GM

Sometimes we talk about crude Pepe memes.

And other times, like today, we discuss durable onchain hypercastles with invisible 3D structures (but also crude pepe memes).

Welcome to Mint or Skip.

In today’s edition:

• I’m too smooth brain for this…

• The top 25 upcoming NFTs

• 4 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 too smooth brain for this

Context

Late last year, 0x113d, one of the founders of Mathcastles, made a New Year's Resolution to “deliver an undeniable masterpiece to the Ethereum network”.

We hadn’t seen much out of Mathcastles since then.

That is until yesterday, when they revealed zero glimpse sunflower one, a month-long exhibit and tech demo that might jumpstart a new genre of onchain art.

The key innovation is the use of ZK proofs, which lets the artist make provable claims about the underlying artwork without actually revealing it. More info on the mechanics here.

The exhibit itself is not for sale.

However, the founders claim that these mechanics will be used in an upcoming project: the much anticipated follow-up to their hugely popular Terraforms collection from 2021.

zero glimpse sunflower one will evolve over the course of the month, giving us a better understanding of what these new art forms might look like.

Our take

I have a love/hate relationship with Mathcastles Studios.

I love them because they’re gigabrains of the highest order with an almost unmatched vision of the future, who can also back it up with pristine smart contracts and artistic innovations.

But I hate them (I don’t really) because everything they do is dense AF, and it makes it nearly impossible to tell their stories concisely without getting overwhelmed by all the nuance going on in the background.

Take, for example, the tweets by 0x113d, one of the two founders:

How do you translate this?

I even joined a Twitter space with 0x113d last night and can confirm that the man speaks the same way he tweets. Borderline indecipherable, and yet difficult to ignore because you kinda know they’re on to something.

So when I heard them describe their new project as:

I knew I had to bring in the big guns. So I’m not ashamed to say that I turned to the Great Oracle (GPT4) and asked it to “explain this to me as if my brain was literally made of poo”.

Here’s what it said:

Now, why is this cool?

Well you can imagine artists using this in creative ways, like:

Partial reveals, while still proving that the rest exists, letting people’s imagination fill in the blanks (imagine a Swiss cheese layer on top of a painting)

Progressive reveals over time, sparking discussions as assumptions break apart with each new reveal

Selective sharing: a piece of art is put up for sale with only parts of it revealed, but the buyer receives a hash that can reveal the entire painting (to them alone)

Scavenger hunts and other puzzles: people could work together to reveal the art through scattered cryptographic clues

These are just some very early examples that come to mind.

But if you listen to 0x113, he refers to this as a much more profound shift that will become far more common in the next few years, which implies deeper use cases than the ones I’m thinking of.

Bottom line

The upcoming Mathcastles project sounds like it’s going to be high-minded, extremely technical, fully onchain and with a sort of predictive power that only gets fully appreciated in hindsight.

For most people, it’ll likely just go over their heads.

But if you liked Terraforms, and many people do, then it might not get more “up your alley” than this.

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

Pumpkin Spice Latte Stamp

Put on your Uggs and yoga pants, it’s minting time!

…is sort of what I was saying seven months ago before the first Starbucks paid mint. While I wasn’t wrong per se, the mood around the project has changed since then, partly due to the contrast between the high frequency of mints and the lack of expansion of the program (still in US-only beta).

However, it is still the case that stamps like this 4-day open edition minting today give you real-world benefits, and this one even comes with a burn mechanic that can earn you extra loyalty points.

Notable Pepes Series 4 Kickoff

Given their weekend release schedule, I haven’t been able to cover a Notable Pepes drop since the very first one almost eight months ago. That changes now.

Notable Pepes Series 4 introduces a few notable changes to the mechanics:

• Drops now start on Fridays instead of Sundays

• Convoluted allowlists are gone – only one mint phase per drop, accessible to all Pepe Checks holders.

• Some drops will require burning Pepe Checks to mint

These changes could reignite interest for this ode to the beloved internet frog, so I’ve…

✨ Added to Top 25 ✨

Courtyard × Collect-A-Con

A week after selling out their biggest drop yet in a matter of minutes, collectibles marketplace Courtyard goes physical at Collect-A-Con in Denver.

It’s an exclusive NFT drop for event attendees, but they may be accessible via secondary markets should any buyers decide to list their packs.

Something spooky is teased for later this month as well 👀

LORE by John Provencher

Retro pixel art and dark fantasy lovers, this one’s for you.

Foundation’s Forever Projects will soon host LORE by New York artist John Provencher, who’s previously dropped on platforms like Art Blocks and Verse.

The art is almost nerd bait level, appealing to fans of old pixelated video games and those into the aesthetic, elevated by the fact that it has been captured from screenshots taken on a Mac G3, a 25-year-old machine.

Hook, line and sinker – it’s got my attention.

✨ Added to Top 25 ✨