An authentic digital asset, or "ADA" for short, is any asset in digital format, such as an image, photo, PDF file, animated GIF, song, video movie, e-book, with an embedded digital barcode and stored on a custom built blockchain. The digital barcode provides a globally unique file identifier and copyright protection tool, while the blockchain platform forces hosted digital assets to remain immutable, irreplaceable, irrevocable and available for validation at all times. The creation of an authentic digital asset is driven by a set of innovative solutions featuring digital chip card technology. When a digital work is distributed through online sales and streaming platforms, the version presented to the audience is often different from the original version created by the author. It affects file dimensions, format, audio richness, bitrate, color, printing, etc. and reduces the overall quality of the published file. Consequently, it devalues authenticity and spoils the image of irreplaceability.

An ADA can refer to a digital box of curiosities (e.g. an unpublished series of photographs, premium pieces of music, etc.), but not necessarily. There certainly must be proof of the authenticity and inalterability of an ADA. An ADA is commonly said to represent data stored on a blockchain, which is a decentralized database, publicly shared and synchronized among the nodes of a computer network, and operates without the need for a central authority. Blockchain ensures that the data stored in it is virtually immutable and properly verified. Regardless of how secure it is, the blockchain is an externally controlled network and is not monitored by the original owner of the ADA. In the event of any problem with the blockchain, the integrity of the ADA would be irreparably compromised, which we must not allow to happen.

It is possible to trace an ADA on its journey from creator to buyer by validating the transaction on the blockchain, which is achieved by directly extracting the information embedded in the ADA itself. It should be noted that ownership of an ADA does not inherently confer copyright or intellectual property rights on the digital asset that the ADA is claimed to represent. An appropriate license for the use, copying, distribution or display of items sold or traded must therefore be associated with any ADA entering the market. When it comes to creating/minting an ADA, it is required that the final product be identical to the author's work as it came out of the workshop, with the addition of embedded information necessary for its veridical identification. An authentic digital asset is not a virtual certificate of ownership of a digital object, but real digital art and an expression of the will and intentions of creative artists, who invest their knowledge, talent and money so that their works are finally valued accordingly.

Here are some of the most prominent hurdles to overcome in order to mint real, unique and self-verifying authentic digital assets. We will analyze the costs of creating and minting an ADA and explain how ADAs relate to blockchain technology.

Most ADA marketplaces will require you to first purchase a specific cryptocurrency before obtaining permission to sell your ADA, including, but not limited to pre-paying blockchain verification fees to offset the computing energy required to process and validate transactions. All in all, the initial investment can reach several thousand dollars, which is a large sum of money for most people. It's not uncommon for costs to outweigh profits, which discourages many talented artists from even considering starting an business with authentic digital assets.

Minting an ADA may not seem that complicated at first glance. However, if we just scratch the surface, we realize that this entire process faces many challenges, from creating ADAs and ensuring their authenticity, to calculating total costs and dealing with volatile and uncertain cryptocurrencies. The most suitable ecosystem for hosting authentic digital assets is a blockchain network. Blockchain is open, multi-user and transparent, with sustainably immutable content that is diverse across the network and available for validation at all times.

Due to the lack of suitable software solutions, the path of least resistance is chosen and the use of inadequate substitutes is insisted upon. Supposedly, to increase the security of the blockchain, as it is commonly interpreted. As a result, the effectiveness of the blockchain technology algorithms used has been drastically reduced due to the fact that they are unnecessarily burdened with numerous, still unsolved issues. Otherwise, blockchain technology can hardly contribute to the popularity of business with authentic digital assets, regardless of how promising it is.

In addition to analyzing the costs of creating and minting an authentic digital asset, we must also be aware of the challenges we will face when verifying an authentic digital asset. It is known that some algorithms designed to perform the verification task can cause enormous energy consumption. It is not the fault of the computers on the network that perform the verification, nor is it the fault of the ADAs that require authentication. The "culprit" lies in the way the algorithms work.

Typically, we need to compute/validate a hash value that starts with leading zeros (this refers to a cryptographic hash representing an encrypted fixed-length value that identifies a given amount of data). The computing program is running inside a loop, which executes a block of statements repeatedly until the specified goal is achieved. This process can take a long time to complete (and take up a lot of computing resources) and is responsible for downtime, bugs, "program-not-responding" errors, which lead to computer overheating and, consequently, to increased power consumption. It is crystal clear that a different, feasible concept must be adopted instead.

An author who has written a book, recorded a song or painted a picture and wants to present his work in some way is advised to make a short promo video in which he would directly address the audience. This video could be accompanied by a series of photos, digitized newspaper clippings, animations, text messages, and the like. Supporting material (promo video + other files) should be incorporated into the digital product in a way that does not violate the integrity of the file and the original structure. Likewise, we should be able to easily extract and use it independently of the file itself. Over time, however, textual data and references may be lost, and the link may become "broken" as the resource moves to a new address or becomes permanently removed, meaning the website is no longer available. If this were to happen, the information stored in the blockchain would lose its relevance, while the blockchain itself would compromise its own credibility.

Digital Chip Card Technology represents a set of innovative solutions that include digital signing, authentication and verification of images, audio and video recordings, PDF documents, animated GIFs and other digital assets that can represent authentic digital assets (ADAs). The flywheel of DCCT is a digital chip card, where the processor and memory units are integrated into a virtual chip and form an integral part of the whole. Once a digital chip card is embedded into an ADA, it remains permanently available to those who purchased the ADA and lasts as long as the ADA itself exists, regardless of external changes that may occur in the meantime. And this is exactly the solution we are striving for.

This is just another problem that stems directly from the fact that all attention is paid to how the blocks are incorporated into the chains, not how the digital assets themselves are created and minted. Accordingly, the production technology seems to be based on the collection of components from essentially unrelated sources, which, brought together in one place, appear to have been made with scissors and duct tape. This is certainly not the best way to approach troubleshooting. As we have already said in one of the previous chapters - a new, more efficient and more competitive approach is needed.

Suppose we have a series of photographs that an artist wants to put up for sale. At the same time, he wants to preserve their authenticity, which means that the versions of the photos presented to the audience must be identical to the original versions created by the author. There must be no changes in image resolution, format, bit depth, color, printing, etc., while the overall quality of the published files must not be reduced by a single bit. The question is how to achieve it and is it possible to achieve it simply and without hassle? Yes, it is, if we call on digital chip card technology to help (again).

First of all, the artist must have the photographs converted into authentic digital assets ("ADAs"). This is accomplished by inserting a digital barcode into each photo individually, which is called "ADA creation". Second, we must ensure that the newly created ADA remains immutable, irreplaceable, irrevocable, and available for validation at all times. This is accomplished by storing the ADA on the blockchain, which is called "ADA minting".

An ADA must be sold either through the official ADA store, or sales can be made through an official channel established by the ADA creator himself, with a blockchain network underlying the online purchase and distribution platform. The embedded digital barcode provides a globally unique file identifier and copyright protection tool for the selected authentic digital asset. What follows is the essence of how digital chip card technology affects the ADA's protection of authenticity and integrity:

• Neither parts of an ADA, nor the ADA as a whole, can be illegally redistributed;
• An ADA is traceble;
• ADA data cannot be compromised;
• ADA data is available for validation at all times.

Any attempt to forge an ADA will be rooted out. Thanks to the digital barcode built into the ADA, we are only a click away from determining whether a digital object is an original and authentic work - or a counterfeit.

A smart contract is a computer program running on a blockchain that is automatically executed upon meeting pre-defined terms and conditions. It relies on a binding agreement between two parties presented in traditional paper or digital form. A smart contract is made up of "if true then [do something] else [do something else]" conditional statements embedded within the transaction file, with outcomes dependent on whether or not predetermined conditions are met and verified. The execution of the smart contract initiates the completion of a transaction and the update of a transaction file represented by a digitally signed block of data, which is then stored on each of the nodes that make up the blockchain network. The transaction file can no longer be reversed, modified, corrupted or misused and is available for download and validation at all times.