GM

Today's edition is intended to be printed out and stored in a dark, humidity-controlled vault for preservation.

Links for the Top 25 drops are HERE.

Is it weird that I want one of these?

Context

Leo Caillard is the artist behind the recent 1/1 Runestone that sold for 8 BTC a few weeks ago. 

That sale was part of the broader Runestone memecoin community, which currently has 78k holders. 

Now Leo is launching a collection of more (loosely related) sculptures with the same logo. 

TLDR on how The Block works: 

• Supply: 1,000 inscriptions, with three rarity tiers

• Price: 0.015 BTC for runestone holders, then 0.02 for the public 

• Launching April 11 on Magic Eden

• You can burn-to-claim physical cubes, making them deflationary

• There’s a single 1/1 for anyone who burns enough rare blocks

Full burn-to-claim menu here. 

Our take

The Runestone brand is only a month old. There’s really no reason I should want a physical sculpture with its logo on it, let alone be willing to pay ~$3,000 to burn the minimum three blocks to claim one. 

But there’s something primal about owning a hard sacred rock. Think of all the utility: you can touch it, rotate it in your hands, look longingly and ponder it. And that’s just off the top of my head!

It’s coded into my DNA and undoubtedly goes back to my ancestors dancing around a fire as a shaman twirls a pretty-looking stone in the air. 

And I’m not the only one.

There’s a long line of physical cubes in crypto: the obsession with tungsten cubes, and more recently, the Bitcoin CENTS collection, which smelted a bunch of pennies into a copper cube – because why not?

You could make the case that there’s something symbolic here as well. Hard rocks sold on a chain with hard money, and all that. 

But it’s also, like, a cube. You either get it, or you’re missing a deeply human desire and I’m sorry. 

(I will say, however, that I still think decorating your home with Bitcoin logos is giga-tacky and I won’t do it even if it hits $1 million)

Bottom line 

This has all the ingredients for a fun mint experience:

• It’s speculative – will you mint a rare?

• Deflationary

• Has a physical element

• A singular, sacred object sits at the top of the food chain

• And it has an existing audience of Runestone holders

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

Based Cards by Javpixel

A small mint for anime enthusiasts and Pepe memelords drops with this collection by Argentinian artist Javier D'Amico, a.k.a. Javpixel.

Continuing the growing art trend on Base, Based Cards is a set of Pepe trading cards with AI-assisted art and a Japanese flair, a style also found in the artist’s other recent drops.

One purely for the art, although we’re still waiting for pricing details.

The Unanswered Question by Auriea Harvey

Virtual and real landscapes collide to form otherworldly murals in this Verse exhibition by artist Auriea Harvey.

She’s created five collages using past work and 3D scans of real-world landmarks and monuments as source material. For example, The Other Side uses a model of Florence’s Gates of Paradise.

For those into 3D modeling and classical art.

Gogonauts

This is an upcoming PFP collection from Rove, a web3 entertainment platform that launched a loyalty rewards app in 2023.

While the art is as 2021-flavored as it gets, the real value prop is its ties to the Rove ecosystem. These haven’t been detailed yet, but we can probably expect the usual (early access to features, partnership opportunities, whitelists, etc).

Being hybrid NFTs, these might appeal to some, as this token type has surged in popularity following the hype around ERC-404 earlier this year.