GM

Welcome to the 31 people that joined yesterday.

I’d love nothing more than to keep the WL for our Genesis Pass open forever, but all good things must come to an end.

Last call to register.

In today’s edition:

• What NFTs might look like in a year

• Updated rankings

• New drops

More info on Mint/Watch lists HERE.

NFTs a year from now

NFTs will look very different 12 months from now

At least, that’s what the team at Limitbreak believes, and it’s why they launched a cutting-edge NFT standard this week to accelerate that change.

Quick refresher: Limitbreak is a web3 gaming company that raised $200 million last year to develop Digidaigaku, among other projects.

Now you might ask – well hey, what’s wrong with NFTs today? – as you stand in the living room of a burning, abandoned, building with your limbs lying on the ground in front of you.

Look, I think it’s fair to say that…there’s room for improvement.

Limitbreak says the problems stem from a surprising place: the ERC721 standard.

This is the most common token used for NFTs today. It’s also seen as the gold standard for decentralized ownership: basically if you have an ERC721 token in your wallet, you know it’s 100% yours.

But there is one (maybe big) downside. The token has failed to preserve on-chain royalties.

Royalties are a super controversial topic

Some people say they’re an essential part of NFTs, and others think they’re simply a “nice to have” feature, not something worth making huge sacrifices for.

But now we have some data. Most NFTs now trade on platforms that don’t enforce royalties. And this has led to two things:

1. Creators running out of money faster. This means more bankruptcies, fewer resources to build with, and fewer people willing to take risks.

2. Day trading becoming the meta. This isn’t only due to royalties, but removing those 5-10% fees on every trade meant way more short term flipping and wash trading.

Limitbreak wants to bring royalties back. They think it’s inevitable that big brands will prefer having them, and they also see reasons why collectors will want them too.

And so they’ve introduced a new standard called ERC721-C. The main innovation here is what they call “programmable royalties”.

This lets you do a few things:

1. Basic enforceable royalties. Set your royalties and then whitelist marketplaces that will enforce them. Unlike ERC721, they claim it’s impossible to avoid paying.

2. Minter royalties. NFT creators can share some, or all, of the royalties with the original minters. A huge potential marketing strategy for projects that struggle with the cold-start problem.

3. Transferable royalties. Here the rights to the royalties are themselves transferable. You could even imagine gamified features where someone could “lose” their royalties to another wallet.

Generally, the contract allows for maximum flexibility, which is both good and bad. You could see some really innovative mechanics emerge from this, but you can also imagine some aggressive creators baking draconian restrictions into their tokens.

At the end of the day, collectors will choose how much of that sweet freedom they’re willing to give up. Our guess is Timmy Fortnite isn’t going to be a champion of decentralization, but you never know.

But it’s all just theoretical – for now

There are still no marketplaces that have integrated ERC721-C (though it literally just came out), but allegedly large brands, especially from the gaming world, are interested.

We do think something like this contract will take off sooner than people think – so it’s worth keeping an eye on.

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

Atmospheres by Cory Haber

Generative artist Cory Haber is dropping Atmospheres on Verse this Monday, a 100-supply collection featuring hazy dawn-and-dusk visuals, similar to what we’ve seen in his successful SOL.

The drop marks Verse’s first ranked auction sale (complete with a rebate mechanic) with the highest 100 bids getting a chance to pick their favorite mint from the artist’s algorithm.

Snowfro's Squiggles: The Auction

Ever wish you could roll back time and mint those very first Art Blocks releases from 2020? Well, this might be your chance… kinda.

Erick Calderon a.k.a. Snowfro, creator of Art Blocks and Squiggles, has teamed up with VerticalCrypto Art to sell 10 unminted squiggles in a 24-hour auction next Thursday on the Vertical site.

Although these won’t be sold at 2020 bargain prices, the lucky minters will have a chance to get rare pieces, which can fetch quite the premium.

Squiggles is one of the most recognizable and best-selling generative art collections ever so we’ve…

✨Added to Mint List #10 ✨

Invisibles by IsmaHelio

Spanish generative artist IsmaHelio is making his ArtBlocks debut this June with Invisibles, a 200-supply AB Presents collection.

Isma’s architectural background shines through in the work: line drawing animations morph into abstract, gothic buildings evoking the feeling of an acid trip through the streets of Barcelona.

Dendro by Vebjorn Isaksen

Vebjørn Isaksen, an Oslo-based artist, brings nature to life with his 275-supply collection, Dendro, featuring colorful, growing tree ring animations.

Minting starts August 21st on Art Blocks, priced at 0.08275 ETH.

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. Memories of Digital Data by Tanimoto. Appealing AB Curated.

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

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