DotCanvas: AI Art Creation & NFT Monetization

Overview

DotCanvas is a decentralized marketplace for AI-generated artwork, built on Polkadot Asset Hub's Westend testnet. Artists generate unique images with Stable Diffusion XL Lightning, store them on IPFS, mint them as NFTs, and sell them for DOT — all in one place, without needing to stitch together a separate generation tool and minting flow. The goal is to make AI art creation and monetization accessible to anyone, not just users comfortable with technical tooling.

Architecture

• Smart contracts — an ERC-721 NFT contract and an escrow-based marketplace contract in Solidity, deployed on Polkadot Asset Hub via its EVM compatibility.
• Frontend — a Next.js + Tailwind app connecting to chain through ethers.js.
• AI service — a FastAPI server running Stable Diffusion XL Lightning for image generation.
• Storage — artwork and metadata on IPFS/NFT.Storage for censorship-resistant, permanent storage; ERC-2981 royalties for creators.