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Welcome to the Crypto Art Digest

Crypto Art Digest - Edition 1 of 1

Sunday, March 15th 2020

Hey Crypo Art enthusiasts! Hope everyone is safe and healthy. Welcome to the Crypto Art Digest covering hot takes and updates in the crypto art space each week. Coverage includes SuperRare, Async.art, OpenSea, etc.. all the crypto art platforms. Since this is the first edition, it will include more than the past week.

Bidding Wars

The historical crypto art bidding wars!

Ranked below are the greatest bidding wars and highest sold Crypto Art of all time! (See article at the bottom for details on each sale)

Artsy Artists

The crypto artists we know and love.. the people that make it all possible.

This list is who I’d consider to be the greatest crypto artists in the space so far. This is a subjective view and, disclosure, I do own at least one piece of each artists (as well as many others). The next edition will be specific to art created that week.

  • Coldie - 3D Style and crypto themed art. A staple in the crypto art industry with more than 80 pieces created dating back to having one of the first pieces posted on SuperRare. His Decentral Eyes series on SuperRare includes key influencers to the decntralization movment. #GIFs #3D #MP4
  • Xcopy - Glitchy and staticy feel to his current event driven art that can come across anywhere from funny to controverial. Dates back to being one of the first artists to post on SuperRare. #GIFs #MP4
  • Hackatao - Extremely detailed stencils within characters and colorful surroundings representing themes of human emotion such as love, fear, and sex. They were also one of the first artists to post on SuperRare. #GIFs #MP4
  • Josie - Crypto themed art bringing out life altering stories and the impact of decentralization on current events. She’s unique with her series’ of physical paintings + prints + NFTs that range from themes of togetherness to promote decentralization to NFT scavengar hunts. She creates her own NFTs and lists them directly on OpenSea and more recently participated in Async.art First Supper. Coldie, Xcopy, Hackatao, and Josie were 4 of the 13 artists that participated in the “First supper” on Async.art.
  • JOY - John Orion Young makes his 3D rendered NFTs while he is in VR. Just check out his instagram to see how cool the process of him making art really is, and where you can also see the JOY World he has created. He has dozens of characters with backstorys that are all made using VR tools and are all within the JOY World, which is a world he has created in VR for all the characters he’s made.

MVC’s (Most Valuable Collectors)

These collectors (some say “whales” or “squids”) are the MVPs. On the next newsletter it will be specific to art from that week. This one is a tribute to crypto art history.

  • VK Crypto - The legendary first crypto art whale that made the first large purchases right at the beginning. Respect for being the first major whale to kick things off. He’s known for his tweet to turn down the largest bidding war at that time on one of his pieces and Hackatao made an art piece just for that moment. Hasnt been as active more recently. Anonymous.
  • Sebdcl - Created the Momus Collection which is the largest collection of crypto art pieces to date, over 400 pieces of crypto art on SuperRare alone. Has been there from the very early days alongside VK crypto. Also hasnt been bidding as much recently. I think he is Anonymous.
  • Moderats - Has been and still is placing some of the largest bids on the platform. Most consistent whale to date. Anonymous.
  • Whaleshark - More recently has become the most known crypto art whale. Spreading the love to many artists and no stranger to any of them, with clearly doing research on the classics to the newest releases. You can depend on Whaleshark to have more than one peice of any serious crypto artist. I’d also bet he’s the first to open a crypto art museum, probably in cryptovoxel. He is soon to dethrone the Momus Collection nearing 400 pieces of art.
  • Token Angels - A whale nonetheless, he has bought up several of all the high profile artists. You’ll see him everywhere. Notably holds the 6th largest crypto art purchase of all time… the Banksta Xcopy mentioned above.
  • Blockchainbrett - Yours truly. Long term enthusiast, top trending collector, and notably holds the 4rth largest crypto art purchase of all time… Coldie’s Layer in the “First Supper” Master mentioned above.

Shot out of the Week

Highlighting the Crypto Art MVPs week after week. Our first and well deserve shout out goes too:

Jonathan Perkins is the founder of SuperRare, collector, and leader in the space. He started SuperRare when very few people were in the crypto art scene and it has flourished into the highest volume crypto art platform by far. It’s where everyone knows to get 1 of 1 on chain crypto art with files stored on IPFS, decentralized storage. The platform has become the true stable of crypto art and without his conviction and hard work for the space (and from the SuperRare amazing team!) we for sure would not be where we are at today. Thanks JPerkins! Catch his curating crypto podcast or also bid on the podcasts cover photo

Crypto Art Bidding Wars Will Change Art History

You might be familiar with the art auctions like the famous banksy auctioned at Sotheby’s that had known art collectors and brokers in one room, but have you heard about the CryptoArt bidding wars? These bidding wars are open to anyone, happen online, and with all sorts of auction formats. “Whales” or big spenders have elevated the value of the crypto art industry taking crypto artist from last year selling a 1 of 1 art piece for 100,tonowsellingnewpiecesfor100, to now selling new pieces for10,000+ and some being listed on secondary markets for 50k−50k -150 k. Crypto art platforms take ditial art and tokenize them onto the ethereum blockchain which can then be traded over any platform. Even after the first sale, the royalties for the artist and the platform are baked into the token for secondary sales.

History of legendary bidding wars

  • Celestial Cyber Dimension - Guilherme Twardowski the “cryptokitty” sold for $140k USD (Ethereal) - Event A Cryptokitty sold for $140,000k USD on May, 2018 while in person was won with an online bid. Mike Novogratz, founder of hedge fund Galaxy Digital, participated and was quoted saying, “In 10 years, I think it’s going to be worth millions.”
  • Homer Pepe sold for $40k USD (Rare AF) - Event The “Homer Pepe” from the Rare Pepe collection was auctioned during the Rare Art Festival in January, 2018 in person but paid for with $40,000 worth of Pepe cash.
  • First Supper - 13 Artist’s “Master” sold for $25k USD (Async.art) - Online The “First Super” is the most collaborative and innovative peice of artwork in crypto art to date. It symbolizes the start of the crypto art industry and comes from the genious of Conlan a long time CryptoVoxel verteran rounding together 13 of the top crypto artists to collaborate on the “Master” piece to launch his new Async.art platform. The owner of the “Master” piece now, MetaKovan, had purchased it for $25K USD or 103.4 ETH at the time.
  • First Supper “Decentral Eyes” - Coldie “Layer” sold for $17.5K USD (Async.art) - Online Coldie’s “Layer” piece brings the most influential characters inspiring the crypto art movement including Vitalik Buterin, Edward Snowden, Andreas Antonopoulos into the “First Supper” Master piece on Async.Art. Each “state” of the “Layer” is a part of the Decentral Eyes series of 1 of 1s on SuperRare. The spectatorship of the live auction was a battle between two bidders that marks the craziest and longest bidding war of all time. It was sold to yours truly, blockchainbrett, for the 4th higest crypto art sale of all time $17.5K USD or 77 ETH at the time.
  • CryptoPunk 7804 sold for $15k USD (CryptoPunks) - Online Cryptopunks is a classsic tribute to the crypto art indsutry. Its cofounders Matt Hall and John Watkinson have sprung forward to do traditional art exhibits connecting the physical traditional art with digital crypto art of CryptoPunks. CryptoPunks are arguably the first crypto art ever.
  • Banksta - Xcopy’s Master sold for $15k USD (Async.art) - Online Xcopy’s style of this artwork seems to portray current events of decentralization distrupting banks and crypto being the safe haven. With Xcopy being one of the greatest crypto artists of all time it was a legendary bidding war to be had, and won by Token Angels for $15k USD, or 66 ETH at the time.
  • EthGirl- Trevor Jones sold for $10k USD (Superrare) - Online EthGirl had a legendary bidding war for SuperRare that ended in the largest sale on the platform for the first piece ever listed by Trevor Jones. Moderats was the winner of this piece and it was a well deserved win, for $10k USD or 72.1 ETH at the time.
  • DystoPunk 3D - Coldie x Xcopy sold for $7k USD (Superare) - Online DystoPunk 3D is a collaboration between Coldie and Xcopy, arguably the top two crypto artists today and was listed on Coldies SuperRare account. A very well known collector, Basileus won this in a hectic bidding war for $7k USD, or 41.2 ETH at the time.

Crypto Art Platforms

All of this incredible momentum in the crypto art space has been explosive. It could not have been done without our favorite software platforms that provide the crypto art experiences. Lets talk about some of the most popular ones and how they work.

SuperRare.co

SuperRare is an easy to use and social driven crypto art creator/collector platform.

  • Art type: Only 1 of 1 art pieces
  • Artist access: Each artist is individually vetted and assured to the collectors that they are not copyright infringements
  • Fees and royalties: SuperRare charges a 3% marketplace fee on all sales, paid for by the buyer. They also take a 15% commission on the primary sale, with the rest going to the artist, and 3% royalty on secondary sales. The artist gets a 10% royalty on all secondary sales.
  • Leaderboards: a leaderboard for the top collectors and for the top artists, which gives stats to the game of creating/collecting
  • Activity feed: check all the recent activity in a feed to see recently created, bid on, and accepted bids
  • Notifications: notified when you have been outbid and when you’ve place bids I think SuperRare is the first crypto art platforman and is by far the most feature full and volume dominant in the crypto art marketplace today. You can expect to see your favorite artists on there.

Async.art

Async.art is an innovative and collabortive crypto creator/collector platform.

  • Art Type: Concept of Master pieces and Layer pieces
  • What is a “Master”?: A Master is like the skeleton of a painting that holds the glue of all the pieces within it as well as the ownership of that painting as a whole
  • What is a “Layer”?: A Layer is individual pieces within a Master piece. They come with abilities to change the “state” of the piece within the artwork as a whole. For example, I can change my “Decentral Eyes” Layer from Vitalik Buterin to Edward Snowden. Someone different than the owner of the Master piece can own the Layer and update the Layer whenever they choose.
  • Layer control: Once you own a Layer you can change it within the interface with easy to use dropdowns.
  • Artist access: Each artist is individually vetted and assured to the collectors that they are not copyright infringements
  • Fees and royalties: Async.Art takes a 10% commission on the primary sale, with the rest going to the artist. and 1% royalty on secondary sales. The artist gets a 4% royalty on all secondary sales.
  • In the first week of launch for Async.art they put up over 100kUSDinvolumewhichisanincredibleamount.Overthepast2yearsSuperrarehasdonenearly100k USD in volume which is an incredible amount. Over the past 2 years Superrare has done nearly600k+ USD in volume with most of the volume being skewed towards the last 6 months to a year.**

OpenSea.io

OpenSea is a NFT (NonFungibleToken) marketplace to buy and sell any NFT across any platform. It has given free range for artists that are not assocaited with any crypto art platform in particular to post their work with full control of how their art’s tokens work and what fees/royalties are baked in them for themselves.

  • Art Type: Anything you can put into an NFT
  • Artist access: Anyone can mint crypto art that would display on OpenSea
  • Fees and royalties: the roylaty structure is completely up to the artist when they create the crypto art token. OpenSea will take a 2.5% fee regardless of yours.
  • Other features: OpenSea comes along with a robust notification system, activity feed, leaderboards, etc. However, it is worth noting that it surfaces the entire NFT indsutry, not just crypto art therefore you might go a bit unnoticed in the activity feeds and leaderboards. OpenSea has opened up major doors and freedom for crypto artists to completely control their brand, fee’s and distribution of their work. The bidding features are also extremely robust.

KnownOrigin.io

KnownOrigin is an easy to use crypto art creator/collector platform that has introduced the concept of editions.

  • Art type: Mostly known for its editions. Also supports 1 of 1 art pieces.
  • Artist access: Each artist is individually vetted and assured to the collectors that they are not copyright infringements
  • Fees and royalties: KnownOrigin takes a 15% commission on the primary sale, with the rest going to the artist, and 3% royalty on secondary sales. The artist gets a 5% royalty on all secondary sales.
  • Activity feed: check all the recent activity in a feed to see recently created, bid on, and accepted bids

Look how far we’ve come. Its just the beggining of the Crypto ART Mania! Please reach out if you’d like to contribute any content pieces to the newsletter and if you come across any interesting activity in the space to include in the newsletter.

Yours truly, Blockchainbrett You can DM me on twitter or telegram.

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Published 15 Mar 2020

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