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The first 100 works on SuperRare are the predecessors of NFT avatars?

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The road ahead is slow, full of ideals

Original title: "SuperRare』s first 100 tokens: How the era of multiple editions became a source of scarcity today"

Original author: Oliver Scialdone

Original compilation: Sleepy

With the popularity of NFT, more and more artists have joined the upsurge of creating avatar NFT. Famous encryption artists XCOPY, Coldie, and Hackatao have recently released their own avatar NFT series. Since the avatar NFT became popular, more and more people have been discussing the scarcity of single-version, multi-version and series NFT, and the relationship between the scarcity of quantity and value seems to be getting weaker and weaker.

Also recently, the earliest encrypted art works on the SuperRare platform have come into people's sight again, more and more People began to pay attention to the multi-version works on the SuperRare platform, and since the casting of multi-version NFTs was a function only available at the very beginning of SuperRare, later artists could not cast multi-version works, and these works with more editions became the most scarce on the platform of that category.

The author of this article is an interview with the three OG artists Coldie, Hackatao and Paulius by the artist Oliver Scialdone, discussing how to define encrypted artwork The question of scarcity and how the future holds for crypto art.

Coldie is an OG crypto artist, collector, and when he first saw When he saw a work by artist Paulius Uza, he knew it was something he had to collect. It was 2018, a few years before NFT entered the mainstream, and Coldie bought three works for $25 each, namely "New York Marine Park" and "Dreams of Titans". Titan) and Ships. Each painting is both futuristic and classical, using rough brushstrokes and bold colors, depicting desolation and loneliness, as well as hidden optimism. Today, Coldie is listing the three paintings for $500,000.

"Titan Dreams of Titan" Paulius

《Ships》Paulius

< blockquote style="text-align: center;">"New York Marine Park" Paulius

It is reasonable for Coldie to list such a high price. One reason is that the works are indeed of high quality, and the other reason is because these three paintings are among the first 100 works sold on SuperRare. , SuperRare also supports casting multi-edition works. Although now SuperRare can only cast single-version encrypted works of art, and each work is 1/1, but at that time, some of the 100 encrypted works of art were multi-version, some had 3 versions, some had 5 versions or even 7 Version. More recently, collectors have begun to take a keen interest in these earliest minted works, and some people have begun to collect these works before they even know about NFT. The reason for this is the desire to own a history of early crypto art development.

“It’s kind of ironic that a piece of art is even rarer because it’s in multiple editions.”

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In 2018, the crypto art community couldn't be smaller. "There were only 20 or 30 people using SuperRare at the time." Paulius said when talking about the first time he published encrypted artwork on SuperRare. The first 100 works of art in SuperRare were created by 13 artists. In addition to Coldie and Paulius, there are also well-known encryption artists such as Robbie Barrat, XCOPY, and Hackatao. At that time, Paulius was not a professional artist, but just a hobbyist. The key point is that he worked in the financial technology field and had a certain understanding of the blockchain. In his view, NFT solves a difficult problem for digital artists. Before that, how to let buyers understand your work and how to sell your work, these problems cannot be solved for digital artists. However, in 2018, NFT was nothing more than a bold attempt in people's eyes.

《Emoji Waahp》Hackatao

Hackatao is composed of two artists, Nadia Squarci and Sergio Scarlet, with their unique Known for his style and references to art history, society and the metaverse, he is one of the artists with the most published works on SuperRare in 2018. Hackatao has 22 of SuperRare's top 100 entries. Hackatao's "You win or you die" and "Emoji Waahp" are 7 editions of art, but the others are rich in meaning. For example, "Vitalik Buterin says no" pays tribute to the founder of Ethereum, and SuperRare runs on the Ethereum network; "American Child" is quite ironic, in which a boy points a gun at himself head; "Girl Next Door" is also one of the top 100 works of art, which means a lot to them because it's the first work they released on SuperRare, a girl in a different face Wearing sunglasses with a dirty word written on them. “It seems to encourage us to wave goodbye to the old world,” Hackatao said. For them, this piece is very suitable as their “creation piece” at SuperRare, because it has profound meaning and directly conveys it. expressed it.

They were extremely disappointed with Milan Art Fair and the whole traditional art field, and when they saw an article in a technology magazine After reading the blockchain article, they became interested in how this technology could help artists. In the course of their research, they came across another article on crypto art by Jason Bailey, which was, in their words, “a kind of enlightenment.” They quickly contacted the author, who in turn connected them to SuperRare co-founder and CPO Jonathan Perkins.

《Girl Next Door》Hackatao

There are three editions of Dreams of Titan, as well as Ships and another Paulius work, Scavengers of Cairo. Ironically, a work of art is even rarer because it has multiple editions. But this does prove that these NFTs have an amazing historical value. 2018 was just four short years ago, and during these four years, NFT experienced explosive growth. Coldie originally bought Paulius’s work for a low price, but now Coldie is pricing them at 125 ETH, 125 ETH, and 150 ETH, or about $500,000 each. He set this price precisely because he believed that these works were worth such a high price. And for Coldie, they're not just lucrative investments and hidden collectibles, but art that deserves to be admired.

And understand the relevant dynamics.” Hackatao told SuperRare. Like Coldie and Paulius, as early participants, they witnessed the development and change of the crypto art community, although at the beginning there were more artists than collectors, and this is still the case today. Hackatao also pointed out that this technology "brings the distance between art and finance closer... The traditional art market certainly has the intersection of art and finance, but it is usually not as close as the encrypted art market." Due to the centralized nature, this field has found its own foothold without relying on the traditional art market, so many artists and collectors need to understand blockchain basics, operations and financial related knowledge. "Some collectors have already started collecting encrypted art, some are on their way, maybe others are learning about an artist's work, maybe others are learning what a community is and how to join."

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"Proof of Work - Variant 01 - Purple" Coldie

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《ETH SF 2018 1/5》Coldie

When Coldie minted NFT for the first time, he set the "rules" and he would take part of every income to buy Works by other artists. Although many people now collect NFTs, most of them are really interested in how to make money from NFTs. But Coldie said he has observed a very interesting phenomenon, more and more artists have become collectors, which is very important. Artists themselves can identify which artworks are of high quality, and can help those whose work is of high quality but not popular. At the same time, he also hopes that collectors of traditional art can accept the new technology of NFT, because “this will break the pattern where a few people control the entire market. For example, if you can sell it, it’s great, but there are a lot of The artist's work can't be sold. I feel that the pyramid effect is going to show again, and this will hurt a lot of good artists. Many people will say oh I'm not Hackatao, so no one will buy my work. And another It makes me sad that so many artists are denying themselves right now.”

Review of the Top 100 , Hackatao is very interested in the sudden enthusiasm of collectors and artists for early encrypted works of art. They think that the idea that "some people think that these are not the highest level of artists or just newcomer works" is strange. They separate the artistic value and historical value of a work: "In a space that is developing so rapidly, how should we judge that period is more important to artists? Which works will be recognized as their creations?" The most beautiful, most powerful or most important work? I hope people pay more attention to the work and not just the date, but this is also something we need to learn in this fast-moving new world.”

Coldie, Paulius and Hackatao are also looking forward to the future just like crypto art practitioners.

《Capture (The Catch)" Paulius

Paulius said he is looking forward to more in the field of crypto art Diversified works, especially looking forward to the joining of musicians. At the same time, he is also keen to explore blockchain technology and promote its development, and find out how it can continue to help the field of encrypted art. His latest project "Foreverlands" is a strategic art collection game using blockchain technology. In this game, players need to buy game coins to exchange for unique NFTs and put them in their own vaults. The NFT will eventually be transferred to the player, and what rewards the player can get depends on the choices they make in the game. He collaborated with SuperRare, Rarible, Flare Finance and other platforms to curate these artworks, and players also have the opportunity to get some of the most eye-catching encrypted artworks, which is an amazing thing, but the most innovative is the art. Delivery and purchase methods - crypto art is not just an industry, but a strong community, and Paulius has raised the concept of community building to a new level through "Foreverlands".

《Queens +Kings》Hackatao

Similarly, Hackatao's latest project Queens+Kings As technology is part of the art medium, smart contracts are not only a means of verifying the authenticity of artworks, but also a creative tool. This is an avatar project in cooperation with NFT Studios and Sotheby's. The painting style inherits the distinctive features of Hackatao's works and is inspired by the metaverse culture. It aims to provide collectors with an interactive art experience and subvert the "artist creation, collection The traditional model of "Favorites". In traditional avatar projects, character traits are assigned by algorithms and cannot be changed. The first step of "Queens+Kings" is the same, but after that, collectors can split the avatars into parts and combine them according to their favorite appearance. Traits are fungible, meaning collectors can buy and sell them; eventually, NFTs that are unique thanks to smart contracts become even more unique and reflect each individual's distinctive style. As the project develops, Hackatao can also continue to release new features, bringing endless possibilities to the project.

《Decentral Eyes Dogg》Coldie

Once, encryption art was A very niche field; now, with Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg entering, it seems that everyone is casting their own NFT, and mainstream media like CNN are also publishing articles about NFT. So, have NFTs become mainstream as some critics believe? Of course not yet. However, newcomers are now very concerned about the media and the community, and NFT deep players are beginning to be interested in SuperRare’s top 100 artworks. We can see in them what motivates encrypted artists to start creating: the desire for exploration, the future curiosity, and the interweaving of art and technology. Throughout everything that has happened, everything new is constantly growing, changing and developing. The only constant is the thirst for innovation. While it is difficult to define these new things, what is certain is that crypto art is still in its infancy and rapidly emerging. The road ahead is long and full of ideals.