hey, if I did an on-chain set, I’d probably at least mention this aspect.

But to be honest on-chain storage is way over-hyped compared to what it actually means in the world. It’s expensive (costs a lot to store these images), usually practically limited to lower-res imagery (such as Punks), and really, at the end of the day … aside from the most fervent blockchain purists, it literally doesn’t matter to the marketplace as we know it today.

Good question. Here’s a list of arguably the absolutely most successful generative NFT sets in existence. Let’s have a look at how they store their imagery (and then I’ll add some commentary at the end):