‘When bloom’ : the end of Flowertokens, project archiving, and the end of trading
On the 1st of November 2018 — the day before Metamask implements its breaking change and no longer exposes user accounts by default — the Flowertokens project will enter archive mode.
This means that whilst the image timeline and token information will still be accessible via the web interface, there will be no further updates to the site (i.e. no new photos and no flower stat updates), and all trading will cease. The physical installation will remain in Trust for the next few months, and Flowertoken holders will be able to contact us and arrange a time to collect their flowers.
We have made the decision to end the project for several reasons, primary of which is the aforementioned breaking change to Metamask’s Web3 injection. Flowertokens was a self-initiated, unfunded project that we undertook to try and test the limits of linking ERC721 tokens to physical assets, and an attempt to create the first living crypto-collectible. We have learned a lot from undertaking the project, from developing eco-tech solutions with Web3 to organising and running our first community call, and the response to it from the wider community has been overwhelmingly positive. However, a lot of unpaid work was undertaken by the extended terra0 team during the process, and updating the web interface to be in line with this breaking change is unfortunately something that we cannot do at this moment in time.
A further consideration is the flowers themselves; given that winter is rapidly approaching, they are beginning to wilt and die off as they are annual plants. Caring for the plants in the summer was already quite labour intensive, and as the seasons change, we aren’t able to keep them healthy (as we’re developers, not botanists). In the context of the amount of work that would have to be undertaken to bring the project in line with the new Metamask standards, extending the project for perhaps only another month or two is unfortunately beyond us at this point.
We are planning an event to celebrate the end of the project in a few months — updates regarding that will follow via our twitter account, slack channel, and the Flowertokens Telegram group.
