Atomic assets are unique digital items stored on Arweave. Unlike traditional NFTs, the asset data is uploaded together with a smart contract in a single transaction which is inseparable and does not rely on external components.
AO atomic assets follow the token spec designed for exchangeable tokens which can be found here. The creation of an atomic asset happens with these steps:
- The asset process handlers are fetched from Arweave
- Asset fields are replaced with the values submitted by the user
- A new process is spawned, with the tags and asset data included
- A message is sent to the newly created process with an action of 'Eval', which includes the process handlers
- A message is sent to the profile that created the asset in order to add the new asset to its Assets table