Art Blocks - A Trailblazer For Generative Art
Art Blocks - A Trailblazer For Generative Art
With massive hidden potential.
A few days ago one of Tyler Hobb’s Fidenzas was showcased on the iconic Nasdaq tower on Times Square. It was a culmination of the explosive tidal wave of a movement that started when Eric Calderon launched Chromie Squiggle and Artblocks 12,000 years ago (November, 2020).
Artblocks.io is a showcase of what blockchain and the NFT movement has done to a lot of things, but I’m most fascinated about what it has done to time. Going into the Artblocks Discord and scrolling back to the start, it’s extremely telling how fast this has blown up. The early announcements and information on drops have a small community vibe, there’s a lot of passion and curiosity but if you compare to what it looks and sounds like today - it’s reminiscent of a toddler playing with toys. A toddler that went to the Zoltar fortune telling machine with a wish to grow up overnight. Time sure does fly, but never as fast as in the world of Art Blocks.
Just days ago Tyler Hobb’s sold 50 “Golden tokens” for an unseen upcoming NFT collection “Incomplete Control” (a series of 100 pieces) for a total of $7 million. Mr Hobbs wasn’t nobody before Fidenza, but he wasn’t as big as he is now.
Art Blocks has propelled artists and themselves into the stratosphere as the uncontested kings of the NFT fine art/pop art world. Competition is already here and is sure to multiply, as Artblocks is blazing a trail for the slow moving world of art to completely embrace blockchain and NFTs, but the success they have made so far will keep them soaring for a long time.
The mint of the Chromie Squiggle was permanently paused and the last 900 can’t be minted. They are reserved for individuals who help further the goals of the Art Blocks community. Individuals like the ones who are publishing this article about Art Blocks and their enormous impact basically…
Art Blocks is currently built in three different tiers: Curated, Playground and Factory.
Curated is the highest tier. Art Blocks have established a curation board to carefully select projects for their “Curated Collection”. To even buy into these at mint is quite pricey ever since they moved over to the Dutch Auction model.
Playground is for artists that have released a Curated-project to play around with new ideas. Lot’s of experiments here. Some big names and some great projects.
Factory is open for anyone to use as long as you adhere to the tech specs and the ethos of Art Blocks.
Because of the insane speed at which Art Blocks have exploded, Factory feels almost forgotten. If Curated is a guarantee from the Board of Curators, Factory comes without any guarantees - which is a huge opportunity.
In the time warped hype of Squiggles, Fidenzas and the other superstar projects on Curated - Factory projects have been trodding along, going up in price a bit, dropping again and basically been meandering about in the backwoods of the NFT world. The fact that it’s almost impossible to sort the Factory projects in a way that makes sense on Opensea (when will there be a serious competitor to Opensea…?) has also contributed to this largely undiscovered treasure trove being built over time.
If you put in the work, to find and sort the Factory projects, and do your own curation, there are some beautiful finds to be made.
If the Art Blocks Factory project CryptoVenetian is any guide there might be some great deals to be made as well. The CryptoVenetian floor is at the time of writing almost 6 ETH.
When (WEN!?) Coinbase enters this market with their 68 million users, I wouldn’t be shocked if they improve the showcasing of Art Blocks Factory (together with many other projects). That might be everything needed for some of the gems hidden in the backwaters of Opensea to be discovered. Another way would be for Opensea to sort their site out. Let’s see which happens first…
In the meantime the saying “Where responsibility is abandoned, opportunity lurks” has rarely been more clearly manifested. Finders keepers.
We have added several pieces from Art Blocks Factory to our initial DAO collection and we will look to add more pieces as we move ahead.
Art Blocks has in a very short time reinvented the space and opened up a clear avenue for artists of all tiers, acting like a true steward of the arts.
Thanks to their Factory tier, you can enter the market at a modest price point and become a steward of your own budding art collection.
All Art Blocks Factory NFTs showcased in this article are currently owned by Studio TBD DAO.
