GM

No intro today, just me as Johnny Carson.

Links for the Top 25 drops are HERE.

Huge announcement from me

There’s a good chance that, over the last 12 months, I’ve written more about NFT mints than any other human on earth. 

By my count, we’ve covered nearly 1,000 drops in this newsletter since launching, with thousands of others getting discarded before ever hitting send. 

No doubt this will have many corrosive long-term effects on my already deepfried brain, and it’ll be fun to watch those mental ticks emerge in the coming years. 

But this exploration also confirmed two useful things to me:  

1. There’s an insane number of awe-inspiring mints that keep flying under the radar

2. The process of buying these objects remains utterly soulless and boring

And so today, I’m excited to announce something that hits both of these points. 

LIVESTREAM MINTS 

The rumors are true: Your Favorite Author is about to become Your Favorite Livestream Host. 

Starting Monday, I’ll be partnering with select artists to co-release 1/1’s and small editions through livestream mints hosted directly on X and YouTube. 

These will be public spectacles where we’ll have the opportunity to create super memorable experiences for collectors (you) and help creators introduce sacred digital objects. 

It’ll complement the coverage we do in this newsletter given that we don’t cover 1/1s, even though I think it’s one of the more underappreciated parts of the space (more on this later). 

What can you expect specifically?

Live auctions, pop-up limited editions, and onchain spectacles of all shapes and sizes. 

This series is a “first”  

To start, it’s our first venture into directly curating mints, as opposed to just talking about them. I think this is an exciting evolution of the brand, yet one that we must tread with caution and integrity. 

It’s also, as far as I can tell from my cursory searches, the first time a livestream mint series like this will be hosted directly on X/YouTube. 

I’m sure there are some isolated past examples that I’m missing, and forensic internet historians will no doubt be more than happy to let me know about them, but I promise no one has tried it at the depth and scale that we’re envisioning. 

It all begins on Monday

I’ll be hosting my first livestream auction at 3 PM EST on Monday, directly from my X and YouTube accounts. The artist will be revealed in our Monday newsletter (hint: we’ve talked about them recently). 

Full warning, there will be a learning curve to this, which is true of all new things.

However, let thy boy cook.

This will be fun, especially given the magic of a livestream where anything goes. And when it comes to a permissionless global blockchain – a lot can happen.

It’s still very early, so early that I still haven’t come up with a better name than Livestream Mints (Tuesday Night Mints??). 

But my goal is that eventually we can turn this into a weekly cadence, and I think we can get there sooner than you think. 

So I invite all of you Dear Readers to be a Day 1 OG and join me on Monday for a new kind of onchain spectacle. 

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

E30D #10: Fidenza

One of the most famous crypto generative art collections ever gets its umpteenth spotlight in this month’s Glitch Marfa poster.

As usual, accompanying the poster is a month-long physical exhibition at the gallery in Texas and a livestream.

It’s as good an opportunity as any to commemorate Fidenza’s unequivocal and long-lasting influence on the generative art landscape, although the flow fields used in so many generative art projects may already be doing that.

*mint started yesterday but goes on for the entire month or until supplies last.

Sierra by Matt DesLauriers

Renowned generative artist Matt Deslauriers, perhaps best known for Meridians on Art Blocks, will soon release Sierra, a digital + physical piece on Avant Arte.

Sierra, curated from one of the artist’s algorithms, features what looks like a mountain drenched in greens and blues rising in a ruby alpenglow (scientific definition: when the sunset/sunrise makes a mountain look really cool).

It’s one of the most eye-popping Avant Arte prints we’ve seen so far, partially because it forced the platform to rethink its process, resulting in the inclusion of 4 distinct NFTs instead of just 1 like in most of their previous collaborations.

Suffice it to say, it passes the wall test.

Flora Forms

After the success of The Golden Ratio last December, Spanish artist Harto is back with Flora Forms, a collaboration with the Belvedere Museum in Vienna.

The collection, inspired by Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss (the Belvedere holds the world’s largest Klimt collection btw), celebrates Valentine’s Day with 10,000 works featuring colorful flower arrangements alongside blocky generative art structures.

It’s more proof of Ordinals’ growing attention amongst institutions, and it features a rising artist in the ecosystem whose work is easily accessible to a wider audience.

✨ Added to Top 25 ✨