Editor's Note: This article comes fromDappReview（ID：dappreview）, Author: Jason, reproduced by Odaily with authorization.
, Author: Jason, reproduced by Odaily with authorization.
Introduction: Encryption art is a hot topic recently. Many people are amazed, when did blockchain and art become so hot? We traced back the history of encrypted art and found that the bond between blockchain and art is a grass snake gray thread, and the pulse is thousands of miles: 10 years ago, people could not only buy pizza with Bitcoin, but also buy paintings. Seven years ago, a picture of a dog's head became the logo of a brand new currency, and its market value once exceeded 2 billion US dollars. Six years ago, art combined with paper wallets became the carrier of cryptocurrency. 5 years ago, the first blockchain game was born. In the past two years, this art is no longer limited to static paintings. They can move, have sound, and even be programmable. The common point is that they are stored or confirmed on the blockchain. This article examines the layers of research, strips away the cocoon, and sorts out the development process of encryption art, for all encryption art lovers.
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"Async Art's First Supper full painting was sold for more than 300 ETH."
In 2020, there will be endless news about encrypted artworks being sold at sky-high prices. Many people have two feelings about encrypted art: "expensive" and "I don't know what is painted", but this does not prevent the prosperous scene of the encrypted art circle.
So what is CryptoArt? The beholder sees benevolence on this issue, and the wise see wisdom. According to DappReview’s years of experience in the encrypted art community and NFT circles, if we define it according to the consensus of the community and users, encrypted art mainly has the following characteristics:
Decentralization: Supported by blockchain technology, artwork rights are confirmed or stored on a decentralized blockchain, and are truly owned by holders. Artists can issue without being limited to third parties or middlemen
Broad art form: not limited to the form of pictures, it can be animated gif, video, and has also developed a programmable art form
Open and effective value measurement: the value of artwork depends on the user's preferences and the free transaction price of the open trading market
Encrypted art does not distinguish between high and low
Don't rush to take these characteristics as a standard, it is better to listen to the historical stories first, maybe you will come to your own answer. Let's start this story ten years ago.
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2008 was an eventful year: the subprime mortgage crisis, the Wenchuan earthquake, Russia's invasion of Georgia... On October 31 of this year, the white paper of Bitcoin was officially released. On January 3, 2009, the genesis block of Bitcoin was born.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=137.0
In a blink of an eye, in May 2010, a programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz bought a pizza for about $25 for 10,000 bitcoins on the bitcoin forum BitcoinTalk. This may be the first case of using Bitcoin to trade physical objects, which caused a wave of ripples in the peaceful cryptocurrency circle (hereinafter referred to as the "currency circle") that year.
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Everyone in the currency circle knows that the rise and fall of the currency price is the barometer of the circle. So what else is the right time besides skyrocketing?
In this way, artworks are related to Bitcoin. Skyrocketing also stimulates people's imagination of blockchain scalability.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2718.0
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Ideal is full, the reality is very skinny. The technology at that time was indeed far from ideal, and the vision they painted has been realized today. But at that time, most of the replies they got were negative and doubtful. Such an idea was too advanced.
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Colored Coin (Colored Coin) - the sprout of NFT
In June 2011, the price of BTC peaked and then turned downward. It didn't stop until November of the same year when it fell to around $2, a drop of more than 90%.
The madness of the bull market has greatly increased the popularity of Bitcoin, allowing many people to join the circle during the bear market. In 2012, many blockchain-related companies were established one after another, including the famous Coinbase. It was also in this year that the idea of Colored Coins emerged.
https://yoniassia.com/coloredbitcoin/
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In this article, the idea of Colored Bitcoin is limited to creating new tokens on the Bitcoin network. But as more and more people join in, the functions of Colored Coin are continuously expanded, from a simple idea to a complete white paper.
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The name of Vitalik, the founder of Ethereum, also appeared among the authors of the white paper
The core idea of the perfected colored coins is: if bitcoins can be marked and these marked bitcoins can be traced, then these special bitcoins can have many other uses. Don't underestimate this function. For example, if people put different marks on a blank piece of paper, this piece of paper can have different uses: fill in your name, ID number and address, it is Community pass during the epidemic; if this piece of paper is marked and issued by different countries, it can also be turned into banknotes of different countries.
According to the idea of the white paper, once this technology is realized, Bitcoin can be used as a commodity certificate, issue stocks and bonds, and issue other cryptocurrencies based on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Some people may ask: what does this have to do with encrypted art?
Whether or not this form of surety has the force of law, at least it builds trust among the people who believe the story. With this level of trust, the industry can continue to grow.
Colored coins once aroused heated discussions in the Bitcoin community, but it did not land for a long time. Some say it was because there was not much demand for colored coins back then, while others said that the community's attention was diverted by the congestion of the Bitcoin blockchain. But it doesn’t matter, inspired by it, two technical projects that have had a significant impact on the development of encrypted art were born: Counterparty and Ethereum.
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Internet Meme - the first impact of Internet culture on blockchain
It is estimated that many Chinese people are seeing the word meme for the first time, and Chinese seems to be unable to translate it concisely. To put it simply, meme generally refers to things that have been widely spread on the Internet in a short period of time and suddenly become popular on the Internet. The jokes we are familiar with, emoticons and the "famous scenes" rumored on station b are all one of meme.
Memes often have their own entertainment attributes, and they come and go quickly. But when it comes, it comes with a menacing force. If it is compared to an infectious disease, then I am afraid that its "basic infection number" will be outrageously high.
This Shiba Inu is well known to everyone. It is called Doge in English and Shenfangou in Chinese. In fact, the picture of this Shiba Inu appeared in February 2010, and it was circulated on the Internet until the middle of 2013. But what made it really popular was a dumbfounding "explosion" incident.
Let me first talk about the initiator of this "explosion": 4chan. This is a magical website, and Doge, Storm Man and Pepe Frog have all contributed to their fame. One night in August 2013, perhaps out of idleness, a group of users from 4chan raided the Murica section of Reddit, a famous foreign post bar. They used all kinds of pictures of dogs' heads to blow up the board, and they showed great perseverance in the raid, and they kept posting until noon the next day.
According to data from Google Trends, after "Explosive", Doge's search interest continued to soar in the next few months.
So Doge became completely popular, and it became so popular that Youtube, the world's largest video website, specially made an easter egg for it.
The popularity was not as good as the fire. The bitcoin market was just in the second bull market that year. The price of bitcoin rose from more than ten dollars in early 2013 to more than 1,100 dollars in November, which made the currency circle completely crazy. In this period, counterfeit coins are emerging one after another in the currency circle. Everyone wants to issue a coin by themselves. If it becomes popular, won’t this life be worry-free?
Jackson Palmer, who worked at Adobe at the time, was very concerned about cryptocurrencies and found that there were a large number of altcoins in the currency circle. So on a night when he was bored after get off work, he bought the domain name of Dogecoin.com, randomly P a Logo and put it on the website.
Unexpectedly, the joke came true, and Billy Markus, a software engineer at IBM, contacted him. The two hit it off and dug up Dogecoin's genesis block on December 6.
Dogecoin once ranked among the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, and broke through the $2 billion market capitalization in early 2018.
Dogecoin once ranked among the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization
This is the first impact of Internet culture on the currency circle. The 13-year blockchain technology is not yet mature enough, so the impact this time is mainly reflected in the market value. Apart from the interesting story, there is no gameplay worth mentioning. But as the title of this paragraph suggests, there will be a second shock in the future. After the blockchain technology has developed to a certain extent, what kind of chemical reaction will it have with the network culture? Let's talk later.
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Cryptoart — Marriage of Paper Wallet and Artwork
One day, Troy Fearnow, who has more than ten years of experience in art distribution, suddenly had an idea when he was printing a paper wallet: it would be interesting to combine paper wallets with physical artwork. In early 2014 he devoted himself full-time to the realization of this idea.
In March, he launched a website, cryptoart.com, that sells art combined with paper wallets.
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Early Paper Wallet Artwork
There is a QR code in the lower left corner on the front of the artwork, which is the public key of the paper wallet. Users only need to scan the QR code to transfer money to the paper wallet. The wallet's private key is hidden on the back of the painting.
Each painting is designed by the artist, assembled by hand and sold in limited quantities. Advanced users can also change the wallet address without damaging the painting.
It is not difficult to find that, in the eyes of Troy Fearnow, art is a carrier for storing cryptocurrencies.
We brought this idea into the background of the time: Ethereum was not yet born; when Troy Fearnow started planning this thing, Counterparty was not yet online. Under the condition that the scalability of the blockchain is constrained, linking artworks and cryptocurrencies in this way may be the most practical way to land. Coupled with his years of experience in art distribution, it is only natural for him to try this kind of thing.
From the interview Troy Fearnow received that year, we can know that he placed several expectations on Cryptoart's products:
Protecting Cryptocurrencies from Hackers
Create collectibles that can store, trade and receive cryptocurrencies
Arouse wider discussion in the currency circle
Let's briefly review each of them:
Only curious users and enthusiasts will buy it. A painting costs at least a few hundred yuan, which is not cheap
Cryptoart has indeed been reported by many media, but this project lacks room for storytelling
Paper Wallet Art Now Priced From $50 - $1100
Having said that, although Cryptoart simply combines paper wallets with paintings, this is probably the first time that a serious artwork has been indirectly combined with the blockchain, which is already a great improvement.
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Many people know blockchain gaming when CryptoKitties exploded in 2017-18. However, the first game on the chain was born as early as 2015, and it was still on the Bitcoin blockchain. Surprised or not, is it unexpected?
The game development team first developed a card game called Moonga in 2008. This game is a bit of a success, according to Bitcoin.com's 2016 report, it has more than 250,000 downloads. It is said that it also ranked first in the RPG game category of the Japanese App Store.
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Bitcoin.com coverage of it in 2016
In early 2014, a project called Counterparty was launched. It has been mentioned twice in the previous article. It not only quickly landed the idea of Colored Coin, but also did a good job. Counterparty completes functions that cannot be realized by general bitcoin software by writing information in the blank space of bitcoin transactions. For example: let users issue and trade tokens, write digital agreements or smart contract programs, and execute them on the Bitcoin blockchain.
The emergence of Counterparty allowed Moonga's game development team to see a broad road to their vision. So they decided: We are going to make a card game on the chain! This game is Spells of Genesis (hereinafter referred to as SoG). They released SoG's Pre-Alpha video at the end of October 2014, and in the first half of 2015, they implemented card chaining in the game Moonga. These chained cards can be used in two games.
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SoG Official Announcement
Since the cards are going to be chained, a distinction must be made between different cards. The method at that time was to use a card corresponding to a token to distinguish.
As the originator of blockchain games, the development team of SoG has to face a problem that countless latecomers are troubled by: many game players do not understand the blockchain, how can these players be able to Go straight to the game? Their solution is: combine the chained cards with the unchained cards and the game system that old players are familiar with, play the game with the unchained cards first, and wait until you really want to own these cards Let’s learn more about blockchain knowledge—this is exactly the solution strategy of SkyWeaver’s blockchain game. Not only that, SoG sold the game token BitCrystals in August 2015, putting the game economy on the chain.
Some people say that SoG's cards are works of art... I take that with a grain of salt. In short, people in the circle only regard SoG as the pioneer of virtual asset chaining, and Rare Pepe Wallet is the pioneer of encrypted art in their hearts.
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Rare Pepe Wallet - Pioneer of Crypto Art
Those who achieve great things mostly follow the trend. So what trend has Rare Pepe Wallet followed? Most readers should have already guessed the answer: Meme - Pepe The Frog (Pepe The Frog).
In 2005, this hideous frog appeared in the comic "Boy's Club" created by Mett Furie. In 2008, Pepe was photographed by 4chan, the noble person in his life, and spread on 4chan as a reaction emoticon package.
What are reaction emoticons? Take a look at the following GIF picture that was commonly used in China a few years ago and you will know it.
On October 25, 2014, a Pepe The Frog subreddit opened on Reddit.
In the same month, people on 4chain were bored again, and began to call some original and photoshopped Pepes as "Rare Pepes", and some pictures even put watermarks on them to prove their rarity. The watermarking just shows that its rarity cannot be guaranteed, revealing the needs and helplessness of the picture creators.
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Watermark: Rare Pepe Frog, Do Not Save
In November 2014, Pepe's influence was already very large. Famous singers Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj both used Pepe emoticons on their social media.
In March 2015, another more leisurely netizen posted a theme post, claiming to hoard pictures of various Rare Pepes here, increase market supply, and depreciate Rare Pepe...
At the end of March, some netizens shared more than 1,200 pictures of Rare Pepe stored on Imgur. Then in early April, the pictures were put up for auction on eBay. I don't know if someone is really interested or just trying to make a joke. The auction's highest bid reached $99,166, and the auction was subsequently taken down by eBay.
Although this looks like a farce staged by a group of extremely boring people. But after that, Google searches for “Rare Pepe” exploded.
One day, a foreign friend named Joe Looney saw someone send a picture of Pepe in the Telegram group of Counterparty, saying that he was selling Pepe. Does anyone want it? As a result, everyone who was chatting in the group said, oh great, I want it. It was also a coincidence that Joe Looney just developed a Counterparty web wallet not long ago, and this conversation allowed him to see the direction of the subsequent development of the wallet.
In September 2016, the price of Bitcoin had risen from less than $200 in January 2015 to around $600. That's when Joe Looney and his friends launched Rare Pepe Wallet. Here people can submit, trade and gift images of Pepe to others. All approved images will be uploaded to the chain with the help of Counterparty. Each Pepe has its own issued quantity, thus ensuring its scarcity.http://rarepepedirectory.com/
All recorded Pepes will be recorded in the Pepe dictionary.
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Early Rare Pepe
Later Rare Pepe
http://rarepepedirectory.com/?p=814
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http://rarepepedirectory.com/?p=3959
PEPEBALT, you can play a small game.
image descriptionThe second impact of Internet culture on the blockchain is the story of Rare Pepe's rarity from empty talk to reality.There is a little tidbit to this story. DappReview previously wrote an article "
"The article introduced the asset reuse of blockchain games (using the assets of B game in A game)
Rare Pepe's community has long thought about this gameplay-they planned to develop a card battle game called Rape Pepe Party, which can use Rare Pepe's assets. But the embarrassing thing is that this game has not been developed for so many years...
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I almost forgot to mention, do you know how much the most expensive Rare Pepe is worth? In January 2018, just after the peak of the third Bitcoin bull market, a Rare Digital Art Festival was held in New York. During the event, "Homer Pepe," a fusion of well-known American animation characters Homer Simpson and Pepe, was sold at auction for $39,000.
Don't worry, we might as well listen to the story of the star card first. Anyone who liked to watch football when they were young should know the existence of star cards. Students who don’t know the star card also know that the little raccoon will send a small card in the crisp noodles. Abroad, these collectible cards are collectively referred to as Trading Cards (trading cards), and star cards are only one type of sports-themed Trading Cards. In fact, the Trading Card is the same as the card given by the crispy noodles at the beginning, and it is free.
Trading Card has a history of more than 100 years abroad. As early as 1875, the Allen & Ginter Tobacco Company in the United States issued cards with themes such as actresses, athletes, national flags, and wild animals to promote its brand. The card at this time was also called Cigarette card (cigarette card). Many foreigners and national capitalists opened cigarette companies in China at the beginning of the 20th century, and also followed the promotion method of giving cigarette cards, but in China it was called smoke painting. .
Smoke paintings of old Shanghai
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Left: Honus Wagner baseball card issued in 1909, sold for $2.8 million in 2007
Right: Signed LeBron James jersey card, sold for over $300,000 in 2016
Although no specific figures have been found, there should be at least a billion-dollar market for sports trading cards alone. After so many years of development, Trading Card has already become the usual mode of fan economy. For example: on the famous Steam game platform, many games have electronic versions of Trading Cards and can be traded on the market.
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Trading Card for Disco Elysium and Monster Hunter World games
Some people think that these Pepes are simple graffiti, some people say it is art, so is Rare Pepe art?
Baidu Encyclopedia and Wikipedia can give the noun explanation of art, but they cannot give the judgment standard of art. Even if it is an expensive work in the art circle, many people who do not understand art will think "I can do it myself".
"Color Mona Lisa" (left) "Elvis Presley Triple Shadow" (right) - Andy Warhol
Artist Marcel Duchamp submitted a signed urinal, titled Fountain, to the Society of Independent Artists exhibition in 1917. But the council deemed it not art and refused to exhibit it. This incident aroused widespread discussion at the time, and "Fountain" became a highly controversial work.
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"fountain"
Many would consider this piece ridiculous, which is what The Fountain was created for. It is used to satirize the phenomenon that the works of past artists paid too much attention to form and ignored the connotation of the work. This idea is gradually accepted by the art world, and many works of art no longer exist in such a lofty posture, which narrows the distance between the viewer and the work of art.
"The so-called 'imagined reality' refers to something everyone believes in, and as long as this common belief persists, it is powerful enough to affect the world." - "A Brief History of Mankind"
Now, Duchamp is regarded as the originator of modern art, and "Fountain" is also regarded as the work that started modern art.
So whether Rare Pepe is art, or which Rare Pepe is considered art, is still left to you to judge.
Combining virtual works with the blockchain ensures their rarity and ownership, and then guarantees their price and author's rights and interests, which solves the pain of virtual works.
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Under the inevitable fluctuation of currency prices and technological development, accidental ideas and hot spots collided with the blockchain, and it took many years to become a circle of encryption art.
