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Me raising a $19 friends and family seed round:
It's called Mint or Skip. It's an NFT newsletter except it doesn't make you want to instantly claw your eyes out.
In today’s edition:
The Best NFTs of 2023 So Far
The Mint and Watch Lists
Four new drops
Links for the Mint/Watch list drops are HERE.
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The Best NFTs of 2023 So Far
I go through 100s of NFTs per week, every single week. Mostly this means wading through more low-effort honeypots and Fiverrcore nightmare drops than you could ever imagine.
But every now and then, an NFT crosses my desk that gives me a glimmer of hope. My heart fills, my faith rekindles.
“Maybe there’s a future here after all”, I whisper softly as I close the job application I was filling out on indeed.com.
So without further ado, here are my 10 favorite NFT drops so far this year.
The Captainz
Why I like it: Managing expectations while building a hype train is an art, and there aren't many that do it better than Ray, the founder of Memeland.
He has converted belief into a vast world of expensive JPEGs which will soon expand to bitcoin, and perhaps most importantly, culminate in the much anticipated $MEME token.
Bonkler
Why I like it:
Serious Analyst answer: Super unique mint mechanics. Nouns style daily auctions, but with progressive rarity reveals, options for partial refunds, sub-collections for all bidders, and a deflationary supply.
Late-night answer: The most recent auction is for a hamburger head robot holding a Coke bottle as a sword and an American Express card as a shield. I love chaotic nostalgia.
NFL Rivals
Why I like it: First off, they secured an NFL partnership and then actually created a good game with millions of players – that’s already better execution than 99% of the space.
More importantly, their custodial wallet model where players are unknowingly racking up NFTs in the background, and then encouraged to interact with them onchain, is very elegant and feels like a sign of things to come for web3 gaming.
Jack Butcher: Opepen
But Ackchuallly this launched in 2022
Yes, the hall monitors out there will be correct on this technicality.
However, Opepen as we know it today really began in May.
Why I like it: Opepen is the first truly great example of crowdsourced art curation that we’ve seen.
Jack is slowly creating one of the most recognizable logos in the entire space, and we’re still only on drop 10 out of 200.
Fellowship Post Photography
Why I like it: This is the year that AI hit the mainstream. It’s also the year we got into “post-photography”, the new genre of dreamlike AI visuals mimicking real photographs and videos.
Fellowship has led this movement through high-quality curation and by scouting up-and-coming AI artists. This feels like just the beginning, and I’m loving being here as it unfolds in real-time.
.SWOOSH Our Force One
Why I like it: Nike was the first brand to get into NFTs (all the way back in 2019), but this is the year they finally launched their ecosystem (.SWOOSH) in a big way.
In a year when most big brands canceled their web3 initiatives, Nike managed to sell over 100,000 genesis NFTs and has since signed partnerships with Fortnite and EA Games. Props.
OCM Dimensions
Why I like it: The other big story this year has been the rise of Ordinals, or Bitcoin NFTs. In reality, most of these collections have just been low-effort PFPs without lasting cultural value.
But On Chain Monkey Dimensions stands out as the most innovative Bitcoin drop so far.
Highlights include:
Pioneering Recursion and composability (explained here)
First to do a random onchain reveal after mint
First to do compression and p5.js, enabling Bitcoin gen art
High-definition 3D art rendered directly from onchain code
As we said in our first post, this is crypto nerd heaven.
Dookey Dash
Why I like it: Dookie Dash gave us a glimpse of the future: gamified high-stakes events that can also turn into live viewing spectacles.
It culminated in a single legendary reward (a golden key) which ended up selling for $1.6 million.
I think in a few years we’ll find these events breaking the internet routinely, and this was the first great example.
Reddit Gen 3 & 4
Why I like it: Hundreds of artists collectively making millions selling avatars that people then used across one of the most popular social media platforms on the internet. You love to see it.
It doesn’t get hype from the NFT trader community due to light secondary volume, but this was absolutely a big moment for what is now the largest ecosystem in the space.
Deafbeef: Noumenon & Chronophotographs
Why I like it: Time is my favorite blockchain mechanic, and Deafbeef hit this one out of the park.
It’s an audio-visual collection that will continue minting forever (as long as Ethereum is around), with the space between each mint doubling each time (first seconds, eventually millennia), and with the art evolving and sharpening over time.
Try explaining that to your grandparents.
Eric Wall: The Orb
Why I like it: We lost royalties in 2023, but The Orb by Eric Wall laid out another potential path using a Harberger Tax (I explain why it’s cool here).
At one point Eric’s Orb was paying him $1,000/week to answer a single question. And we now have a second Orb from popular thought leader Nic Carter.
Is there a trend coming?
Vera Molnár: Themes and Variations
Why I like it: This one was memorable for two reasons:
The first onchain art drop from Sotheby’s, one of the largest auction houses in the world. This was a huge step forward for adoption.
The artist, Vera Molnar, is a 99-year-old legend who pioneered generative art in a career that stretches back to 1968. A beautiful passing-of-the-baton moment for crypto art.
NOTE: These drops are lightly curated. Our only requirement is that they have recognizable founders. As usual, DYOR. To learn more go here.
Velocity Series: Velocity Pass
Now, I wasn’t going to be too kind on this Red Bull x Bybit art pass, seeing as both of these parties are far removed from the web3 art scene, and the market for art passes (i.e. NFTs that give you preferential access to art drops from notable artists) is utterly oversaturated at this point.
But then the pass’s curator, Art On Internet, revealed Snowfro as one of the four artists dropping an exclusive release via the pass. And he’s joining a couple other notable artists in Rik Oostenbroek (influential 3D artist) and perkwerk (The Harvest anyone?).
The mint started on July 28th, but it’s still open for another ~24 hours from the time of this writing, with almost 90% of the 1,000 passes still available.
✨ Added to Watch List ✨
P.S. Bybit requires KYC and is restricted in the US, but Americanos should still be able to mint using a decentralized wallet like Metamask.
Rainbow Poolboy
We move from corporate vibes to summer jams with the ongoing collaboration between web3 mobile wallet Rainbow and internet radio service/music curator Poolsuite: Rainbow Poolboy.
It’s an audiovisual NFT featuring a cassette player with tunes (chunes for our British brethren) that play directly from your wallet, with additional “cassettes” coming in the future. If you mint using your Rainbow wallet, you’ll also get a special app icon (is this a trend?).
Very on-brand for both parties, as Rainbow’s colors mix well with Poolsuite’s beat selection.
Untitled Drop from DCL Blogger
Is this a new record for the fastest mint delay ever?
Web3 founder, influencer and investor DCL Blogger (you might be familiar with his 2020/2021 content), speedran the NFT Mint Announcement → NFT Mint Delay pipeline by tweeting about a coming mint last night and then announcing a delay less than 8 hours later.
No clue what this might be yet.
The Mint List
Taproot Wizards. OG Bitcoin meme inscribed as ordinals
10KTF PFP. Drop from a team that includes Yuga and Beeple
Project Animus. RTFKT's biggest launch since Clone-X
Shadow Hats. Ordinals drop from the creators of Forgotten Runes
Symbiogenesis. Square Enix's upcoming gaming NFT
Genesis SFT Pass. Digital anime collectibles from a notable team
LUCI: Chapter 5. Follow-up from artist with esteemed collector base
Quasi Dragons. Innovative drop from an Art Blocks veteran
Studies in Color…. Art drop from a pioneer and museum exhibitor
Memeland [TBC]. High-value treasure MVPs minting on BTC
Team
Giancarlo Chaux — @GiancarloChaux
Guillermo Martin — @pikanxiety
Jon Yale — @JonYale
Tell us what you really think
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