At the heart of the Ethereum blockchain runs the EVM as a stack-based state machine. Working on a word size of 256 bits, the EVM has specific characteristics (permanent storage, immutable program code ROM, volatile memory) to facilitate a valid state transition on the base of transaction data. In a simplified way, one can say that the EVM (in connection with the consensus layer) is a transaction-based virtual machine that is inherently connected to economic resources through the consumption of gas in the execution of smart contracts. The EVM can be thought of as a world computer where every calculation has its costs. Programs that run on this world computer (smart contracts) are limited in the scope of their calculation and memory by the gas costs.

What technical affordances does a Smart Contract have? With the definition of the token standard ERC-721 in 2017, the authors of the proposal probably unintentionally predetermined the formal technological definition of a work of art "on the blockchain" – a non-fungible token that points to an individual URL.