What is a geo-NFT?

An NFT is a token on a blockchain that points to a piece of media and says who owns it. Most NFTs say nothing about the world outside the chain. A geo-NFT does: it records where it was made, and when.

That is the whole idea behind Beenzer. A photo taken on the shore of a lake is not just a picture; it is a picture of that place at that moment. When you mint a post, Beenzer writes both into the token’s metadata.

What goes into a Beenzer

Every mint uploads the media to Arweave, then a metadata file next to it, with these attributes:

Attribute	What it holds
CREATOR	The wallet that posted it
USERNAME	The creator’s Beenzer username
TYPE	The media type: an image, a video or a sound
SUPPLY	How many editions can ever exist
FLOOR	The price of an edition
DATE, TIME UTC	When it was minted
CITY	The city it was posted from
LATITUDE, LONGITUDE	The point on the map
VISIBILITY	How far away it can be found, or worldwide
MAX LAT … MIN LON	That radius, as a box on the map

A real one

Here is BEENZER #18, minted by @vincent on 16 February 2023. These are its attributes as they sit on Arweave, with the coordinates rounded here to about a kilometre, the post’s own visibility:

{
  "name": "BEENZER #18",
  "description": "🤘",
  "symbol": "BEENZER",
  "attributes": [
    { "trait_type": "USERNAME", "value": "vincent" },
    { "trait_type": "TYPE", "value": "image/png" },
    { "trait_type": "SUPPLY", "value": "1" },
    { "trait_type": "FLOOR", "value": "0.1 SOL" },
    { "trait_type": "DATE", "value": "2023-02-16" },
    { "trait_type": "TIME UTC", "value": "13:41:43" },
    { "trait_type": "CITY", "value": "Savigny" },
    { "trait_type": "LATITUDE", "value": "46.54…" },
    { "trait_type": "LONGITUDE", "value": "6.72…" },
    { "trait_type": "VISIBILITY", "value": "1 km" }
  ]
}

You can check the token yourself on Solscan.

Why the box matters

The visibility radius is not decoration. When you open the map, Beenzer shows you the posts whose visibility box contains where you are, plus the ones set to worldwide. A post with a 1 km radius is something you find by being there. A worldwide one, anyone can see.

So a geo-NFT is two things at once: a record of a place, and a way to leave something in a place for the people who pass by.

What minting costs

Minting turns a post into a token you hold in your wallet, with editions others can collect. It costs a mint fee in SOL, and the app shows it, and where it goes, before you approve anything in Phantom.