The development of the NFT market in 2021 can be described by the rapid wind, the market value soared from $70 million in mid-February to $4.7 billion in October, an increase of 67 times, and the number of NFT holders also soared from the initial few hundred to the current 560,000, and is still rising rapidly, so this stormy increase is quite like the deFi market market value of the top 100 projects The total market value of the top 100 projects has risen - an exponential rise.
But even so, if you stand at the height of the industry, it is obvious that everything is just beginning. Because NFTs are by no means just one or two crypto games, cryptographic art is not the ceiling of NFTs, and even higher-order generative art (Generative Art) cannot become the upper limit of NFTs, the fundamental reason is that NFTs are the "traffic entrance" and "key to open the door to encryption" of new things such as Web 3.0, metaversics and SocialFi.
Because of this, on the road to the rapid development of NFTs, there will be new crypto artists with operational and creative capabilities, new and new NFT-related economic models, and the imminent emergence of meta-universes and Web 3.0, accompanied by an unprecedented wave of wealth transfer... It's all like a bamboo shoot in the spring soil, and that sweetness is worth digging up with time and energy.
Recently, the most noteworthy crypto artist overseas is PAK, the most noteworthy art form is not generative art, PAK and the first half of the fire of The Fungible, Fade, ASH is closely related, PAK is also Beeple's guide in the digital art world, today we will explore the encryption artist known as "Satoshi Nakamoto of the NFT world".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" >1, PAK, and generative art</h1>
In April, top auction house Sotheby's conducted an NFT crypto art auction, the first time crypto art has been held at a major auction house.
The hammer was hammered, and within 30 minutes all the artworks were sold out, and 3,100 buyers participated in the auction for 6,000 NFTs, with a turnover of $16.8 million.
The protagonist of this auction (NFT works) is the "The Fungible" series, which is written by the well-known overseas crypto artist Pak (stage name). On the day of the auction, the price of each auction was about $500, and half a year later, the market price of the cheapest small square has exceeded $18,000 (October 19 data), and the secondary market has long been in short supply.
Source: Opensea
Subsequently, in June this year, PAK held the first "generative art" NFT work "Fade" auction at Sotheby's. On-Chain NFT is a pioneer in "NFTs software/code art". Fade's feature is that it disappears after a year, and in different wallets, the form of the work also changes according to the wallet address, and finally fades to $528,200.
Fade's presentation is similar to that of Corroded and Transformed Roman Bust. The work is crypto artist Daniel Arsham's first NFT work in May, in which the sculpture gradually corrodes and decomposes with the changes of the seasons until it disappears completely, and the cycle lasts for up to a year, changing every month.
The above two examples are enough to illustrate the influence of PAK on the overseas NFT field.
Sotheby's introduction to PAK in its auction notes goes like this:
PAK's NFT work "Fade" is its most inspiring adventure in the field of NFTs, and it also adds to the NFT world. PAK is a well-known designer/developer/mentor who uses his work as a medium as a tool and means to integrate with blockchain. As a creator of artistic innovation through code, Fade is aesthetically and philosophically epitome of the PAK style.
Sotheby's also introduced us to the mysterious and "spiritual leader" side of PAK, which Sotheby's also recorded in its auction notes:
In order to concentrate all his energy entirely on the creation of the works, PAK completely gave up his identity as the owner of these works. The creator's unique personality is reflected in their pseudonym, the word "PAK" refers to "The Nothing". The talented creator spent more than two decades working on digital art anonymously, becoming the nominal spiritual leader of the NFT revolution. PAK's secrecy and ultra-modern approach to the art world have made him one of the most cutting-edge artists of our time.
Fade's popularity has made "generative art" NFTs the most talked about digital art form since August.
Taking the transaction level of the NFT project as an example, artBlocks single product recorded the highest priced NFT single item in recent times, the Ringer of the ArtBlocks series #109成交额高达6, $891,017.67, purchased by the 0x55Fa address on October 4, the buyer's wallet has a total of 151 NFTs, of which ArtBlocks accounted for more than 90% (144 pieces). Art Blocks is an NFT platform that generates and stores works on demand on Ethereum, including static images, 3D models, and interactive experiences. It is home to creative coding, generating works on demand on Ethereum and hosting subsequent iterations of generated works on the blockchain.
Recently priced at 2100 ETH, The ArtBlocks single piece Ringer #109
The other two sets of data also reflect that the "generative art" NFTs are receiving a lot of attention from the market.
First, the top 10 projects by market capitalization are CryptoPunks, Art Blocks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Loot (for Adventurers), My Curio Cards, Meebits, Cool Cats NFT, CrypToadz by GREMPLIN, and 0N1Force.
Among them, Art Blocks has a market value of 770 million US dollars, ranking second in the NFT category. The total market value of Art Blocks soared to $770 million from $45 million in late July, an increase of 1,700 percent, in less than three months.
Second, look at the top ten NFT items in the past 30 days, they are Ringers #109 (2100 ETH), Fidenza #77 (950 ETH), Chromie Squiggle #4697 (945 ETH), Chromie Squiggle #7583 (922.5 ETH), Ape Bored Yacht Club #2087 (769 ETH), Ringers #220（750 ETH）、Ringers #621（700 ETH）、Bored Ape Yacht Club #8135（550 WETH）、Chromie Squiggle #6339（485 ETH）、The Eternal Pump #11（450 ETH）。
Eight of them are related to Art Blocks, which is enough to illustrate the popularity of "generative art" NFT works such as Art Blocks.
PAK can be said to be the "prophet" of the development of the NFT market, while leading the trend, but also setting an example of spiritual leaders for the entire industry. But that's just part of the crypto art "prophet" industry experience, and another well-known story is that PAK was the one who guided Beeple, the artist who made the most expensive work in digital art ($69 million), more than a year ago. In mid-October, Beeple also tweeted his one-year anniversary with PAK, thanking PAK for introducing himself to the NFT world.
If PAK's story just stops here, it only means that he is a brilliant and amazing crypto artist, and it is not enough to match Christie's evaluation of the "spiritual leader" of its NFT world. It should be known that the NFT community at home and abroad evaluates PAK as "Satoshi Nakamoto of the NFT world".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="27" >2, will PAK's NFT loop mechanism be the future? </h1>
PAK is the second artist in the field of NFT art sales after Beeple, and is the leader in "generative art", PAK believes that NFT art should fully apply the power of on-chain smart contracts, exist entirely on the chain and interact with smart contracts to produce chemical reactions. PAK is good at expressing black and white geometric objects through algorithms, and the artificial intelligence image discovery engine "Archillect" created by PAK has been followed by Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey and others.
In addition to the above titles, PAK has also contributed to the design of the NFT loop mechanism.
In April, PAK disappeared after sotheby's successful auction of nearly $17 million of works, leaving behind a creative NFT cycle mechanism, which is ASH's "burning and creating mechanism", or NFT cycle mechanism.
In this mechanism, all works of PAK and all NFT works (ERC-721) of many platforms can be "recycled" (burned) into ASH, and then exchangeash for higher value NFT works, which can be PAK originals or collaborations with other top NFT artists, and ASH holders will also enjoy exclusive airdrop rights.
This is the NFT loop mechanism that PAK brings to the NFT world using ASH.
The purpose of this mechanism is to do the following four aspects.
First of all, we can clean up the overly chaotic NFT market, through the exchange of NF and ASH system to provide incentives, we know that the current NFT market is mixed, a lot of low-end products flood the market, ASH's original intention is to burn garbage and get gold; secondly, ASH can become a community token for the artist community led by PAK; then, the ASH mechanism can become a value exchange channel for buying and selling works; finally, ASH itself can also be used for value storage.
In order for ASH to work benignly, PAK has designed a special generation mechanism for ASH.
First, ASH can only be generated by "reclaiming" NFTs. So far, 2,400 of PAK's 6,800 NFT works have been "recycled" to produce ASH.
Secondly, the ASH "recycling" curve is shown below, the blue line and the green line represent the "recycling output" relationship diagram of PAK works and other artists' works, as the number of burned NFT works increases, ash output will be correspondingly smaller, but in general, the NFT works that burn PAK will get a larger coefficient of ASH, but burn the first work, no matter whose work, will get as much ASH.
Then, in terms of quantity, the more NFTs are accumulated, the amount of ASH produced decreases, and the green line decreases faster than the blue line. Regardless of the value of the work, the ASH produced by the "recycling" of a single NFT is the same.
In general, the operating mechanism of ASH is equivalent to the "garbage" of the "short" NFT market, the rare and connotative "value works" in the "long" market, and 99% of the current market will be zeroed out after one year, which shows that this mechanism is likely to shine in the future NFT market.
So what is Pak's own view of burning NFTs? Why did he design such a mechanism?
On April 30 this year, PAK said: "Everyone is creating things, and I want to destroy things and create value in the process of destruction." Many times, cleaning the garden makes it more valuable. ”
All in all, PAK is the best NFT creator in the crypto art circle, and also a pioneer in promoting the traditional art industry to embrace NFTs, with an unshakable historical position, a distinct artistic style has brought him a wide range of influence, PAK can be called Satoshi Nakamoto in the field of NFT.