GM

Welcome to the 18 people that joined yesterday.

One last update on our drop, then back to our regularly scheduled broadcast:

The mint is live HERE and now open to Wave 3, with a public sale at 6PM PT if needed.

Free NFT winners will be able to claim their pass from the same page after the mint ends. We’ll post the exact time on our official Twitter.

Can't tell you how excited I am about everything we have planned for the next 12 months.

To everyone who mints, see you in the discord soon.

In today’s edition:

• My favorite kind of NFT

• NFT rankings

• 4 new drops

More info on Mint/Watch lists HERE.

My favorite kind of NFT

From time to time, Dear Readers, I am approached by young and ambitious founders asking for guidance on how to craft their upcoming NFT projects.

First, they’ll try to sweet-talk your Beloved Author with promises of WL spots, free NFTs, or the occasional small bag of ETH. I have so far declined any form of paid advising, but occasionally do offer assistance when time permits and the idea is intriguing enough.

And so I’m often asked what I think an interesting “mechanic” might be for an NFT. What is something with massive potential that is so far still unexplored?

The answer I always give…

Time.

Most of my favorite all-time NFTs have something to do with time.

And think about it, everything we do on a blockchain relates to time. Every transaction has a time stamp, every block is spaced out by a fixed passage of time, and we can time travel back to any historical moment stretching back to the beginning of a given chain.

So far you wouldn’t realize this by looking at NFTs. Honestly, we lost about 1-2 years of creative experimentation because of the static 10k pfp meta.

But there are some great examples of what we might see in the future:

Nouns

It’s very popular nowadays to say that NFTs are dead, and yet Nouns continue to auction for ~25 eth daily. That’s Every Single Day.

Nouns launched with an unlimited series of daily auctions, which goes against all the “scarcity mindset” stuff that many NFT collectors seem to love.

But consider that it takes over 27 years to reach the same 10k NFTs that are popular across the entire space, and then you start thinking about “max supply” a little differently.

Chronophotographs

The popular on-chain artist 0xdeafbeef set up a mechanic where a visual object gets “photographed” with a blockchain tx and then minted. The time between mints doubles each time, from seconds to eventually millennia.

Imagine, eventually, the weight and intensity of a single NFT mint knowing the next one won’t drop for another decade.

Prometheans

This was a project that we launched ourselves last year. The idea was to have a 15-minute timer reset every time someone minted an NFT. If the countdown ever dropped to 0, the mint would end. Also, the rarity of your NFT was determined by the time you minted it (the lower the timer, the rarer the art).

It ended up lasting several months and was minted 55,000 times around the clock, with no element of speculation whatsoever. Wild.

Sequels

Well-known photographer Joel Meyerowitz is also using a long-term auction mechanic: one photograph minted every day for 10 years.

Given that you can set any duration automatically via smart contracts, and that this can continue running as long as Ethereum exists, it’s interesting to consider the concept of artists launching projects that can outlive them.

Almost how we often get previously-unreleased music from deceased artists like Tupac or Elvis – except on a schedule set by the artists themselves.

Gazers by Matt Kane

A collector’s favorite – this is a dynamic art project that changes over time according to the moon cycles. Colors, layers, and viewing mechanics all change daily at midnight, as well as a continuously faster frame rate to keep up with improving technology in our world.

As Matt Kane states:

This is all just scratching the surface

Time is going to be one of those features that really blows people’s minds in the coming years, especially those that are new to the medium. They’re also perfect ways to create “event-like” experiences around NFTs that can last much longer than a single, one-off drop.

Perfect for continuously capturing attention.

So now as we move beyond the stone age period of NFTs, which were mostly static and direct copies of traditional physical collectibles, expect to see things get much weirder, much cooler, and demand people to be…more patient.

Ok – you’re a real one if you’re still with me after all that abstract pontification. Now let’s get into some new drops.

NOTE: These drops are lightly curated. Our only requirement is that they have recognizable founders. As usual, DYOR. To learn more go here.

Checks Elements by Jack Butcher

The artwork may or may not be notable, but it’s certainly good enough for Christie’s.

You've likely heard of Checks by Jack Butcher, the burnable editions that took the market by storm earlier this year with their minimalist style and commentary on social media identity.

After many ups and downs, here we are 4 months later with Checks Elements, a 152-piece collection derived from the original, themed around the 4 elements.

Mint starts today with a 7-day auction at Christie’s for 3 of the rarest pieces followed by a public auction on the 24th of May for the remaining 149 pieces.

✨ Added to Watch List ✨

It is what it is by Marcel Schwittlick

German generative artist Marcel Schwittlick blends analog and digital in his upcoming Foundation collection, It is what it is.

He plans to sell 100 luminograms for 0.25 ETH each around May 24th. Collectors are being encouraged to request allowlist inclusion.

Go to the artist’s website for information on this experiment.

Assassin's Creed Smart Collectibles

California’s Integral Reality Labs has partnered with videogame giant Ubisoft and the Assassin’s Creed franchise for their upcoming release, “Smart Collectibles”.

These collectibles combine physical items with a digital soul: once minted, the physical counterpart is shipped to the customer.

There are 2 components to this drop: (1) the first batch of Assassin’s Creed digital souls and (2) a 1,500 supply Pieces of Eden Pass. The latter offers various collector benefits, including a limited edition digital soul.

Ides of March by Andrew Strauss and p4stoboy

Andrew Strauss and p4stoboy are combining their styles for their upcoming gmDAO release.

Details are limited: launch is expected “in a couple of weeks”. If you liked p4stoboy’s first gmDAO release, Plasticity, this may be up your alley.

THE MINT LIST

1. Nike Our Force 1. Digital shoe drop from the global consumer brand.

2. Project Animus. RTFKT's biggest launch since Clone-X.

3. FewoWorld. New PFP by Fewocious, a rising star in the art world.

4. Symbiogenesis. Square Enix's upcoming gaming NFT.

5. 10KFT PFP. Drop from a team that includes Yuga and Beeple.

6. Ether. Anime PFP collection by viii, an artist with a cult following.

7. BIG INC. New free mint from the goblintown team.

8. Dimensionals - EVE. Free gaming PFP from doxxed studio.

9. Squiggles. Limited auction of the OG gen art collection.

10. Garbage Friends. New PFP from the creator of Invisible Friends.