Fingerprints
And my personal journey from cryptoart skeptic to believer
I’m starting a small project, the Fingerprints Gallery. It’s dedicated to generative art on-chain: the “fingerprints of the blockchain”.
The intention of Fingerprints is to collect and share generative art that uses the blockchain.
As I said it’s a small project. Just a way for me to organize the art that I find truly interesting.
I’ve started my journey into NFT and crypto art skeptical. The scars from the last bubble — 1 ETH lost to CryptoKitties (lol) — made me a “right-click save” kind of skeptic.
But little by little I started to change my mind, recognizing that collectibles like CryptoPunks could hold value and subsequently buying a liquid version of it (the index fund $PUNK).
I eventually also bought (later selling) Punk #4689. The owning (and departure) experience was as real as the one with a physical good. I understood normal people would feel exactly the same way once they experience it. Contrary to what I believed, this could be as desirable as a physical collectible.
My natural progression was almost a chronological trip to catch up with the history of on-chain artwork.
Art on the blockchain started with Matt and John (also creators of CryptoPunks). The first artwork on-chain is “Autoglyphs”. It’s also the first generative artwork on-chain. It paved the way to what was coming next.
Autoglyph #138 was my first purchase, after I understood this historical importance, but triggered by a price-led FOMO. My art journey bears some resemblance to my general crypto journey.
Ringers came next. Dmitri demonstrated the new crop or artwork could be even more sophisticated than Autoglyphs.
He also was kind enough to teach me that this was not made overnight. Since Autoglyphs, there were artists perfecting this craft, and an overnight success like Ringers was actually three years in the making.
One is crazy, two is odd, but three is a movement.
Kjetil Golid’s work “Archetype” was a pivotal moment for two reasons: it was the second home run for the genre and also the second coming from Art Blocks, the gallery that also launched Ringers.
What I noticed with Art Blocks is that there were enough people + inputs + infrastructure for a movement to begin. Artists have been making generative art for years (and some of them, decades). A crypto-native gallery, minting/production process, and relatively efficient secondary markets were in place. A growing collector and fan base was forming. This was not going to stop here.
Then I decided I wanted to build something for the long term.
Step 1 of building Fingerprints was selecting the pieces that would remain in the gallery for at least 5 years. This is almost as long as my personal crypto journey. So, in crypto time, it’s a lifetime.
It’s a big decision given that my commitment is that when it’s out of my address and into Fingerprints’, the minimum holding period will be 5 years. No selling of anything before this “vesting” period where it’s exposed and promoted by the gallery. Exchanges are allowed (e.g. one Autoglyph for another Autoglyph; one Autoglyph for 2 ringers, etc)
Step 2 is to add to that collection. Given my NFT budget is limited, I’ll have to do it very selectively. But I’m a believer in the motto “Discipline Equals Freedom”. Restricted resources will actually be beneficial to the curating process.
Step 3 is to make it more decentralized, to use a collective mind to choose and acquire the artwork. I’m not sure how to do that yet, so I’m open to suggestions.
Where to find Fingerprints
If you read through here, you just visited the whole gallery at the time this post was published.
To find out how this project will grow, follow Fingerprints’ Twitter .