GM

I'm eggnogged tf out, but glad to be back.

Links for the Top 25 drops are HERE.

I totally forgot about this hyped drop

Context 

A few days ago Nike’s RTFKT division gave a short update on Project Animus, their much hyped expansion that's been in the works for over a year. 

We got:

1. An estimated mint date (Q1 2024)

2. A sneak peek of the collection (shown above) 

Our take 

Last night, as I was decking the halls with boughs of holly, a single tear gently glided down my cheek. 

I was sent into a state of existential dread while remembering that as soon as the celebrations ended, we’d be entering that dark time of year again: 

Tax Loss Harvest Season 

One final week to lock in those capital losses by mercifully letting go of some of the jpeg clutter I picked up over the course of the year. 

And my trimming strategy this year is simple. I’m just patrolling the hallways of my hidden folder sniffing out any signs of 2021-esque roadmaps that somehow survived the last purge. 

If I learned anything this year, it’s that it’s time to start fresh and move on (there are exceptions of course, but very few). 

This brings us to Project Animus, one of the remnants of that era

Here’s some Mint or Skip lore: Project Animus was actually once the most anticipated mint on our list. 

I mean, at the end of the day this is still a Nike PFP, created by a team they acquired for at least nine figures only two years ago. Surely there’s something up their sleeve? 

But I’ve grown more skeptical since then, partly after seeing multiple high-profile flops this year from similar projects born out of that hype cycle. 

The problem is that the meta has infinitely changed since 2021, but these older projects have way too much narrative and token bloat to reinvent themselves. 

And RTFKT has more of this onchain baggage than almost anyone else, with an overly complex ecosystem that includes clones, eggs, and a million other side-quest collectibles released over the years. 

The only way out seems to be pivoting to a token airdrop as a hail mary, as we’re now seeing across other PFPs, but this is unlikely for RTFKT given Nike’s conservatism as a publicly traded company, so it’s not clear what path they’ll take. 

And this update didn’t really give us any clues

In fact, it was pretty underwhelming.

We went from a well-produced video trailer 14 months ago to a collage tweet of 2D/3D characters, that are totally not Pokemon, hastily arranged in slide deck format. 

The art isn’t bad, but there’s no attempt to delight, no mystery, just a mild distraction from the fact that this is actually an announcement of a delay (Project Animus was originally launching in 2023). 

The only feeling it conveys is quaint nostalgia, as if I’m watching an old-timey silent film in genuine awe at what people once found entertaining, and I just keep repeatedly saying:

~ wow look how far we’ve come ~

So a score of 1/10 on the update. 

But all that said, RTFKT has historically been a very creative and forward-looking studio with access to near-unlimited resources thanks to their parent company, so I’m happy to keep suspending disbelief until we see more.

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

Catalog by Kevin Esherick

Sometimes, you stare at so much generative art that it all starts blending together into a muddle of geometric lines and flow fields, rendering it as trivial as a retail catalog.

So why not just take an actual catalog and make it generative?

That’s just what Kevin Esherick has done with this collection, which takes actual images from Costco’s website and distributes them onchain.

An absurdist piece of market commentary that I can get behind (not sure how this is legal though). I’ll be looking out for the elusive Costco glizzy 1/1.

Norns by Andrew Strauss

This upcoming drop by Andrew Strauss fuses old traditions with modern programming as it reimagines old Norse tales through intricate generative patterns.

I could see these looking real nice on some physicals. Maybe a carpet?

It’s not “The Holidays” with this one, it’s Yule (Norse winter festival I just learned about).

Verse Solos: January - March 2024

Verse, this year’s breakout art platform, wastes no time as they announce their next round of solo exhibitions for Q1 2024.

Solos first dropped last June and were a resounding success, with three out of five of these now ranking in the platform’s all-time top 10 highest-grossing collections.

This next round is looking just as spicy, featuring established names like Harm van den Dorpel, Kjetil Golid, and Sarah Zucker; an fxhash favorite Jacek Markusiewicz; and even a non-crypto-native traditional artist Haroon Mirza.

I’ll probably write more on these later, but for now, a couple have already been…

✨ Added to Top 25 ✨