Farcaster is a social graph protocol (I've mentined it multiple times in the past, you can try it out here), which besides the typical social features, integrates crypto, NFTs and different kinds of interactions that are blockchain native. This has sparked a wave of creators and Farcaster-inspired NFTs.

It isn't clear if these NFTs will be worth anything in the future, but the high energy and strong culture make me believe that some of these will surpass hype and become highly sought-after by collectors.

If you aren't familiar with my market analysis, here are a few important points:

1. This isn't financial advice. Always do your own research.

2. I own some of the NFTs in this list.

3. If this is your first time looking at one of my market analyses, I suggest you read this first.

Summary

I included what I believe are the most iconic Farcaster native NFTs, starting with Dan Romero (Farcaster co-founder) and a variety of different creators. As you can imagine, there are many projects and deratives so I used volume and network relevance as the filter.

Access the spreadsheet here.

Interesting stats:

• This report includes over 200,000 NFTs, minted on Ethereum mainnet, Zora and Base.

• These NFTs have produced over 1000 Eth (+$3M) in total volume from secondary sales.

• The average floor across the NFTs in this list is 0.17 Eth (±$500).

• Only 4% are listed for sale.

• Farcaster OG stands out with a volume of 450 ETH (+1.4M) and ±2 ETH (+$6000) floor.

Deep Dive: Farcaster NFTs

This section is usually for premium members only. I kept it open as proof of what you would receive once or twice per month if you get a premium subscription (spoiler: I'm preparing an onchain NFT subscription).

Farcaster OG

The Farcaster OG NFT is the most iconic of the whole list. Dan airdropped this NFT to all active Farcaster users (938) before opening the protocol to everyone. Thousands of users had signed up, but only the 938 with an active badge got the gift. Open access and the introduction of frames catapulted Farcaster to the #30 social app by downloads and established the protocol as the public hall for crypto discussions.

The floor is 1.98 ETH (surpassing 4 ETH at one point), and the secondary volume has commanded 450 ETH ($1.4M).

There aren't any official benefits. Nevertheless, plenty of projects have used Farcaster OG holders to kickstart their initiatives via airdrops or allowlist spots, from pfps to coins and more.

Purple DAO

Purple is a DAO whose goal is to proliferate and expand the Farcaster protocol and ecosystem. They fund small grants via Prop House and larger on-chain proposals, proliferating Farcaster and/or building on top of the protocol.

Operating as a Nounish DAO (daily auctions), the DAO currently has 361 members and 32 ETH in its treasury. They have funded technical proposals, content creators, and even meet-ups centered around the Farcaster ecosystem.

You can join the DAO by collecting a Purple token (designed by 0xen) in auction here, or in the secondary market.

Farcaster Protocol Updates

These are self-explanatory. After each protocol update, a free NFT is released. Keep in mind, all of these have a high edition number, even Alpaca, which was the first one, has 11k mints.

Farcaster Series

Dan created five Farcaster-related NFTs that aren't tied to specific events. Looking at the numbers, these have a diverse supply range -thousands like no 1, while no. 2 has only 100 pieces (the floor is 0.69 ETH, which isn't necessarily a bargain).

From Creators

• Castaways by 0xen: made by one of the most iconic Farcaster artists (probably #1), Castaways is a collection of arcs, representing Farcaster logo. It was released in March 2023.

• Farcats by 0xen: 0xen makes the list again, this time with his popular cats -Fashionable, fanciful, furry, fucked up... 293 ETH (+$1M) in secondary volume, puts it right behind the Farcaster OG in terms of volume.

• Outcasts by sum: This NFT features book readers, and plays well with the intelectual vibe among Farcaster users. It is one of the only pfps I've collected in a long time.

• Degen Haberdashers by purp: Originally named Degen DAO, this collection is inspired by the $degen token.

• Faristocats by Yaroslav: Although this collection hasn't been released publicly, it consists of '938 sufficiently faristocratic cats celebrating Farcaster lore.' I was lucky to get one of the first 60 individually made cats for those early Farcast supporters.

Honorable Mentions

The following NFTs didn't make the list because they had low volume or weren't popular across the ecosystem. I expect some of these to hold value in the future as these communities continue to develop and grow.

• GM Farcaster by Adrienne and nounishprof: This morning show covers everything farcaster, discussing the latest developments and welcoming guests from time to time.

• FarcastHER by Ted: FarcastHER is a place for women and nonbinary to find, connect, and engage with each other on topics ranging from personal to professional.

• Skin in the Game by Nick Tomaino: Nick runs the skin in the game Farcaster channel, a place for prediction markets.

• Morpheus: a Hand-drawn PFP collection on Base.

• Base x Warpcast x mint.fun: Commemorative mint between these three platforms.

• Channel NFTs by Dan Romero: These were released together with the original channels like food and fitness.

• Degen Frame by jacopo: one of the first (maybe the first?) NFT created and minted via Farcaster frames.

I hope you found this deep dive useful. I'm sure I missed some projects; let me know via email (I read them all) or just leave a comment.

Until next time,

Kaloh

PD: Thanks to Kugusha for sharing her outstanding Farcaster Gallery.

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Have you ever wondered if an artist's alias influences their sales?

In the digital art space, your alias is your identity, the second thing (after your art) that collectors see, and probably, it will be with you throughout your entire career.

There are many factors influencing the success of an artist. The most important is the art. Nevertheless, I thought it would be interesting to see the relationship between the artists’ names, art platforms, and art forms.

I went through the top-selling artists on different digital art marketplaces over the past year to see if we could find interesting patterns…

The Process: Here is what I did

• I took one year of data from five blockchain art platforms: Art Blocks1, fxhash2, Super Rare3, Foundation4, and verse5. These are popular platforms that I’m familiar with and where the data was accessible.

• I labeled artists in three categories:

  • Full name, for example, Tyler Hobbs/Pablo Picasso. This doesn’t mean it’s their real name but has a first-name/last-name structure.

  • Short name, for example, Zancan/Soto. These artists are using their first name, last name, or a composition of their real name.

  • Alias, for example, xcopy/Banksy.

Important Considerations:

• Art Blocks, fxhash, and verse are primarily generative-coded art platforms; in other words, art created with code.

• Super Rare and Foundation are more diverse, hosting AI art, photography, illustrations, purely digital works, and also, although to a lesser extent, generative coded art.

• Blockchain data is hard to navigate; take the numbers with a grain of salt. If you need precise data, I recommend you make your own calculations.

Findings from Art Blocks

• The picture on Art Blocks is predominantly dominated by artists with a complete name-like structure (9 to 1).

• The exception is Snowfro, Art Blocks founder. These days, he also uses his real name, Erick Calderon, but I labeled it in the alias category as he started his digital presence with the now-popular Snowfro alias.

• Only one female artist (Emily Xie) is in the top 10.

• These artists commanded ±$63M (all secondary sales, as all these collections were released before October 2022).

Findings from fxhash

• The picture on fxhash is slightly different than in Art Blocks. Nevertheless, full names are still dominant, representing six out of ten artists, while two artists use a short name (Zancan and Yazid).

• fxhash founder, ciphrd, and The Paper Crane are the two artists that go by an alias.

• Similarly to Art Blocks, only one female artist is in the top 10 (Iskra Velichkova).

• The total volume from the top 10 fxhash artists over the past year is $4.2M.

Findings from verse

• The picture on verse is almost identical to fxhash, with only two artists using an alias (rudxane, qubibi), seven artists using a full name (Matt Perkins, Jan Robert Leegte, Zach Lieberman, Erik Swahn, Melissa Wiederrecht, Richard Nadler, Harvey Reynar), and one artist using a short name (Zancan).

• Again, only one female artist is in the top 10 (Melissa Wiederrecht).

• So far, all the artists covered have created coded generated art, except Richard Nadler, whose “Yamabushi Horizons” collection is AI-based.

• Zancan represents 50% of the total volume among the top 10 artists on verse, and the total volume from these artists over the past year is $4.29M.

Findings from Foundation

• The script has flipped on Foundation, as the distribution is 5:5. Five artists go by a full name: Angela Nikolau, Ryan D. Anderson, Helena Sarin, Cory Haber, and Yu Cai. Mcbess, Gelo, Neurocolor, Visualize Value, and Making It use an alias.

• There is only one generative artist (Cory Haber); the rest are a mix of AI art, illustrators, animators, and photographers.

• Visualize Value is the studio name created by Jack Butcher. I labeled it as alias, but it could have been a full name.

• Interestingly, three female artists are in the top 10.

• The total volume over the past year on Foundation by the top 10 artists is ±$1.6M.

Findings from Super Rare

• There is a similar pattern between Foundation and Super Rare in terms of alias distribution: six go by a full name (Robbie Barrat, Matt Kane, Gregory Crewdson, Pindar Van Arman, Gal Barkan, Helena Sarin), and four use an alias (xcopy, Botto, OSF, fewocious).

I wrote about Botto - a decentralized artist - some time ago.

• Five AI artists (Helena Sarin, Pindar Van Arman, Botto, Gal Barkan, and Gregory Crewdson) made the list. There is only one generative artist (Matt Kane) and one photographer (Robbie Barrat).

• There is only one female artist (Helena Sarin).

• The total volume from the top 10 artists is $7.2M over the past year.

Let’s look at the aggregated data…

• The total volume on Art Blocks is evidently higher by a few magnitudes than the rest of the marketplaces. This is due to the secondary volume from Tyler Hobbs and Snowfro combined (Fidenza and Chromie Squiggles) being $40M last year.

Takeaways

There are some clear trends:

• Among best-selling artists over the past year, 62.7% go by a full name, 31.4% go by an alias, and 5.9% go by a short name.

• 73% of the best-selling generative (coded) artists go by a full name, 7% go by a short name, and 20% go by an alias.

Indirect Findings:

• The best-selling blockchain artists are men (85% male, 15% female).

• Over the past year, the secondary volume of Snowfro’s Chromie Squiggles (~$24.2M) is higher than the volume of the top 10 best-selling artists from the rest of the marketplaces combined ~$17.2M —fxhash, verse, Foundation, and Super Rare— by ~$7M.

• A few artists made the top 10 in multiple platforms: William Mapan (Art Blocks and fxhash), Helena Sarin (Foundation and Super Rare), Zancan (fxhash and verse), and Zach Lieberman (fxhash and verse).

To be honest, It is doubtful that the chosen aliases for the top artists significantly influenced their market.

I’m unsure if there is a way to prove a direct influence. As I said earlier, I believe the most critical factor is the art and that your handle reflects your art directly or indirectly.

Nevertheless, these stats might answer some of your questions if you are planning an “artist rebrand” or just starting your artist profile.

Did you spot other insights from the data?

Always happy to hear your thoughts and experience; feel free to reply to this email or comment below.

Leave a comment

Until next time,

- Kaloh

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About the data

• Most of the data comes from secondary market sales, not necessarily going directly to the artists.

• Foundation volume isn’t 100% accurate as the data was on ETH (converted using the current value of ETH = $1,500, which has fluctuated over the past year).

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In this issue, I highlight 17 remarkable Feal File artworks and 8 notably accessible pieces from Feral File’s history.

About Feral File

For those unfamiliar with Feral File, it is “an art gallery that focuses on transformative exhibitions by the world’s most revered digital artists.” It was founded in 2020 by Casey Reas and the software company Bitmark.

Generative art through coded algorithms or AI-based models is the tool of choice for most artists invited to this gallery.

Besides collaborations with prominent artists like Tyler Hobbs, Dmitri Cherniak, and Refik Anadol, they’ve also teamed up with top curators like Jason Bailey (artnome), Rick Silva, and Anika Meier.

Feral File Artwork Distribution

Feral File’s artworks have been minted in different blockchains (Ethereum, Bitmark, and Tezos) and introduced different mechanics of distribution, like editions (multiple pieces of the same artwork), 1/1s (only one unique piece), and 1/1/X (unique pieces that art part of the same collection).

They recently included ‘sets,’ meaning you must collect a complete package of one piece per participating artist (you can’t purchase one piece alone). This restriction doesn’t apply to the secondary market.

17 Remarkable Artworks from Feral File History

The following list is entirely subjective, based on my taste. I also tried to shine a light on artworks that haven’t received the attention they deserve for one reason or another. The order isn’t relevant, as I’m not trying to classify these works but instead bringing attention to them.

Before getting started, here are two reminders:

• If this is the first time reading my market analysis and you would like to get familiar with some terms, I suggest you read this first.

• This isn’t financial advice. NFTs are very volatile, and you should always do your own research.

Unsupervised — Machine Hallucinations — MoMA Dreams by Refik Anadol

I had the chance to see this masterpiece exhibited at the main entrance of the MoMA. The exhibition was so impacting that the MoMA extended the installation for several months.

• Exhibition: Unsupervised at The Musem of Modern Art (MoMA), November 2021

• Size: There are three 1/1s, and 9 series of 100 editions - from A to I

• Floor: 1.6 ETH

🔗 Link to OpenSea

F(l)ight by Tyler Hobbs

Arguably one of the most popular generative artists on the planet, Tyler Hobbs released a tiny collection of 30 pieces on Feral File—only one piece is listed (33 ETH).

• Exhibition: GRAPH, November 2021

• Curator: Casey Reas

• Size: 30 unique pieces (1/1/x)

• Floor: 33 ETH

🔗 Link to OpenSea

Transparent Grit by Dmitri Cherniak

This piece was part of the first-ever Feral File exhibition (Social Codes), curated by Casey Reas. Ringer’s creator, Dmitri Cherniak, made Transparent Grit, 75 editions that “could represent any scale, from a vast galaxy, to a tiny atom.”

• Exhibition: Social Codes, March 2021

• Curator: Casey Reas

• Size: 75 editions

• Floor: 15.69 ETH

🔗 Link to OpenSea

Read more

Last week, I talked about the generative art market at Bright Moments Mexico City. I shared my view on the movement, considering popular concepts, the landscape of marketplaces and platforms, and some exciting blockchain stats. This is a summary of my talk's main points.

Before getting into specifics, let’s start with a fundamental question…

What’s Generative Art?

“...any art practice where the artist uses a system, such as a set of natural language rules, a computer program, a machine, or other procedural invention, which is set into motion with some degree of autonomy contributing to or resulting in a completed work of art.”

Philip Galanter, Texas A&M University, 2003.

I particularly like this definition because it supports various techniques and styles, from generative coded art to art made with artificial intelligence.

Generative Art Landscape - Fundamentals

Honestly, I wasn’t 100% sure what to call this diagram. I started with shape & forms, then moved to techniques, and ended up in fundamentals. The goal is to organize all the concepts, methods, and technical styles in one place.

The left side goes through generative coded art. The off-chain group corresponds to computer art pioneers making computer artwork since the 60s (when blockchain didn’t exist), such as Herbert W. Franke. Short-form and long-form terms were coined by Tyler Hobbs1, who also created QQL2, together with Dandelion Wist.

QQL is the first evolution of the long-form concept, but it is also worth mentioning the long-structure innovation present in Dario Lanzas’ Catharsis (released with gmStudio).

Here are very straightforward definitions for each term.

• Short-Form: an artist creates an algorithm and curates the outputs before publishing them.

• Long-Form: an artist creates and submits an algorithm to a long-form generative art platform (e.g., FxHash or ArtBlocks) and doesn’t control the outputs.

• QQL: collectors can produce as many outputs as they want before selecting the one to mint.

• Long-Structure: an artist creates an algorithm that keeps track of all the iterations to support dynamics that somehow connect different outputs together.

When we move to the diagram’s right side (AI art), there is a clear difference in the process when using tools like Midjourney or Dall E / 2 which simplify the setup and accept prompts as input vs. the cases where the artists come up with their own setup. Many elements affect an artificial intelligence system, such as algorithms, models, or data sets. How the data set is created and used is a vital part of the process. For example, artists can use proprietary images or open-sourced images as input to train the models. Neural networks are a kind of model which try to imitate the neural system; popular examples are Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and Convolutional neural network (CNN).

Most of these concepts are relatively new, especially when applied to generative art NFTs on the blockchain. Techniques aren’t the only area where we have seen tremendous innovation but also in the marketplaces and platforms supporting these techniques.

Generative Art Landscape - Marketplaces, Galleries, Memberships

This diagram should be helpful for those artists and collectors entering the space (I probably missed many niche players). In just two years, many categories have been established, exemplifying how dynamic this space is.

I’d bet this landscape snapshot will look very different one year from now.

The FTX Impact on Generative Art

One of the biggest crypto exchanges, FTX, filed for bankruptcy after multiple days of drama and uncertainty. I wrote about the details and the impact on generative art here.

After five days, the negative effect on generative art was much lower than pfps. Although it might be too early to make assumptions, generative art might have an intrinsic value that isn’t tight to the crypto economy and crypto coins’ worth.

Bridging the Gap Between ArtBlocks and FxHash

The two leading players in long-form generative art collections are ArtBlocks and FxHash. Both platforms are very different, as ArtBlocks is curated, runs on Ethereum, and is more than two years old. At the same time, FxHash is open (anyone can create and submit a generative collection as long as they follow the platform guidelines), runs on Tezos, and just turned one year old.

At the moment, the volume and value of ArtBlocks collections are much higher, as was demonstrated in this analysis. This opens the door for multiple questions: 1) how influential is the blockchain where the artwork is minted? 2) how important is the curation process? 3) will we see a closer gap between both platforms?

Comparing Traditional Art Market to ArtBlocks/FxHash

Even factoring in the explosive growth of generative art during the last two years, the reality is that ArtBlocks and FxHash combined represent just 1/60 or 1.6% of the traditional art market.

These numbers make it easy to appreciate how tiny it remains relative to the broader art market (collectible, jewelry, and antique markets).

Key Takeaways 2022

1. The generative art space is flourishing quickly regarding the diversity of techniques and platforms.

2. The generative art value might be slowly decoupling from the crypto economy.

3. The generative art market is still tiny compared to the traditional art market.

Updated 2023

1. The biggest change since I wrote this article is the emergence of AI art. More artists and AI collections are following the generative coded art steps.

2. After the FTX event that unfolded in 2022, crypto has been in a downtrend and what is considered a bear market. This has affected generative art in different forms and shapes as less volume is spent.

3. As a side effect of the bear market, artists and galleries are moving towards smaller collections and a price reduction in the primary sales market.

Until next time,

- Kaloh

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Here is another Monday Market Report of top fxhash movers (more blockchains and marketplaces coming soon). I included interesting articles, podcasts, and upcoming digital art physical events and exhibitions this time.

Navigate all the hot collections, artists, and more 👉 Kaloh’s Space.

Market Report - Turbo Summary

Overall, Garden, Monoliths and Dragons (from zancan and William Mapan, respectively) continue dominating the top sales, although Iskra Velitchkova and ciphrd aren’t far behind. Universal Rayhatcher by Piter Pasma is in the third spot in weekly volume (I wouldn’t be surprised if it were first). Garabatos by rudxane had a big floor jump (+125%) after two sales over the past five days —keep in mind this is a relatively small collection with only 50 pieces.

Stats From Last Week

Top 5 fxhash Sales

1. Garden, Monoliths #84 by zancan, ꜩ 9,850

2. Charcoal Seeds #476 by zancan, ꜩ 1,999

3. RGB Elementary Cellular Automaton #592 by ciphrd, ꜩ 1,592

4. RGB Elementary Cellular Automaton #940 by ciphrd, ꜩ 1,100

5. Charcoal Seeds #14 by zancan, ꜩ 1,059

Top 5 Collections by Volume

1. Garden, Monoliths by zancan, ꜩ 9,850

2. Charcoal Seeds by zancan, ꜩ 8,695

3. Universal Rayhatcher by Piter Pasma, ꜩ 3,541

4. Flowers and Sky by Neoformix, ꜩ 2,126

5. RGB Elementary Cellular Automaton by ciphrd, ꜩ 5,647

Top Movers by Floor

1. Garabatos by rudxane, ꜩ 1,750 ( +125.23% )

2. Enfantines II. Enfantillages Pittoresques by Alejandro, ꜩ 125 ( 78.57% )

3. Lucky Oracles by Eko33, ꜩ 55 ( 120.00% )

4. NEOM by OCM#5965, ꜩ 13 ( 73.33% )

5. Erg by Balzerino and Rich Poole, ꜩ 299 ( 94.16% )

Stats from Last Month

Top 10 fxhash Sales

1. Garden, Monoliths #84 by zancan, ꜩ 9,850

2. Garden, Monoliths #28 by zancan, ꜩ 9,500

3. Garden, Monoliths #207 by zancan, ꜩ 9,300

4. Dragons #108 by williamapan, ꜩ 4,200

5. Dragons #302 by williamapan, ꜩ 4,000

6. Dragons #364 by williamapan, ꜩ 3,333

7. horizon(te)s #231 by IskraVelitchkova and Zach Lieberman , ꜩ 3,333

8. Uninhabitable #98 by IskraVelitchkova, ꜩ 3,300

9. Dragons #407 by williamapan, ꜩ 3,000

10. Dragons #483 by williamapan, ꜩ 3,000

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Refer your friends

Top Movers by Floor

1. horizon(te)s by Iskra Velitchkova and Zack Lieberman, ꜩ 750 ( 50.00% )

2. TENDER Pass by Tender, ꜩ 400 ( 60.00% )

3. Miniscapes by Rich Poole and The Paper Crane, ꜩ 198 ( 32.00% )

4. Solace by lunarean, ꜩ 1,250 ( 38.89% )

5. Perpendicular Inhabitation by Studio Yorktown, ꜩ 230 ( 53.33% )

Top 5 Artists by Volume

1. zancan, ꜩ 84,582

2. ciphrd, ꜩ 26,627

3. williamapan, ꜩ 25,283

4. IskraVelitchkova, ꜩ 16,668

5. Yazid, ꜩ 15,501

Interesting Digital Art Content

1. How StrangerintheQ used rayhatching to create a castle Source: fx(text)

2. Is Art Getting Closer to Science? Source: Right Click Save

3. A New Art Movement: Interview with Valérie Whitacre, Head of Art at TriliTech Source: Waiting to be Signed Podcast

4. Anna Lucia and the Quilters of Gee’s Bend Source: Right Clicks Save

5. Tomorrow's tourists Source: fx(text)

6. Rayhatching a UFO scene Source: fx(text)

7. E73 - An Absolute Abundance Source: Waiting to be Signed Podcast

Upcoming Digital Art Events

1. AI Surrealism, The Largest AI Art Show, June 2-8, New York, USA

2. Non Fungible Conference, Radical experimental Web3 event, June 7-9, Lisbon, Portugal

3. Responsive Dreams, Art Museum (TGAM) presents Responsive Dreams, the first generative art exhibition entirely dedicated to showcasing art created by code. , June 14-15, Barcelona, Spain

4. NFT Show Europe , Premier European Destination for Blockchain & Web 3 leaders, July 14 - 15, Valencia, Spain

Until next time,

- Kaloh

PD: If you enjoyed the Monday Market Report, feel free to click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏

What is Art Blocks?

If you aren’t familiar, ArtBlocks (Ethereum) is a generative art platform that invented generative art on the blockchain. Artists are given access before publishing collections and go through a curation committee.

What is fxhash?

FxHash (Tezos) is an open platform; anyone can code a collection and launch it following FxHash guidelines. Both platforms have particularities, and they are pushing the generative art movement to new levels.

So why are we trying to build a bridge? Well, as they are in different blockchains, it is tough to navigate collections and artists in the same place. Also, sometimes it feels like these communities aren’t very close and could feel like silos. There is a lot to gain from discussions involving both groups. I won’t solve that problem today, but I will take the first step by putting together a market review, including artists that have dropped in both platforms.

Before getting into it, here are a few reminders:

• This isn’t financial advice. NFTs are very volatile, and you should always do your own research.

• This report is purely analytical. I’m not analyzing collections from an artistic point of view. I do that in other articles.

• If this is the first time seeing one of these reports, I recommend you read this first.

Market Review & Analysis

There are over 20+ artists who released collections on both platforms. I needed a way to shorten the list for practical reasons, so this isn’t a comprehensive analysis. This time, my process was to include artists I haven’t mentioned (considerably) previously. I don’t want my substack to become an echo chamber (something happening in the space, most likely unintentionally).

Here are the artists I included in this analysis:

• Stefano Contiero

• Melissa Wiederrecht

• Casey Reas

• Piter Pasma

• Michael Connolly

• Sarah Ridgley

• ippsketch

• Hevey

This chart could be misleading as ArtBlocks volume in 2021 was much higher than in 2022, and FxHash volume has been trending upward this year. Again, we are only considering selected artists and collections, not all qualified collections, for practical reasons.

Wash trading needs to be mentioned here as a possible reason why there is such a significant volume on ArtBlocks (compared to FxHash). There is no secret market manipulation has played a factor in Ethereum in the past, but that’s a story for another day. By no means I am pointing fingers at the platforms, artists, or collectors as this usually comes from a small group of bad actors.

This chart is probably the most shocking finding in the whole analysis. Keep in mind we are comparing collections made by the same artists but minted in different blockchains. So why is there such a big difference?

One could think that the collections on ArtBlocks have a higher quality than those on FxHash as a possible explanation. This is a subjective topic, but from my experience, this doesn’t seem to be the reason.

Another shocking stat. Piter’s combined FxHash volume is close to ~$250k across six collections, while his only ArtBlocks collection (Skulptuuer) crossed the $10M volume mark.

5 reasons there’s a big difference in volume, floors, and every metric:

1. These aren’t all the artists that have released collections on both platforms. Artists like Anna Lucia, William Mapan, Yazid, and Marcelo Soria-Rodriguez were excluded, but they have experienced great success on FxHash. Nevertheless, I don’t think their inclusion would have changed the overall numbers radically, as their stats on ArtBlocks are also quite impressive.

2. ArtBlocks launched in November 2020, while FxHash launched in November 20201. That’s a whole year of volume. Also, ArtBlocks was the first mover.

3. Both crypto coins have suffered significant losses over the past few months. Ethereum dropped to $1.,3k from a ~4,8k peak (73%), while Tezos dropped even more, from ~$9 to $1.3 (-84%). This is an important factor as I calculated the total volume based on the current crypto coin’s value, which looked different in past dates.

4. The total number of active users on Ethereum is over ~1.5M, while Tezos has ~85k users1.

I understand the concept of Ethereum being a premium blockchain, and collectors and investors are whiling to pay more for pieces minted in that blockchain. Despite that, I still believe such a big difference isn’t justified. Two options come to mind, either ArtBlocks is overvalued, or FxHash is undervalued. My personal opinion is the second; I don’t think ArtBlocks is overvalued, while I do believe many collections on FxHash are undervalued. Only time will tell.

As always, crowd intelligence is much more powerful than one individual brain. Did you spot something exciting in the data? Do you have your own theory on why there is such a big gap between both generative platforms? I would love to hear your thoughts below.

Leave a comment

Until next time,

- Kaloh

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• Access to my private Discord server with over 150 NFT enthusiasts.

• Participate in monthly NFT giveaways.

As I mentioned last week, I’m starting a new series focusing on market analysis. The goal is to review — weekly — the top sales, pricing changes, and the absolute number of pieces sold in the digital art space.

Top 5 fxhash sales (Weekly)

1. Dragons #108, 4,200 Tezos

2. Dragons #302, 4,000 Tezos

3. Dragons #364, 3,333 Tezos

4. Uninhabitable #98, 3,300 Tezos

5. Dragons #483, 3,000 Tezos

Subscribe now

Top 5 fxhash sales (Monthly)

1. Garden, Monoliths #28, 9,500 Tezos

2. Garden, Monoliths #207, 9,300 Tezos

3. Dragons #108, 4,200 Tezos

4. Dragons #302, 4,000 Tezos

5. Dragons #364, 3,333 Tezos

Top 5 fxhash collections by floor increase (Monthly)

1. Reflejos, 599 Tezos floor (+169.82%)

2. Waiting in Afton, 5,000 Tezos floor (+66.67%)

3. Perpendicular Inhabitation, 230 Tezos floor (+38.55%)

4. Miniscapes, 190 Tezos floor (+26.67%)

5. horizon(te)s, 750 Tezos floor (+25.00%)

Top 5 fxhash artists by volume (Monthly)

1. zancan 96,186 Tezos

2. Yazid 26,753 Tezos

3. williamapan 25,283 Tezos

4. IskraVelitchkova 19,322 Tezos

5. msoriaro 18,683 Tezos

Top 5 fxhash collections by total pieces sold (Monthly)

1. Pensado a mano, 496

2. Destructures, 86

3. Universal Rayhatcher, 83

4. Reunion, 55

5. Charcoal Seeds, 43

These stats were powered by Kaloh’s Space.

👉 You can now aggregate your Tezos collection from multiple wallets!

Did you know?

You can now refer your friends and get Premium content, access to my discord, Kaloh’s mug, and more.

Help me grow the newsletter and spread the news about the digital art space…

Refer your friends

We will start with fxhash (Tezos) and include more blockchains and marketplaces over time.

Until next time,

- Kaloh

Let's talk about the platform that's been making waves lately: verse.works. Led by Jamie Gourley, verse has been at it non-stop, mixing fully digital collections with real-life exhibitions. The sleek, traditional art gallery aesthetic — think Frieze/Pace — is just the tip of the iceberg, as verse is all about pushing the boundaries with blockchain and NFT tech.

They've been ahead of the curve with features like credit card purchasing, QQL-style seed picking for minting, and an on-site wallet for smooth artwork holding.

Verse was put on the generative art map with the release of Landscape with Carbon Capture by zancan, an unlimited long-form collection that ran out of control with over 11,400 mints for $100 — over $1M on primary — and 470 ETH on secondary volume, according to OpenSea. Melissa Wiederrecht’s Cosmic Rays release was also unique. The total supply (2,000) decreased by one every minute, shorting the collection cap during the sales period. 911 pieces were minted at a fixed $400 = $364,000!

More recently, they released a 10-edition AI piece with Botto —a decentralized autonomous AI artist, which I covered last month…

Here are some hard facts about verse.works:

• Their first-ever exhibition ran from June 16 to July 7, 2022: This Is Tomorrow: Part I.

• 106 featured artists (that’s about nine artists per month).

• 58 exhibitions until now (that’s about 4.5 shows per month!).

I explored their vast collections catalog to uncover some hidden gems. These are my top picks, and some of them are still up for grabs in the primary market:

Read more

This landscape overview proved beneficial in keeping track of options for artists and collectors. However, in just five months, new players have emerged across different categories, prompting me to update the list.

To come up with this list, I observed discussions among 300 Discord members, paid attention to the 8,000 readers' questions, and monitored artists' releases, hot collections, and marketplace volume for the weekly digests.

The list consists of a mix of marketplaces, galleries, and institutions within generative coded art and AI art — in no particular order.

Read more

fxhash is a dynamic platform that empowers artists to release Generative Tokens, which are securely stored on the Tezos blockchain. These tokens are programmatically designed to generate unpredictable outcomes. When an artist enables a Generative Token, individuals with a Tezos wallet gain the ability to mint their very own distinct version of the token.

Each iteration produces a distinctive artwork, which is then preserved as a non-fungible token (NFT) on the Tezos blockchain. These NFTs adhere to the FA2 standard, enabling seamless exchangeability within the broader Tezos ecosystem, just like any other NFT.

fxhash Live Minting Experiences

Generative and crypto art skyrocketed during 2020 and 2021. One reason was the innovation brought by the blockchain and NFTs, but another big reason was the pandemic kept everyone in their homes, having more time to spend online — for good or bad.

During those two years, few to no events happened in real life. During 2022, things changed as more art conferences took place, and crypto art found its way to many events. Fxhash, in particular, has been present in six events, preparing live minting experiences where participants can mint a generative token created by talented artists.

As we are getting close to the end of 2022, and there won’t be more live-minting experiences until 2023, it felt like a good time to review these collections.

Let’s see what we find…

Read more

In fact, the popularity of AI art has exploded over the past year, particularly this month BrainDrops is about to hit 3k ETH in volume. It's a platform that curates some of the most outstanding collections of AI art, and I'm excited to take a deep dive into it.

Brain Drops is an NFT platform and community for AI-generated art. Our goal is to shine a spotlight on the artists and innovators who've been experimenting with this technology for years without fanfare, as well as to help enthusiasts learn how to make AI Art themselves.

We hope to foster the ideal community and environment for collectors, artists, and learners within the AI-generated Art space.

There are a few reasons that explain BrainDrop’s success.

First, they are early movers, launched in December 2021. Secondly, they took a curated approach and, in 15 months, have released 15 collections (1 was an airdrop), ensuring high-quality AI artists are onboarded. Finally, and maybe the most important factor, their collections are usually 500 to 1000 pieces, forcing artists to pay special attention to their output diversity. Big drops play well with the market, allowing thousands of collectors to join the movement and secondary sales to spike.

Before we go on with some stats, here are a couple of reminders:

• If this is the first time reading my market analysis, I suggest you read this first.

• I gathered the stats from OpenSea. It is highly possible these aren’t 100% accurate as new marketplaces emerge daily. Nevertheless, the numbers should be very close to reality.

• This isn’t financial advice. NFTs are highly volatile, and you should always do your own research.

Roope Rainisto’s Life in West America injected much-needed energy into BrainDrops and showed how outstanding long-form AI looks. There are many reasons why this collection is impressive, including its ability to tell a story cohesively and emulate photographs with humans —you can perceive the AI nature of the pieces, but it doesn’t feel odd. If you have played with AI, you know this isn’t easy.

Life In West America is a post-photography project investigating America: the land as a concept, as an ideal, and the stories of the people inhabiting the space. The collection combines the visual language of traditional photography with the limitless artifice of AI, capturing a moment in time and in generative technology.

Each of the pieces is generated using custom-trained models specific to this project.

13.8% of pieces listed for sale is well above the 6.6% average across all BrainDrops collections, so we can expect the 9.25 ETH floor to retrace a bit (in the relatively short term), but I do feel the market will continue to value it high and continues to have a high potential, for the reasons I mentioned above.

Three collections are setting themselves apart in terms of market value. Genesis by Claire Silver, the recently released Life is West America by Roope Rainistro, and podGANS by Pindar Van Arman.

Highest Floors:

• Genesis by Claire Silver (14 ETH).

• Life In West America by Roope Rainisto (9.25 ETH).

• miniPODs by Van Arman x Mindshift x tricky (7.5 ETH).

Highest Secudary Volume:

• Genesis by Claire Silver (1,755 ETH).

• podGANs by Pindar Van Arman (1,552 ETH).

• Life In West America by Roope Rainisto (1,357 ETH).

The following collections have the lowest floors, and TEOPEMA and ClipMatrix Creatures have relatively small sizes (696 and 500, respectively), making these low floors more prominent.

Lowest Floors:

• Fake Feelings by Dadabots x Silverstein (0.285 ETH).

• TEOPEMA by Vadim Epstein x COH (0.298 ETH).

• ClipMatrix Creatures by Nikolay Jetchev (0.3 ETH).

If you are wondering how to mint the upcoming collections, it isn’t easy (anymore).

To get on the BrainDrops pre-mint list, you need to own a piece from each of the first three collections Genesis, podGANS, and brain loops (by Gene Kogan, Co-Founder of BrainDrops). There isn’t a pass, but if you add the floors of each of those three collections, you need around 18 ETH. This dynamic is interesting, as the “pass” is individual art pieces.

I’ve heard from my readers it is pretty hard to mint without pre-mint access, as bots make it almost impossible. Nevertheless, 18.5 ETH is a steep price to pay.

I’m still trying to make up my mind about what makes an AI collection exceptional.

I guess everyone will have their own taste (as with art in general), and we are still early in the process. Nevertheless, similarly to generative coded art, a few factors can make AI art collections and artists stand out. These are some of them from my research:

1. Tools and process: many collectors value the process, not just the final output. In the case of AI art, how the models are trained (open-sourced or proprietary images), what kind of neural network is used, and how much editing and human interaction are involved are exciting questions. Many AI artists create fantastic work using pre-trained models like Midjourney or Stable Diffusion, so those shouldn’t be discarded.

2. Collection cohesiveness: if you take five random outputs from a collection, do they maintain the same style and feel like they are part of the same story?

3. Collection size: plays a significant role, as it is much harder to produce 500 solid outputs than five pieces.

4. Artist style: the ability of artists to reproduce an art style consistently is critical (some may say, in all art forms). This isn’t easy when it comes to AI art, given the ever-growing options artists have and the complexity of controlling it.

To close this issue, I would like to point out that BrainDrops is just a drop in the ocean, and although I can’t wait to see what they have planned, there are many other places to collect AI art and for AI artists to shine.

Over the following months, I plan to pay more attention to Foundation. I’ve noticed a steady amount of AI art minted there as the platform has incorporated powerful features like collections and curated worlds. For the early adopters, check out Emergent Properties on Tezos, as they are building a long-form AI art platform.

Until next time,

- Kaloh

If you enjoyed this issue, consider subscribing to Kaloh’s Newsletter to receive my articles for free in your inbox. For the full experience, become a premium subscriber.

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• Receive premium and public posts.

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• Participate in monthly NFT giveaways.

Over the past few days, the Blind Gallery has kept me busy —which has been the fastest edition to mint out, and only ~160 Mint Passes are left with 3 days to go!

I’ve been taking small breaks during the Blind Gallery to do a market analysis about one of the pioneering events in the digital art world - Grails Season III by PROOF.

I followed the event closely and had the chance to share my guesses with the PROOF team, artists, and other collectors over a Twitter Space… It turns out I was right on 18. How things fit together by Zach Lieberman, and my guess on Sofia Crespo wasn’t that wild (she made Grail 6 unsynthesized #423, not 15. Tempelfjord as I thought).

Listen to the recording here.

In this market analysis, I will go through the Grails III innovations, each artwork's stats - including the top 3 by different categories - and at the end, a summary of the 3 showcased generative (long-form) collections.

Read more

Over the past weeks, I’ve seen recurring conversations around digital artists’ supply. From Zancan’s open edition drop, PROOF setting a minting cap on GRAILS Season 3, and ArtBlocks collections being much smaller than before, the number of editions and the effect on the long-term value is widely popular and sometimes controversial.

I looked at the traditional art world to understand the supply from the masters and compare it to leading digital artists. I also highlighted some of the main differences, as, in my opinion, both worlds aren’t the same.

Finally, I came up with two ideas, or mental models, that ideally help digital artists and collectors when thinking about edition sizes and supply.

Traditional artists supply

Each artist is different. This is obvious regarding the art style, techniques, and inspiration but not so obvious when it comes to efficiency and productivity.

The reality is that some were highly productive, like Picasso (1300), while others produced fewer works, like Frida Kahlo (152)1.

However, during Picasso's long life -- he died in 1973 at age 91 -- he is estimated to have completed 13,500 paintings and around 100,000 prints and engravings.

Source: Famous Picasso Paintings: 7 works that captured our imagination2

Let’s compare those numbers with the total number of NFTs created by some of the most popular crypto artists (so far).

Generative artists supply

Colossal difference —even if we ignore John Karel and his skeles. But we can’t compare apples to pears.

Generative art and NFTs bring new options that must be mentioned and understood before making this comparison.

Advantages of generative and digital art related to supply

Physical space

No physical or storage space is required to create digital art, while the need for space might slow down an artist's production in the physical art world. This is also relevant for collectors, as they don’t require dedicated storage places.

Distribution

The need for transportation, insurance, and protection of physical artwork might delay or affect an artist's creative process. The blockchain, NFT marketplaces, and crypto-wallets take care of distribution faster and smoother than when dealing with physical goods.

Algorithms and Automation

Although coding an algorithm isn’t easy, once an artist creates one, it can quickly generate thousands (even millions) of creations. Such automation and scalability are impossible with physical and traditional art.

The closest to that kind of production capacity would be when an artist creates a studio or an art factory with hundreds of collaborators to produce work under his signature. Even those cases require complex logistics and time, still not comparable to creating art in the digital realm through algorithms.

Blockchain dynamics

Blockchain dynamics affect supply in ways that aren’t possible with physical art. For example, the burning mechanism is an interesting way to shorten supply, either by design or as an engaging way to interact with collectors.

Riiiiiis offered allowlist spots to anyone that burned one of his previous artworks.

Artists also have complete visibility of their top collectors and can create airdrops or special gifts. While distributing these pieces would be a pain in the real world, it is possible with just a few clicks in the blockchain world. This simple process is another reason why artists might create extra pieces and end up with ample supplies.

With these innovations in mind, we need to think about supply differently.

Artists shouldn’t be limited, and experimenting and taking advantage of technology should be ok or encouraged.

I propose two frameworks or mental models to better digest 1) counting the artist’s supply and 2) deciding the sizing and supply (as an artist). These two ideas came to me from discussions with my readers over Discord.

How to effectively count generative artists’ supply?

What about…

1 collection = 1 artwork?

or

1 algorithm = 1 artwork?

The digital artists’ chart looks much closer to the traditional artist's chart if we take minted algorithms or collections instead of minted individual NFTs. Keep in mind NFTs came to life in 2014 and have been popular for less than three years.

Supply Distribution Pyramid

Artists might find themself debating their sizing strategy. There are many factors in this equation, sometimes, there is not much flexibility for technical or artistic reasons, and other times when working with a gallery, platform, or curator, they might not have complete control over these decisions.

Nevertheless, if you're looking for a guide to navigate your sizing so that more collectors can collect your art, this might help. This could be useful to collectors, too, as we can make collecting decisions depending on our goals when not looking at aesthetics only.

Abundant or Easy-Entry Level

• Supply size: 50+ multi editions or 1,000+ 1/1/X, open editions.

• Goal: this group is accessible for anyone to collect and feel part of the artist's journey.

The concept is simple. Create artwork that is accessible so your art can be collected by anyone, not just millionaires, institutions, or funds. Airdrops and collecting rewards could be in this group. Open editions and big supply drops don’t necessarily mean these pieces won’t be valuable in the long term.

Also, this could be an effective way for artists to expand their audience, and maybe these collectors will continue collecting in the future.

Uncommon or Mid Level

• Supply size: 10 to 50 multi-editions, 100 to 1,000 ed. long-form, or 20 to 100 ed. short-form.

• Goal: Upside for collectors. Artwork in this group could eventually make it to the rare group.

This level is the most flexible one; ideally, some of these pieces could eventually make it to the Premium level (in terms of value). This group is for fans capable of spending a bit more, but also for those willing to support artists with some expectations of the art going up in value in the long term.

Rare or Premium Level

• Supply size: rare pieces (1/1s or small 1/1s collections less than 100 pieces).

• Goal: Produce very scarce pieces that could eventually be worth a lot in part because of how rare they are.

These are acquired by top collectors, institutions, and museums —in a perfect world.

This pyramid isn’t a guide to price your art; it applies to both up-and-coming and established artists. Pricing is not part of this model, as price ranges vary per artist, style, blockchain, marketplace, etc.

In the long term, the market will adjust, and it will be easy to spot the three levels by collectors.

It is fascinating how collectors can have such diverse opinions about supply. Some advocate for short supply to preserve the artist’s value, while others are big advocates of extended editions and are happy with artists reaching more collectors.

Obviously, there is a limit, and it is wise for artists to at least give their edition sizing and release cadence some thought. Nevertheless, I think producing high-quality work and having intent in each piece and collection is more important.

Analyzing the supply will always be essential for collectors looking to profit. However, I firmly believe we shouldn’t count the artist’s supply as the total of individual pieces but more as independent collections. The 3-level supply distribution pyramid might be helpful to better structure artists’ collections without punishing the creator’s urge to produce and share their work.

There are no correct answers to this topic, so I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas below!

Leave a comment

Until next time,

- Kaloh

If you enjoyed this issue, consider subscribing to Kaloh’s Newsletter to receive my articles for free in your inbox. For the full experience, become a premium subscriber.

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• Participate in monthly NFT giveaways.

I hope you had a great week.

In my previous article, I shared a summary of Herbert W. Franke's career, and I’ve been putting together all the tribute data since then. This took longer than expected as there were nearly 5k pieces made by over 60 crypto artists across two blockchains and more than six marketplaces…

But we made it. Sort of...

Herbert W. Franke Tribute Market Analysis

My goal isn’t to have the exact numbers because it is hard to aggregate the volume across multiple platforms (especially on Ethereum). We can expect the actual numbers to be a bit higher. In addition, some artists didn’t release their tribute pieces on the blockchain or, in some cases, donated them directly to the Foundation, and we can’t track those cases easily.

General stats (approx.):

• In total, more than 60 crypto artists created around 5k tokens.

• The total volume across both blockchains (Ethereum and Tezos) until today (including primary and secondary sales) is $461k. This number doesn’t include donated artwork.

• High-profile artists donated multiple pieces. For example, Vera Molnár, Snowfro (he donated a Squigle), and many long-time Herbert friends.

• The artists donated 25%, 50%, or sometimes 100% of the proceeds. Sometimes from the primary sales, other times from the secondary sales too. Therefore, it is tough to calculate how much precisely went to the Foundation.

Top Herbert Franke Tributes by Volume

• Jeff Davis - Rectangles (for Herbert) has a floor of 0.12 ETH and a total volume of 80 ETH (+$130k).

• Zancan - A Long Thread has a floor of 470 Tezos and a total volume of +38k (+$53k).

• Yazid - Ir/rational Beauty has a floor of 74 Tezos and a total volume of +35k Tezos (+$50k).
  
  Edit: Jan Robert Leegte reached out and clarified that JPEG #0 was auctioned as part of the tribute; not the whole collection as I originally thought.

My Personal Favorite Herbert W. Franke Tributes

All the tributes are outstanding, but I found some particularly interesting because they are somehow related to Herbert’s art.

• Ryan Bell - Perpetuum 1/1, I think Ryan nailed Herbert’s style and innovated by releasing it as a 1/1 on FxHash. If you aren’t that familiar, FxHash is used to release long-form (or multiple outputs) generative art collections. Although Perpetuum could have created many outputs, the limit was set to 1.

• Stefano Contiero - Bare di Cristallo is a re-imagination of the book cover for "Die Glasfalle", a novel by H. W. Franke.

• Agoria - {The future has always belonged to him} because he nailed the description and inspiration of his piece.

I kept thinking on my dj tour what kind of piece would honor Herbert W. Franke.

I wanted it minimal, pure and poetic.

I see my piece as an allegory: the legacy he is giving us, from a future that has always belonged to him.

There are many great pieces still available in the primary market; here is the list:

• Tim Maxwell - Followers, Leaders and Zeno’s Paradox

• John Gerrard - Bone Work (Gulf of Mexico) 2022

• Julien Gachadoat - Haze

• Leander Herzog - Meeting

• William Kolomyjec - Hexadrate

• Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau - Portrait on the Fly (Herbert W. Franke)

• Mechthild Schmidt Feist - Shadow generator under a Blue Moon

• Alexander Grasser - Tangible

• Iskra Velitchkova - LUMEN

• UBERMORGEN - Nextlove

• Operator - Line Scanner

• Rafaël Rozendaal - Intersections

• Jonathan Chomko - Draw by Computer

I usually write and share this deep research market analysis with premium subscribers only. I made an exception this time because I would like to spread the word about Herbert’s legacy and all the fantastic pieces created for his tribute.

Consider subscribing (for free or a premium plan) if you enjoyed this issue. The premium plan gives you access to my Discord server, full archive, special airdrops, and giveaways.

Subscribe now

Would you like to see all the collections and information? 👉 Click here.

Summary

Overall, seeing how this event was put together is pretty exciting. In a few weeks, the Herbert W. Franke Foundation received an overwhelming response from participating artists and collectors. Computer art enthusiasts will remember this tribute and Herbert for a long time.

Congrats to everyone involved, especially Anika Meier and Herbert’s wife, Sussane Paech, for organizing such a big tribute.

Until next time,

- Kaloh

If you enjoyed this issue, consider subscribing to Kaloh’s Newsletter to receive my articles for free in your inbox. For the full experience, become a premium subscriber.

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• Receive premium and public posts.

• Access to my private Discord server with over 150 NFT enthusiasts.

• Participate in monthly NFT giveaways.

Today I would like to crunch the numbers behind one of the most successful curated platforms in the generative art world. They are gmStudio and are part of the gmDao, a decentralized autonomous organization.

The gmDAO is a community of NFT collectors, artists & investors created in September 2021 using a fair token distribution. Broadly speaking, the DAO was formed based on the principles of etiquette and mutual respect, making our community a haven within a typically hostile environment.

The distribution of the DAO tokens was quite innovative. @CyphrETH (not to be confused with FxHash - ciphrd), its founder, twitted gm for 100 days, and the first ten people who replied gm back could claim a gm token.

The experiment worked. The floor on each token is 3.14 Eth, it has commanded over 2,431 Eth in volume, and there are 688 owners and 847 tokens (81% unique owners), according to Open Sea data.

So, what is this DAO working on? gmStudio.

A generative art platform by artists, for artists.

Our goal is to make gen art accessible and inclusive to all.

We are the world’s first community owned and managed arts platform.

gmDAO members can collect before collections are open to the public. Usually, they sell out quickly, and it is tough to get your hands on these pieces at the public sale (believe me, I’ve tried). What I find especially interesting about their system is any artist can submit their generative art collection to be reviewed by their committee and selected on artistic merit (not by name).

Until now, they have launched five curated collections.

• Mind The Gap by @mountvitruvius

• Plasticity by @p4stoboy

• Koripo by Rich Poole

• Factura by Mathias Isaksen

• Catharsis by Dario Lanza

Let’s look at them closer… Before continuing, a few reminders:

• This isn’t financial advice. NFTs are very volatile, and you should always do your own research.

• This report is purely analytical. I’m not analyzing collections from an artistic point of view. I do that in other articles.

Read more

Last week, we saw how QQL netted over $17M (just in primary sales) and a few days ago, Fontana by Harvey Rayner | patterndotco minted out on Art Blocks Curated — the floor is over 2.5 Eth ($3,388) with over 569 Eth (+$771k) on secondary volume alone.

I’ve seen many discussions about the market being dry on FxHash and Tezos, but I feel this might be an example of “the grass is always greener on the other side”.

Just over the last four days, five collections had successful mints on FxHash, commanding over $145k in volume:

• September by teaboswell (41k Tezos / $56k).

• Lineage by maxwellinked and twistie (33k Tezos / $46k).

• Ordinary Places by WILLARD (11.9k Tezos / $16.6k).

• Elo by gpitombo (9.6k Tezos / $13k).

• Twistings by Nadieh (9.6k Tezos / $13k).

I wanted to go deeper to understand the situation and using my market analyses seemed like a logical place to start.

This report aggregates data from over 30+ market analyses, including active users, total volume, and factoring in the Tezos value volatility. Access the market analysis history here.

Read more

Just got here for the NFT Show Europe event and found a nice coffee shop to finish this market analysis…

Recently, I’ve had conversations with collectors and artists where they feel a big chunk of the volume is being concentrated towards a few collections at the moment (on Tezos in general). It is hard to know if there has been a change in how many artists/collections are being collected because we don’t have access to the data (or at least is very hard to pull in a decent amount of time), so I decided to set up a simple analysis using FxHash data to try to determine how concentrated is the volume over the past month.

• I’ll compare the volume from the top 15 collections over the past 30 days and see what % of the total volume went to those collections.

• We will review those top 15 collections and see who made the list (are those recently launched collections or old collections?)

Before we get started, it is important to notice that zancan had the best month ever in terms of highest individual pieces secondary sales on Tezos. I need to find time to update Top 8 All-Time Best Selling Tezos NFT Artists (a good read if you are interested in the previous highest sales ever).

Read more

Today, I’m looking at the price paid by all the people that hold the top FxHash collections. In other words, how much did current holders pay?

This could be valuable to understand different things like (I’m sure you can come up with additional use cases):

• Potential new floors, either below or higher than the existing floor.

• What percentage of the holders have held the piece since mint?

• What percentage of the holders have already made significant returns (x10, x100, x1000?)

• What collections have constantly been selling over time, and what collections had a significant spike in sales on a specific date?

Before getting started, I’d like to thank @GlenofStAlbans for helping out with the data and graphs (using the TezTok API) and also share a couple of reminders:

• This isn’t financial advice. NFTs are very volatile, and you should always do your own research.

• This report is purely analytical. I’m not analyzing collections from an artistic point of view. I do that in other articles.

The y-axis shows the price paid in Tezos. We aren’t considering the actual Tezos value at purchasing time to make things simpler.

The x-axis shows the days since the last sale, so 1 = yesterday, 30 = 1 month ago, etc.

10. Solace by lunarean

• Average Price: 399 Tezos.

• Median Price: 150.6 Tezos.

• Total Volume: 109.3k Tezos.

• Unique holders: 138 / 240 (57.5%).

The highest Solace sale happened around 3 months ago for 2.5k Tezos, and a decent amount of holders paid less than 250 Tezos. Solace has been selling consistently from 800 Tezos to 2k Tezos over the past 3 months. Interestingly, the median price paid by holders is 150 Tezos, which is tied for the second highest (with Garden, Monoliths) among this group of collections.

9. contrapuntos by Marcelo Soria-Rodriguez

• Average Price: 141 Tezos.

• Median Price: 5 Tezos.

• Total Volume: 114.7k Tezos.

• Unique holders: 370 / 773 (47.8%).

Contrapuntos holders paid 5 Tezos (median price) which is the lowest paid across these collections (even lower than RGBs). If you bought a contrapuntos at that price, you have gained 19900%!

Many holders entered at the 200 to 300 Tezos range, and the newer holders entered between the 800 to 1200 Tezos range. The highest sale happened recently for 1750 Tezos.

8. Uninhabitable by Iskra Velitchkova

• Average Price: 350 Tezos.

• Median Price: 78 Tezos.

• Total Volume: 130.4k Tezos.

• Unique holders: 229 / 350 (65.4%).

Three purchases stand out from this graph and happened ~3 months ago (~5.5k Tezos, 8k Tezos, and 10k Tezos). Nevertheless, after those sales, the collection stabilized, and the floor dropped to less than 1k Tezos (currently 775 Tezos).

Read more

A couple of reminders:

• If this is the first time reading my market analysis, I suggest you read this first.

• This isn’t financial advice. NFTs are very volatile, and you should always do your own research.

• This report is purely analytical. I’m not analyzing collections from an artistic point of view. I do that in other articles.

Link to spreadsheet → https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pe-tqV92uXJthzgFJ2AovjFUoXqbFK374icG-Hc49Zk/edit?usp=sharing

FxHash and Tezos General News and Stats

• Included new collections: Zee by Lucas S. Reveil, horizon(te)s by Zach Liebermann, Iskra Velitchkova, Turner Light by ileovoivm

• Tezos price went up over the past weeks and reached $2; it currently sits at $1.63. The last time we looked at this group of collections, it was worth $1.47.

• FxHash users/volume over the past week was 3.82k users and $683k in total volume. The last time we reviewed FxHash weekly stats (first week of August), it was 4.75k users and $962k in volume.

• Average floors went down by 15.5% but only 6.35% when adjusted to dollars. Listings went up, from 12.53% to 15.63% on average.

• The total volume in Tezos blockchain during August might end lower than the previous month. Nevertheless, it has already surpassed the total volume of August 2021. That was the quietest month in volume over the last year, which was followed by the highest volume in Tezos history in September 2021. Could we see a spike in volume during September, similar to last year?

FxHash Top Movers

• Dragons by williamapan had the most significant gains as the floor moved from 1,4k to 2,3k Tezos (+64%). William Mapan was one of the artists in the Proof Grails Season 2, and his Antycylone collection had a great reception in Art Blocks Curated.

• The Conjured by goldcat is the second-best performer after moving from 575 to 699 Tezos. Although gen art isn’t goldcat’s specialty, she is finding great success lately, which seems to expand to her only gen art collection until now.

• contrapuntos by msoriaro slightly increased the floor to 1k Tezos (5.37%), and listings went down to 5% in the market.

• A Bugged Forest by zancan keeps slowly rising and might cross the 1k Tezos floor soon (909 to 930 Tezos floor). The number of listings starts to look healthy at 14%.

• Turner Light by ileovoivm minted in a dutch auction which started at 250 Tezos. The floor is 480 Tezos and used to be over the 500 mark a couple of days ago. Be aware there are over 40% listed for sale.

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Additional Insights (Premium Subscribers Only)

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Today, I’ll take a look at ArtBlocks Factory gen art collections. If you are unfamiliar with ArtBlocks Factory, it contains a selection of collections curated by the ArtBlocks panel. Although these collections didn’t make it to the ArtBlocks Curated group, they still follow high standards for technical quality and artistic beauty.

The Factory Collection includes projects selected directly by Art Blocks and highlights our standards for technical quality and artistic beauty.

Access the spreadsheet → https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sG4y9JOzdLLdEcw8ZtZF3_X_LZVw5d4LFJLlPB09xlM/edit?usp=sharing

A couple of reminders:

• If this is the first time reading my market analysis, I suggest you read this first.

• This isn’t financial advice. NFTs are very volatile, and you should always do your own research.

• This report is purely analytical. I’m not analyzing collections from an artistic point of view. I do that in other articles.

Art Blocks Factory and Ethereum General Stats

• Ethereum has been rising over the past month, primarily due to the upcoming merge that will enable the blockchain to use Proof of Stake instead of Proof of Work. This is a vast improvement, mainly because it will save a lot of energy and be more environmentally friendly, among other reasons.

• At this moment, the exact ETH value is $1,691. Nevertheless, some days ago, it went over $2k, as shown in the graph.

• According to dappRadar, ArtBlocks (across all collections) had over $11M in volume over the last month, representing a 51% decrease compared to the previous month. It had 4,554 users, which also saw a 28% decrease.

• There are over 200 collections on ArtBlocks Factory. I took a snapshot of around 30 collections to kick things off; ideally, I'll include new collections in the future. I focussed on the collections that generated the most transactions in this first analysis.

Art Blocks Factory Top Collections

As this is the first time looking at this collection set, I’m unaware of the top movers, and I’ll highlight some collections that I found interesting.

• dino pals by hideo has the highest floor among ArtBlocks Factory collections with 14 ETH. This collection had a total volume of over 2.5k ETH.

• Automatism by Yazid follows dino pals with a 2 ETH floor. This collection is an outliner as it was dropped five months ago and has been very successful in market value. Read more about Yazid here.

• sail-o-bots by sturec is the third and last collection with a floor over 1 ETH (1.88 ETH). The secondary volume is the highest, with over 5.5k ETH in total transactions.

• LeWitt Generator Generator by Mitchell F. Chan had a floor of 0.88 ETH and a total volume of 2,5k ETH.

• Hōrō by Makio135 is another artist that has dropped on FxHash and ArtBlocks. This collection has a 0.5 ETH floor and 416 ETH in volume.

• Letters to My Future Self by Ryan Struhl is a unique concept I found very interesting. It has a floor of 0.25 ETH and over 700 ETH in the secondary market volume.

• Octo Garden by Rich Lord has a floor of 0.48 ETH and 1.2k ETH in total volume.

Detailed Insights (For Premium Subscribers Only)

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