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Links for the Top 25 drops are HERE.

I will never buy this

OG readers might remember a piece last year called I’m too smooth brain for this. 

The quick context: 

On December 31, 2022, one of the founders of Mathcastles, 113, sent out this tweet:

He then retreated to his volcano lair, making occasional appearances, and dropping clues about this mystery project, before releasing this not-for-sale demo of a new kind of cryptographically hidden art (using ZK proofs).

But apparently, this was just the beginning, and with the clock winding down at the finish line, we got this discord message on December 28, 2023:

This is the next release in a series of multiple works lined up (they confirmed another coming soon called Necropolis), and the first one that’s up for sale.

“Sure you can buy it, but at what cost??”

Angelus is a single unrevealed image with 1024 pixels (32x32). Anyone can buy it from the contract, but to do that you’ll need to reveal its price first. 

This is done by submitting an array of proofs, one for every pixel, with each proof having a value between: 

0 and 21888242871839275222246405745257275088548364400416034343698204186575808495616

We don’t know the price or what the image looks like, but the fact that there is an image and that this is the method for revealing it, is proven to us through the magic of ZK. 

And at this point, O Dearly Beloved, I can already hear some groans from those sitting in the back row. 

Some of you might walk away thinking that this is designed just to be an overly complex treasure hunt. A bat signal calling all codebreakers throughout the land, leaving out normal folk like you and me who didn’t grow up jailbreaking iPhones for fun. 

But that’s not the point (thankfully, because puzzles bore me). 

Angelus isn’t actually meant to be purchased and revealed. It’s technically possible, but would likely take decades or require prohibitively expensive computation. 

Instead, the message is in the abstraction

Take a step back.

There’s a computer program telling you that some art exists.

In fact, it’s proven to be there, with more certainty than a local Parisian tour guide telling you that the Mona Lisa is still hanging in the Louvre. 

You can’t see it, but that doesn’t matter. The interesting stuff is happening at the conceptual level, and it follows a lineage of abstract artists who emphasize the process and subjective experience over any realistic portrayals. 

It’s an entirely new category of abstract art, never possible before, that allows artists to tell stories through partial reveals, time-delayed reveals, puzzle-based reveals, or never-reveals (more in our original post). 

It’s also a clever callback.

Angelus gets its name from The Angelus, a painting by Jean-François Millet (pictured above), which is relevant because its sale price was purposely hidden by the artist out of embarrassment for how cheap it was, and also because it was later found to have multiple hidden layers via X-ray. 

Bottom line 

Creative, technical, prescient. 

There is a magical aura surrounding the new work that Mathcastles is putting out. For now, all of this energy is locked inside this 1-of-1 diamond that will likely never be bought. 

But it’ll soon disperse through other collections, some of which they’ll sell through traditional methods. 

My eggnog-rattled brain is still only functioning at about 40%, but I’ve seen enough to realize it’s time to pay attention again.

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

Rainscapes by tokenfox

Tokenfox, a pseudonymous onchain curator and founder of onchainchecker.xyz, puts on his artist hat for the 64-supply Optimism release Rainscapes.

The dynamic collection features randomized patterns in various color palettes, but details are limited for now.

One for those still standing by emerging generative art.

Untitled Drop by Nullish

Nullish, one of the main characters in the Bitcoin Ordinals art scene, is teasing an upcoming drop (via his locked Twitter account).

Details are cryptic (as usual), but it looks like there are two dates in January to watch, starting with the 11th (the second one is TBD). There’s also a mention of REMNANTS. Will it be one collection? Many? Open to the public?

Despite the lack of details, it’s one to keep an eye on given Nullish’s prominence (his last 1/1 sale three months ago fetched almost half a bitcoin).

CryptoUndeads

Dipping my toes in Solana for the first time here with CryptoUndeads, a PFP that will see its 10,000 supply distributed equally between Solana and Ethereum.

Founded by pseudonymous crypto participant @knownasdollar, the project is focused on building a strong IP (via pixel art?) to attract participants from both chains.

Details on this one are, again, quite scant. While I have my doubts about the value of 10k PFPs in 2024, there are signs that the market still likes them.