Digital Content Management Using Non-Fungible Tokens and the Interplanetary File System

Abstract

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are digital identifiers containing metadata, such as token number, title, content, and image URL, and are linked to digital assets, which are characterized by the fact that, unlike conventional virtual assets, they have their own unique value and cannot be replaced. NFTs cannot be deleted or forged; therefore, they can be used to authenticate the ownership of digital assets. The metadata of the NFTs are uploaded to the interplanetary file system (IPFS), which is a distributed file system, and converted into unique content identifiers (CIDs) that are stored on the blockchain. Digital content (DC) is divided into multiple pieces; it also has its own unique value and is distributed and stored using the IPFS. This study built an NFT-based IPFS testbed and experimented with the process of generating unique values for DC divided into three groups and sharing them. The results confirmed that each DC had a unique hash value and no duplicates existed.