Primer: People have an innate need to express their individuality. One way to express that is through generative art on the blockchain. Generative art is art that is produced by software algorithms. In this episode, Erick "Snowfro", the founder of Art Blocks, shares how his platform could be used to produce generative art.
Who is Erick "Snowfro"?
Born in Mexico City, lived in Houston
Studied international business
Started a company in the design industry in Houston, then started Art Blocks
Had a sudden urge to buy Bitcoin. Initially thought Ethereum is a scam
Likely due to political turmoil happening
As a father, felt helpless and things are happening out of control
Had an epiphany that the transparency of Bitcoin and Ethereum will be here to stay
Thoughts on different NFTs
Crypto punks
Realized that while playing a game, you can own a character through NFT
Crypto punks came along and anyone can claim it for free, with up to 10,000 minted ever
"Crypto punks has created the digital Lamborghini, and it created the digital Lamborghini in 2020. But it was a project created in 2017. Like there's no comparison there in terms of like the impact that it has had on the ecosystem."
- Erick "Snowfro"
Claiming crypto punks NFT is an important moment in his crypto journey
Value wasn't in his mind at that point - he just really loved the generative technology of crypto punks
Felt foolish spending $35 on gas for claiming it
Was the first to really penetrate the market for NFT
"But money didn't cross my mind at all. In fact, I spent $35 on gas and felt foolish for spending $35 on gas claiming them right. So it was just about how insane the proposition of what was happening was and it transformed everything from then forward."
- Erick "Snowfro"
Crypto Kitties
Crypto kitties came along next in 2017
First taste of profit in the Ethereum space other than trading cryptocurrencies
Is a validation of what crypto punks represent
Incredible validation for what he was working in Art Blocks
When you initiate a transaction, it generates a transaction and the art (in ASCII form) is in the smart contract itself
Epic moment in generative art that is algorithmic but not computer coded.
Generative art
Essentially an algorithm generating an output
Run the algorithm a few times to get several outputs, choose the ones you like, then go back to tweak the algorithm until you get a visually compelling output that you like
Need not have to be using computer scripts
Artists in the traditional world also use techniques to create a type of generative art form. Even children are one of the most complex generative equations that ever existed
"I do think that individuality strikes a chord in people, and generative art enables it to happen without extra effort on the part of the producer."
- Erick "Snowfro"
Generative art is going to be more prominent because as society gets more digital, we want to feel a bit unique - we want to each have a poster that is of the same theme but slightly different and to be the only one in the world that owns it
All these can be done without extra effort on the part of the producer
Art blocks
Art Blocks is a generative art platform that allows collectors to mint tokens without knowing what they will get ahead of time. The artist writes a code that is plugged into the platform, which will generate different combinations of the variables at random.
Initially wanted to create a blockchain with Dart (Decentralised art) tokens for Art Blocks but after attending coin fest 2018 and learnt about Ethereum smart contracts, he started rewriting Art blocks into the Ethereum ecosystem on the flight back
Started Art Blocks when he reflected upon why he has the privilege of claiming so many crypto punk zombies. Wanted an ape or an alien - felt jealous that someone got there ahead of him
Also wondered what makes him have the privilege of picking one of the crypto punks. These experiences make him create Art Blocks conceptually as a lottery for generative art, where if there's going to be any item rarer than others, you make it more equitable by letting the blockchain decide who gets the rare one instead of letting selfish people like him claim all the rare ones
Thinks that out of so many use cases in blockchains, only about 10% are really functional with good reasons to do so, like the concept of NFT, DeFi applications, OpenSea marketplace
Believes Art Block is one of them
Have 3 sections in Art Blocks: Curated, Playground and Factory
Curated
For the best of the best. Over time, will be harder to be allowed in
Playground
For artists that have been previously curated within the last 6 months, without having to wait and go through the whole curated process again
Factory
To let artists who are on the waiting list (nearly 4 years) to list out their art on the platform, skipping the curation process
"But to me, these people that reached out early on, that expressed interest and fascination for what I was doing from very, very, very beginning, I wanted them to be on this team. And while I felt very comfortable, being able to direct message them and ask him for, you know, ask him questions and whatever. It felt very different, having them onboard and having a vested interest in the platform."
- Erick "Snowfro"
Turned profitable while growing organically without investors
'Forced' to raise funds by genuine investors who are interested in the platform, but did not need the money. More like 'raising brains' - to have a direct line to brilliant people whom Erick wanted to be on his team
Not interested to raise tokens - not in hurry to sell out his baby
5 years plan for Art Blocks
Become more mainstream where people can come in with a budget of 20 bucks to buy a unique, totally original digital art for decoration in their home
The vision is to use Art Blocks platform for people to find their unique piece of art or content because humans are losing their own individuality by being behind a computer screen all day long
Functional NFT
Might eventually replace NFC chips because chips can be tampered with and doctored but not NFT
The potential of NFT will be unlocked when we can understand how the user is interacting with them without knowing how to interact with them
Might not be called NFT in the future; going to be just a 'thing' as their key card
The term will be obsolete in the digital art world because all digital art forms will have some kind of provenance attached to it
"Nobody that's opening the door to a building using a scan card, like very few people are actually thinking about, like, what is happening, that this piece of plastic is activating a door lock and allowing you into a building. It's when we get to that level of lack of necessity to understand what we're doing with blockchain and with NFTs, that NFTs are really going to be finally being used."
- Erick "Snowfro"
Favourite NFT
During a gloomy part of his life, Stina Jones, whom Erick has been following on Twitter, minted 300 pieces of "1UP", gave it for free to people
This is a beautiful execution of what blockchain technology can do - made his day and was very grateful to own it
There are others who are flipping it on OpenSea, so he bought at least a dozen more so that he can gift it to anyone whom he met that expresses interest in Stina Jone's "One Up". This is to pay it forward
Most controversial thought on NFT
The ecological impact of NFT is controversial, and it's a conversation that is important to have
Processing NFT on Ethereum is such a small part of total transactions but will eventually grow as it gets popular
ETH 2.0 will help alleviate this problem
Art Blocks is probably in the top 3 total NFT generated by platform - feels responsible enough to buy $30k carbon credits to offset what they are doing
NFT world in 3 years time
Some kind of integration of NFT with major social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter
Maybe interacting with NFT without calling them NFT - just interacting with them in our daily lives
Someone may be using NFT using knowing it in the near future because they are so ubiquitous
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