Author: Tang Han
Crypto art is on fire. But what exactly is crypto art?
We can see that Christie's auctioned Beeple's work, which was finally sold at a price of nearly 70 million US dollars; Sotheby's will also auction the work of encrypted artist pak in April this year. Affected by this, artists in the traditional circle have poured into the chain to conduct art auctions.
But what exactly is crypto art?
To what extent has encryption changed the art world?
Can we go further than putting artworks on the chain?
We face many questions, not limited to the following topics: Are we practicing the art of the elite or the art of the masses? Has encryption leveled the world or made it more divided? What role does the community play in crypto art? And what role does the artist play in art itself?
Through repeated chats with traditional artists recently, I found that they are very confused when it comes to these things. The most confusing thing for them is how to sell their artworks at a good price, and how to keep themselves from falling behind in an era that is being impacted by encryption.
Encryption has eclipsed what was once avant-garde, and it has become the "vanguard" of the art world. But how to combine with new ideas is a question that all artists are currently thinking about.
Practicing it is difficult because traditional artists are often unaware of blockchain technology, and many of them have never heard of Bitcoin and Ethereum, let alone use smart contracts. In addition, they are used to being revered, isolated from viewers, and make no attempt to enter the community and establish new connections with the community. I am well aware that this prevents great works of crypto art from being born.
To this end, CryptoC will unite artists, programmers and thinkers to carry out a series of encryption art behavior experiments. In the world, such experiments are leading. So far, I have not seen any encrypted art trading platforms, such as SuperRare, MakersPlace, Nifty Gateway, etc., have tried in this direction, although they themselves are indeed the biggest beneficiaries of encrypted art.
In this article, I would like to introduce the first encrypted art performance experiment "Don't be expensive" that we have just concluded. This is a behavioral experiment that links artists, programmers, and the community. Its purpose is to test whether scarcity or consensus is more important for an NFT artwork. The experiment went like this:
First of all, the artist Xi created a piece of work for CryptoC, and it is also the community badge of CryptoC. Anyone who holds this badge will be regarded as a family member of CryptoC without distinction. Before the experiment started, we did not disclose to the community what rights the family members of CryptoC would have, but just informed everyone that this is an on-chain art experiment about NFT.
Second, we discussed and designed a set of game rules internally. I personally used to think that the most amazing thing about crypto art is to help artists free themselves from the agency of galleries, but it seems that such an idea is too naive. Right now, crypto artist agents are making a comeback like celebrity agents, once again separating artists from the community. The artist community is ignorant of the rights that blockchain technology can give them and how to use these rights, and is once again far away from the community. So, can we use blockchain technology and some kind of economic mechanism to help artists bypass centralized agents and rebuild their relationship with the community?
Based on this, we (the idea mainly comes from team member QI) designed a brand-new NFT airdrop method, which I would like to call ISO, the first social release.
We fully understand the situation of artists, not all artists have so many fans that they can airdrop their fan base. Therefore, ISO does not require artists to have any fan base; on the contrary, it helps artists meet new friends and build a fan community when distributing artist NFT.
How to achieve ISO (Initial Social Issue)
The forms we help artists with ISO are as follows:
First of all, we set a limit of 200 artwork NFTs that can be airdropped to the community. At the beginning, we only randomly airdropped 2 pieces to the community. Members who get the NFT can choose to hold this badge and not transfer it to others to ensure the scarcity of the badge; they can also choose to transfer the badge, and the system will airdrop another one to him at the same time, which increases the badge's value. degree of consensus. There are several games involved here: first, the holders of the two badges will start a game, and they will observe each other's behavior to decide whether to transfer out (if only one person transfers out, then compared to the one who does not transfer That person, he naturally formed a higher status in the community, because the whole community evolved from this); second, everyone holding the badge is playing games around this issue.
Secondly, the experiment is carried out on Ethereum, and the behavior on the chain is accompanied by high transaction fees. Coincidentally, when the experiment happened, it caught up with the congestion of Ethereum brought by the Fei project, and the gas fee soared. In addition, the airdrop smart contract was more complicated, and the transfer fee was once as high as $200. This is destructive to any transaction, but the price has instead become a sieve to identify loyalty to the community and artists' works, and 200 truly credible users have been screened from our whitelist.
Finally, we made some fixes to the experimental mechanics to add more fun to the game. For example, we have defined that if an address that received the badge for the first time is not transferred out within 24 hours, the badge will be automatically destroyed (thanks to Teacher W for his suggestion here). In addition, we subsidized the transferor by adding weight to the badge, that is, the NFT held by the address with higher gas consumption will have a higher weight corresponding to the NFT. This idea should be traced back to the Dego team, who invented the concept of face value for NFT.
After repeatedly collecting whitelists and screening addresses, we finally selected 350 whitelists for experimentation. The process can be described as magnificent, dangerous, and unexpected. All participants (including the artist himself) recalled afterwards that they felt that they had participated in a carnival between the community and the artist. Simply participate in the game as a player. The following is the experimental record I compiled.
Experimental documentary
Start airdrop
At 8:00 pm on April 2, 2021, the airdrop will officially begin. We randomly selected two people from the whitelist airdrop list, and systematically airdropped 2 NFT badges to them. It turned out that the two initial airdroppers were not very reliable. One of them was on the high-speed rail and the other was exercising outdoors. . .
At the moment when the airdrop list was announced, the community that had been waiting for a long time suddenly had a stream of addresses. Everyone announces their Ethereum address in the group and asks them to forward it, including myself (my own badge cannot be absent...).
I have been in the encryption circle for four or five years, and I have added thousands of groups, but I have never seen hundreds of addresses popping up in a group in an instant. At that time, I seemed to see a huge concert scene, and all the audience wanted to shake hands with the stars. When artist Xi saw this scene, he also said "crazy" in the group.
However, friends who got these two badges were not easy to operate. Lin Ke who got the badges didn't even look at his phone. He only found out about it after being called by a friend who knew him in the group temporarily. (He told me afterwards that he turned on his phone and saw that hundreds of people were asking him for badges. He didn't know what happened, and his hands were sweating).
The group friends were begging for badges, but at this time, some people in the group began to say: "Whoever transfers it to me, I will give red envelopes to them." Some even said: "I will give out double red envelopes." In fact, there is a business Behavior. At this time, it is a buyer's market, and badge holders have a very high say in the pricing of badges.
In addition, the social attributes of the game are also reflected. In the extremely chaotic WeChat group, it is difficult to form a stable pricing power for a while, so "acquaintances" have a greater advantage. Some people in the group began to get close to Lin Ketao, and even directly converted into Matataki users. Some people also said that you can use Lin Ke's personal fan token LINK to buy badges, and for a while Lin Ke became the central figure of the entire WeChat group.
At this moment, another badge holder "Smile" who was ignored in the group quietly transferred the badge to hobo. According to the chat in the group, hobo and "Smile" don't know each other, and "Smile" also paid a high gas fee for his transfer. So "Smile" became the central figure in the group again, and hobo also took the initiative to add "Smile" as a friend, and paid him the gas fee in private. At this time, the transfer process is also a social process. Everyone met new friends through the transfer of badges, forming a wonderful fate.
Finally, Lin Ke decided to transfer the badge to a friend. He pulled Matataki's island girl into the group and forwarded the badge to him, only to find that the island girl was not in the white list. Later, Lin Ke chose to forward the badge to Jialin.
With more and more transfers, artists also began to ask the community for badges. In fact, at the beginning of the experiment, our idea was to reserve a part for the officials and artists, so that at least the interests of the officials and artists could be guaranteed. After all, it is not easy to complete such a big mess. Later, a friend of the team said, "Don't stay, trust the community."
It can be said that it is very radical to do so, and there is a possibility that officials and artists will not get badges, but the advantage is that both artists and officials are in the "civilian state" of the game, which eliminates the factor of artists overlooking the community, and even forces artists to enter Community. However, we found that after the artist let go of his burdens, he instead gained the recognition and love of the temporary community of strangers.
Because of Xi, there is an entire NFT game for social distribution, so the group of friends expressed their gratitude to him. Finally, under Xi's efforts and repeated requests, he got the No. 16 badge. Compared with the high-ranking and cold reservation at the beginning, this badge transfer based entirely on the internal trust of the community has also established a connection with community members. For the artist, although his works do not have an explicit price tag, he has gained initial recognition from the community.
(However, although I also repeatedly asked for a badge in the group, this guy did not transfer it to me in the end. The boat of friendship capsizes as soon as it is said... The person who transferred it to me in the end was Caos, and I got No. 22 .)
There was a small episode in the process of passing the badge. Because our airdrop function does not support Math Wallet and imtoken wallet, and the Ethereum addresses filled in by many group members are based on Math Wallet and imtoken wallet, the relay of badges once appeared twists and turns. What is touching is that this group of strangers and even the wool party did not express dissatisfaction, but instead turned to ridicule or encourage everyone to continue. After the problem was solved, the group cheered.
The screenshot below is the experience of a WeChat group member whose WeChat nickname is "Have you heard the camel bell?" Our team did not know him before the airdrop, but because he enthusiastically gave you popular science airdrop tutorials in the group, he was regarded as the representative of the C social class by everyone. Out of trust in him, four group friends ordered badges from him.
The representative of the C social class was unfortunately shot, leaving a thrilling page for this airdrop. Fortunately, the four friends represented by the class behind all got badges.
Skyrocketing Ethereum Gas Fees
After the problem was solved, the friend who was honored by the community as "Big Brother J" started wallet address solitaire in the community. In less than an hour, hundreds of people swiped their Ethereum wallet addresses behind "Big Brother J". A group friend named "Xiaoyao" chose to transfer money to "Big Brother J". At this time, the two were strangers to each other, and the airdrop competition had not yet started. They were unknown in the community and very gentle.
Airdrops are accelerating. Soon everyone discovered that the Ethereum network was getting more and more congested, and the price of Ethereum was also soaring. It turned out that the day we chose for the airdrop test happened to coincide with the phenomenal DeFi project Fei locking up Ethereum mints. In addition, the smart contract we wrote is more complicated, and the transfer fee for a badge has reached more than 200 knives.
Now the game becomes very exciting: For those who receive the airdrop badge, if they do not transfer the badge, and the 200 badges are not fully minted, their badge will be destroyed after 24 hours. But if they forward it to someone else, the fee is very high. In addition, for those who want to get badges, if they choose to order badges by paying a handling fee, they are equivalent to buying this badge at a price close to 1,500 yuan each.
The game of social airdrops is not over until the wee hours of the morning. A group of friends far away in the United States posted a circle of friends, saying that this is a very interesting NFT experiment.
The buyer's market has begun to tilt towards the seller's market. Because it is already early in the morning and only 4 hours have passed since the start of the airdrop, this tendency is not very obvious. By 8:00 the next morning, 12 hours after the airdrop time, the game between badge holders and those waiting for the badges completely turned to the side of those waiting for the badges. Various voices began to appear in the group.
The game of up and down the home is inverted: there is a forced delivery
At the beginning of the airdrop experiment, the next home without a badge strongly asked the top home to forward it, not only willing to bear the handling fee for this, but even willing to pay extra red envelopes for it. However, halfway through the airdrop experiment, instead, the upper family asked the lower family to pick up the goods quickly, and there was even a "forced delivery" at one point. Because everyone has discovered that the badges that have not been transferred out are not really their own "permanent badges" and face a great risk of being destroyed.
Fortunately, the gas fee of the Ethereum mainnet has dropped at this time. At approximately 11am on April 3rd, over 60 badges were minted and retweeted. The community is like a big group, everyone is constantly discussing the direction of the game and Xi's works. At this time, Xi suddenly brought good news to the community (like a sudden good news in collective labor). He said: "Seeing everyone's enthusiasm, I decided to present his next new work to the most important C agency partner." "Xiaoyao" who has been reposted several times replied: "Isn't that me?" At this point, the social airdrop frenzy of crazy transfers has started.
If you have read the above content carefully, you should know that the design of "weight" is to subsidize the gas fee. The function of the weight is to mark the contribution of community members. When the community was first established, it was difficult for everyone to say their own contribution, so the gas fee certificate was used to mark this point. Here, West's sudden move added a great surprise to us.
Afterwards, "Big Brother J", "Shi Jiahao" and "Natural Cool" arrived on the battlefield. Among them, "Big Brother J" is the most frenzied, making indiscriminate transfers to group friends. Anyone who gives an address in the group, he will respond to every request, and there will be no handling fee. Such a competition increased the number of circulating badges from 60 to 90 in less than an hour. "Big Brother J" also became famous in one battle, surpassing "Xiaoyao" and securing his status in the community.
In fact, when the badge was transferred to No. 66, a group of friends began to realize that they could grab a good number. At that time, there were about 3 group friends who went out to grab the good number. On the 88th, someone publicly talked about it in the group, and the competition became more intense. Later, even our official programmer brother couldn't bear it anymore. He said he wanted to grab a number he liked and propose to his girlfriend, which made all the friends in our work group laugh.
At two o'clock in the afternoon on April 3, nearly 130 badges had been produced. At that time, I suddenly received a call from Xi at the Today Art Museum. He said: "I have another surprise for you!" I was stunned: "What? There are more?" It turned out that he spent 2 hours making an impromptu electronic sound with the theme of CryptoC. If at the beginning I invited him to create a joint creation for CryptoC, he only agreed from the perspective of a friend; then what he does now is completely infected by the fanaticism of the community, and he began to truly act as a community artist in production.
By this point, the experiment had gotten completely out of control. At the beginning of the experiment, we thought about many possibilities of the experiment, but only in the process of the experiment did we feel that the possibilities provided by the community were far beyond our imagination. In less than 24 hours, this community, which most of us don't know, had its own KOL, and a real community artist was also born. The artist himself reached a "hi" state, and this "hi" state continued to push the community sentiment to a new climax.
At 3 pm on April 3, everyone in the community felt that they had participated in a very different social experiment. Members spontaneously collected copywriting and sent it to Moments. At this time, everyone found that there were only 5 hours left before the destruction time at 8:00 pm, and some group members began to popularize the destruction problem with group members who had not transferred out. The group friend "Autumn" didn't know anything about the airdrop rules on the night of April 2, but was able to give Yuan Jie a science popularization on the afternoon of April 3. What a funny scene.
Teacher Yuan Jie is learning fast
And "Big Brother J", who came back from the meeting, started the airdrop printing machine again. He airdropped CryptoC community badges to Mr. Li Yang and Mr. Cao Yin one after another, which can be called a badge seeder. Everyone is very happy that these two friends have joined the community.
final sprint
At 7 o'clock on April 3rd, the most exciting time of the whole airdrop and the climax of the audience came. Fifty badges have been minted and distributed, with 50 remaining undistributed. According to the destruction rules, the destruction will be triggered if the badge is not transferred out within 24 hours after getting the badge, so the most complicated time period in the global game has arrived.
In order to protect those group members who are at risk of being destroyed, the official has compiled and provided a white list for everyone without badges.
At this time, the game was very intense, and the group members began to analyze the psychology of the upper family and the lower family in the group.
The first is the game between Shangjia and Shangjia. Although there is a risk of being destroyed, due to the high gas fee, some hosts are free-riding and unwilling to continue to transfer out, waiting for other more urgent hosts to forward with a wait-and-see mentality.
The second is the game between the upper family and the lower family. Since there are only 50 left, friends who haven't got the badge will be even more nervous, because there are not many opportunities left for them. It stands to reason that they should have the psychology of buying, but at the same time they also know that if someone does not transfer out, they will be destroyed, so there is a state where both the upper and lower buyers are guessing each other's psychology.
Finally, the players participating in the airdrop this time are all in China, and they should fall asleep in the early hours of the morning, so it is impossible to keep an eye on the group. In this way, from 8:00 p.m. to 12:00 p.m. on April 3rd became the most tense moment for the upper and lower families. Almost all the top players who got their badges on the night of April 2nd, and all the next players who still wanted to get badges held their breath and watched the situation develop.
At this critical moment, someone suddenly started the airdrop war, and there was a crazy transfer on the chain, and the Shang family first conceded. The number of addresses on the chain quickly increased to 163, leaving only 37 remaining badge quotas. At this time, the pressure turned to Xiajia, and the Xiajia group began to frantically beg for transfers, with handling fees and even red envelopes. In the impact of a kind of crazy emotion, the remaining 37 pieces were quickly distributed, and the group of friends only felt that they were dreaming, but at 8:44 on April 3, the whole activity was over.
Since the 199th and 200th coins are both good numbers, and the event ended suddenly, there were two cases that were still transferred out after the event ended. However, after the event ends, the transferors will no longer receive additional issuance from the system. They are equivalent to transferring their badges to others for free.
This sparked a dispute in the community. Since participating in the event, the community member "WANG" has been very enthusiastic about reposting in the group, enlivening the atmosphere and teaching others how to get badges, but he has been struggling for badges to no avail. Finally, when the airdrop was about to end, WANG found an agreement with Jiang Hai, Jiang Hai transferred the badge, and Wang paid gas with bnb. But when Jiang Hai successfully transferred the No. 46 badge to Wang at 8:44, the airdrop had already ended at 8:43, so Jiang Hai couldn't receive the new airdrop, which caused a misunderstanding.
At the beginning, "WANG" said in the community that he wanted to return it to others, placed an order for a low gas fee, and then went to eat barbecue, but "Jiang Hai" didn't receive the badge for a long time and mistakenly thought that he rolled the badge and ran away. I made more than a dozen phone calls to him and shared my experiences with the community. When "WANG" came over and saw it, he was angry and didn't want to return it to him, which caused a storm.
After 24 hours of forwarding, chatting and gaming, everyone has established a preliminary feeling for the community. In everyone's eyes, badges already have value. As an official, we also don't want to hurt the feelings of these two friends because of this little experiment. Finally, under our mediation, the two brothers "Jiang Hai" and "WANG" reached a settlement. They jointly hold the No. 46 badge and share the revenue of the No. 46 badge.
The two brothers did not know each other, and their story became a good story, and the community witnessed their actions together.
The above is our first encrypted art performance experiment. It integrates artists, communities, and multiple games on the chain. Through this experiment, we found a way of ISO (Initial Social Issue). The experiment found that the first social release can help artists, or a DAO organization quickly build a fan community in the game. Also, we care a lot about the artist's personal experience with the release. If an artist can have fun with their first social release (i.e. show off their personality), then half the battle is in building their fan community.
This experiment coincided with an all-time high in the price of Ethereum and a period of network congestion. According to our subsequent statistics, a total of about 200,000 gas fees were burned from the official deployment of the smart contract to the minting of coins, as well as the transfer of funds by the community. This number sounds staggering at first, but if a community is willing to burn 200,000 gas fees for an artist, such an artist is successful at the community level.
community awareness
After the event, we asked the community how they felt about participating. A lot of them are very touching. Here, I'm just taking the views of two community members:
"Have you ever asked Camel Bell" (representative of the C social class): "I am the owner of the No. 190 badge of the c community (formerly No. 3). In this event, I have been in contact with the c community from the very beginning, and then I gradually understand it After reading the manifesto of the c community, I knew that this community is extraordinary. So, I actively participated in this airdrop.
Thanks to others for their trust and passed on the #3 badge to me. So I became the owner of the No. 3 badge. I understand that I want to pass the badge to other people, so I pass it on to others with the lowest gas. They trust me unreservedly and give me their ether, but my badge is not used in the right way. was destroyed.
At that time, I was very anxious, not only because of the loss of the badge, but because so many people were waiting for my answer. During this period, I experienced asking others for help and looking for various methods, but in the end it was fruitless. As the person involved, I was very anxious, but the people who paid me the gas fee did not rush me, and they always trusted me. Makes me feel warmer.
At that time, this matter has been tossing from eight or nine o'clock in the evening to more than twelve o'clock, and finally the problem was solved. From it, I learned a lot, and most importantly, I gained these trustworthy friends in the c community.
The event is over, and everything has just begun. "
Igneous: "At the beginning of the airdrop event, because only two people had the badge, it was very scarce, and the competition for the people on the white list was fierce. At that time, I also wanted to buy it, but the high gas fee dissuaded me. The next morning I wanted to I wanted to get a badge, but I was afraid that others would take the gas and run away, so I found the official staff and got the badge with confidence.
After a few hours, I was a little afraid that I would not be able to transfer out my badge in time, so I started looking for people in large numbers. The number of unacquired whitelists became less and less, and the whitelists began to become very popular. After chatting with a few people, some people even got the badge directly, and I began to regret my impatientness in the morning. In the end, I found a person who was able to talk to me even if he wasn’t short of money. After the chat, he transferred 0.05eth to me. I am very happy, but he is an imtoken account, and I am not sure whether to transfer it to him. When I was hesitating, the airdrop activity has been settled, and the stone in my heart has also fallen. At least this badge belongs to me. I didn't fulfill my promise to pass it on to him, I just want to have this badge, maybe it will be worth a lot of money. After expressing my apology, I returned 0.05eth, compensated with a small red envelope, and reached a settlement with him.
During this activity, my heart has been wandering, I have been greedy, I have regretted it, and I have also experienced the magical thing of trust. I told my friends about this activity. Most of them think that the activity is not meaningful, but I have a An urge I'd rather be lied to than participate in. "
We collected 66 testimonials from the community, and made a cloud map of their testimonial keywords. We value the advice and affection of our community.
personal perception
First of all, I really feel that the changes that encryption brings to artists and art are great, and this greatness is especially reflected in the changes in production relations, organizational forms, and power structures. At present, some artists are already trying to explore chain-native artworks, and they can go deeper from the perspective of the community.
Second, trust the community. This sentence is easier said than done. In the beginning, I also upheld an elitist standpoint, trying to attract some big shots to play, and even wished that these people were all big shots. But QI and Whitefish criticized my idea, and they both believed that a community that truly belongs to CryptoC and Artist West should be built. In addition, Whitefish believes that the community can be educated and grow together, and a diverse group organization should be accepted. As a result, according to our investigation, the friends who participated in this airdrop came from all corners of the country, some from Beijing and Shanghai, some from Wuhan and Nanning, and some from small counties on the 18th line. Some of them are designers from Hong Kong, and some are based in the United States and have achieved financial freedom; some are college students, some are civil servants; some are senior NFT players, and some have just learned how to use the little fox wallet. There was also a couple who brought their families to our airdrop, and both of them got it. To be honest, I don’t know most of the people who participated in the community distribution. In the end, their participation made our community airdrop very exciting.
I would like to make another extension about trusting the community. I couldn't have imagined the ISO's success until I saw the power of the community - and the community educated myself. One of the most common practices in the financial market is that giant whales drive up the prices of artists' works, and the voice of giant whales is very important in the art market. How to help artists get closer to the community and how to invent new tools for them is the mission of all content tool providers in the Web3.0 era.
In the end it's all about personal opinion. Through the data in April, we can already see that the turnover of several top NFT exchanges is declining rapidly, and the hype enthusiasm for NFT in the Western world has begun to fade. If there is no new gameplay in the future, if we continue to maintain the previous content production system after the artwork is put on the chain, encrypted art cannot be called a revolution, but just a boring mapping of the world on the chain to the world off the chain. In order for this industry to truly develop in the long run, we must answer this question.
Times are undergoing very drastic changes. Our behavioral experiments on encrypted art will not stop, and we will continue to deeply integrate art, blockchain and the community. We also want to call on more artists to join our experiment.
Let the pioneering things happen here.
