👉 This standard is an extension of EIP-721. It proposes an additional interface for NFTs to be used as recurring, expirable subscriptions. The interface includes functions to renew and cancel the subscription.
👉 NFTs are commonly used as accounts on decentralized apps or membership passes to communities, events, and more. However, it is currently rare to see NFTs like these that have a finite expiration date. The “permanence” of the blockchain often leads to memberships that have no expiration dates and thus no required recurring payments. However, for many real-world applications, a paid subscription is needed to keep an account or membership valid.
The most prevalent on-chain application that makes use of the renewable subscription model is the Ethereum Name Service (ENS), which utilizes a similar interface to the one proposed below. Each domain can be renewed for a certain period of time, and expires if payments are no longer made. A common interface will make it easier for future projects to develop subscription-based NFTs. In the current Web2 world, it’s hard for a user to see or manage all of their subscriptions in one place. With a common standard for subscriptions, it will be easy for a single application to determine the number of subscriptions a user has, see when they expire, and renew/cancel them as requested.
👉 Additionally, as the prevalence of secondary royalties from NFT trading disappears, creators will need new models for generating recurring income. For NFTs that act as membership or access passes, pivoting to a subscription-based model is one way to provide income and also force issuers to keep providing value.