ICFS: Decentralized Asset Management for Dynamic NFTs

ICFS (Internet Computer File System) is a user-friendly, decentralized platform designed for dynamic NFT creators to securely host and manage their collection metadata. The platform aims to function similarly to Filebase (https://filebase.com/), providing each user with a personalized dashboard where they can easily view, edit, and manage their collections. Within each collection, users have the ability to update individual tokens. The long-term vision is to evolve ICFS into a comprehensive file system within the Internet Computer ecosystem.

Architecture Overview

The ICFS platform is built on a robust architecture consisting of two types of canisters: a management canister and multiple collection canisters.

• Management Canister: This canister serves as the central hub, maintaining a mapping of all registered users (owners) to their respective collections. It also has the capability to create new collection canisters, which are then linked to the user's account.

• Collection Canisters: Each collection is stored within its own dedicated canister, which houses key details such as the collection's name, the blockchain it resides on, the number of tokens, and a list of metadata for each token. Only the collection owner has the authority to edit these details.

Business Model

ICFS plans to adopt a freemium business model, offering users access to basic features for free, while premium tiers will provide expanded storage and advanced functionalities.

Key Features

• Enhanced User Interface: A redesigned interface will offer a more intuitive and enjoyable user experience.
• Mass Metadata Uploads: Users will be able to upload and update metadata for entire collections in bulk.
• Flexible Metadata Management: Support for multiple metadata files per token, allowing easy swaps based on the owner’s preferences.
• Automated Metadata Updates: An automation service that updates metadata dynamically based on external conditions.
• Versatile Authentication: Allow users to log in with email and o-auth for easier accessibility.

ICFS is committed to empowering creators with the tools they need to manage dynamic NFTs efficiently and securely, all within a decentralized framework.

Running the project locally

If you want to test your project locally, you can use the following commands:

# Starts the replica, running in the background
dfx start --background

# Deploys your canisters to the replica and generates your candid interface
dfx deploy

Once the job completes, your application will be available at http://localhost:4943?canisterId={asset_canister_id}.

If you have made changes to your backend canister, you can generate a new candid interface with

npm run generate

at any time. This is recommended before starting the frontend development server, and will be run automatically any time you run dfx deploy.

If you are making frontend changes, you can start a development server with

npm start

Which will start a server at http://localhost:8080, proxying API requests to the replica at port 4943.

Note on frontend environment variables

If you are hosting frontend code somewhere without using DFX, you may need to make one of the following adjustments to ensure your project does not fetch the root key in production:

• setDFX_NETWORK to ic if you are using Webpack
• use your own preferred method to replace process.env.DFX_NETWORK in the autogenerated declarations
  • Setting canisters -> {asset_canister_id} -> declarations -> env_override to a string in dfx.json will replace process.env.DFX_NETWORK with the string in the autogenerated declarations
• Write your own createActor constructor