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In today’s edition:

• I’m ready for this Halloween surprise

• Updated Top 25

• 3 new drops

Links for the Top 25 drops are HERE.

Did you know?

We have a premium pass that gives you access to a directory of every drop we cover, complete with detailed information on how to get on every whitelist (including those underrated ones that aren’t already full).

And for those curatooors out there, you can get free NFTs just by finding drops that end up on the Mint or Watch list.

Lastly, hang with me and the MoS team in a private discord with weekly voice chats. The vibes are great.

Would you like to be featured in Mint or Skip like the above ☝️ ?

I’m ready for this Halloween surprise

Context

Crypto artist Matt Kane is coming off his controversial Contractual Obligations, released for SuperRare’s Rare Pass earlier this month.

Now he’s back with his latest drop in the series: Souvenir Stand.

Here’s what we know:

• Price: 0.0042069 ETH

• Supply: Open edition

• End Date: November 1st, or “until all Act II Seats are filled” (whatever that means).

Our take

Ok let’s review how we got here:

1. SuperRare confirms Matt Kane as the next Rare Pass artist.

2. Matt RT’s with a gif of Andy Kaufman. foreshadowing.

3. The collection, called Contractual Obligations, gets airdropped.

4. Surprisingly, it’s a series of low-effort AI art NFTs. Wtf?

5. Matt jumps on X spaces and explains that he has some beef with SuperRare.

The TLDR is that he felt SuperRare wasn’t living up to expectations as a promoter and curator, so he used Contractual Obligations as a form of performance art protest.

The art is truly low effort and generic, mostly based on images of burning bridges (get it?).

Some people complained. Other artists got mad. After all, people did buy this pass for 17 ETH.

Matt told them to chill out.

He said this wasn’t his first piece of performance art, and besides, it’s only Act 1 – there was more to come.

Act 1, continued

The show took another twist yesterday with Souvenirs, a new collection airdropped to Contractual Obligation holders.

We found out that Matt had been making a list and checking it twice: holders received different art depending on whether they paid royalties, and whether they had diamond handed their original NFT.

(Funny enough, people who didn’t pay royalties received one of the rarer NFTs in the collection.)

This all brings us to Souvenir Stand, an open edition that he calls “Act 1’s intermission”.

It’s a single artwork with a more typical Matt Kane patterned background, displaying the phrase “THE ROADMAP OF THE LIVING ARTIST IS THE LIVING ARTIST”.

And at ~$6, this makes it the cheapest way to get in on the action.

What’s next?

Matt is strongly hinting that Act 2 will start on Halloween:

And coincidentally that’s right before the Souvenir Stand OE ends.

But there are also layers of meta-performance happening here, so who knows.

Bottom line

Some people think Matt Kane is in his villain arc.

Others think he’s cementing his (already strong) legacy even further.

This one’s for anyone who wants to buy a last-minute ticket to the show.

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

LiveArt Exploration Series

A chance to get paid while minting free NFTs?

Fine art platform LiveArt introduces a 5-week free drop series (first week is already live) featuring weekly USDT raffles. The fifth week’s drop requires minting the first four and comes with a chance to win a Grand Prize.

One for the farmers and free drop explorers.

Schema by DRIFT & Jeff Davis

After nearly six months since the last Art Blocks x Pace Gallery collaboration (a prior Top 25 pick, World Flag), we finally have a new release: Schema.

This colorful 300-supply collaboration between Dutch art studio DRIFT and Jeff Davis translates Meadow (one of the studio’s prior art installations) into minimalistic generative art animations that focus on light and color composition.

Check out the project’s Sansa page for a look at the outputs, and click on a piece to see the animation.

FIATpass

Following some lackluster non-fungible releases from Porsche and Mercedes Benz earlier this year, a new contender steps up to the cursed carmaker’s NFT plate: Fiat.

The maker of smol and sturdy (my highschool nickname btw) Italian two-seaters seems to be collaborating with Ethereum L2 Arbitrum for this 3-part release that focuses on providing access to exclusive experiences.

Expectations are low, but I’m hoping for the best.