ERC404, Ethereum’s experiment, generates $87 million in trades

The NFT crypto-hybrid, ERC404, dubbed Ethereum’s experiment, has reportedly generated $87 million in total volume on DEXs, that is, decentralized exchanges. The same figure for NFT marketplaces stands at just below $1 million. The novel token brings together the attributes of fungible tokens and NFTs—non-fungible tokens. The end goal is to enhance liquidity and trading flexibility.

ERC404 has been implemented via Replicants, an NFT collection. Its pieces can be sold on NFT marketplaces like OpenSea or Blur, or on DEX like UniSwap. Interest in Replicant has peaked to the extent that the price has risen from 0.38 ETH to 4.26 ETH. This has taken the collection to the top 15 NFT collections with a diluted value of $88 million.

Since ERC404 is an experimental token standard that Ethereum hosts, it has not yet undergone a full external audit. The two benefits that ERC404 serves are to increase liquidity and flexibility for users to trade. An increase in liquidity serves well for the ecosystem of NFT, considering it has been a typically highly illiquid asset section.

All that said, ERC404 is not completely an ideal technique. It does have certain shortcomings. For instance, selling fungible tokens on a DEX destroys the NFT that is linked to it. A new NFT is created after purchasing a token, but it explodes the volume on decentralized exchanges.

Blur has integrated the experimental token standard. BananaGun and a number of upcoming NFT projects are now also supporting it.

As for the rise in the price of Replicants, one can simply refer to the value of ETH for a better reference about how high it has gone in recent times. One ETH is trading for $2,357.89 at the time of writing this article. That is a jump of 1.53% in the last 24 hours. Moreover, it reflects a surge of 2.865 in the last 7 days and an increase of 5.32% in the last 30 days. ETH has sustained the mark of $2,300 in the last couple of days, overcoming the horror of staying below $2,300 following the approval of Bitcoin ETF applications.

The NFT section remains on strong ground. Farcaster NFTs are reportedly selling for thousands of dollars. Most of it is credited to users’ spending on Farcaster IDs. The highest value, so far, is $7,000 in ETH.

ERC404 remains at the center of bringing together the attributes of non-fungible ERC721 and fungible ERC20. This means ERC721 sets rules for NFTs, while ERC20 sets rules for tokens to abide by. Replicant, via ERC404, holds the qualities of both token standards, which technically set rules for smart contracts to follow.

What sets it apart is the fact that users no longer have to wait to list their NFTs for a user to buy them. Instead, they can move on to a DEX, leverage the platform’s liquidity, and sell the fungible tokens. The only downside is that selling a fungible token on DEX destroys the NFT that is linked to it.