The origin assets of the digital antiquities market (NFTs)
WhiteRabbit1111
The timeline for the Origin Digital Antiquities Market (NFTs)
Chart updated 1 June 2022 (for a higher res version of timeline click here)
Note 1: An early innovative arts project called Bitchcoin was missed in the recent update and will be added shortly.
Note 2: The chart has been updated, but the text in the article has not as of yet. Therefore the article content and reference numbers do not align with the chart. Updates to the article will be added shortly.
NFTs — A new world changing asset class
I have compiled this information to help people understand the origin projects out of which the NFT movement has emerged.
I apologise in advance for the length of this article. It is intended as a useful reference document rather than a leisurely read.
I contend that we are living in a unique emergence period of a new asset class that will radically disrupt many elements of the way our society operates and how we live. Given this, I believe great value will be attributed to the very earliest of these assets and innovative projects that have pioneered this new paradigm. We have already seen this dynamic start to play out. However, there remain some largely unknown and undervalued digital relics that this article will provide some information about.
Bitcoin (via the Counterparty internet protocol) played a very dominant role in the very earliest of NFTs/tokenised assets (2011–2016). This was then followed by a strong shift of focus and activity to the Ethereum chain (2017 onwards).
The significance of these origin assets being tokenised to bitcoin should not be overlooked in terms of the security, decentralisation and longevity that this provides. Being on the ‘origin chain’ is appropriately poetic too I might add.
At the moment, access to trade BTC assets is via Counterparty or the use of ‘Emblem Vaults’ on OpenSea. I would suggest these temporary entry barriers are your friend right now - as it has helped reduce broader market access for now. Therefore the curious and the tenacious will be rewarded ahead of what will soon be open and fully integrated chain-agnostic market platforms which are currently in development. At that time there will be full market access and exposure to these early treasures. To help you navigate the learning curve in this space I recommend these forums: Rare Pepe Trading Club and Official Counterparty Chat
Disputes over NFT semantics are missing the point
There are some people that get very hung up on the concept of what is and isn’t an ‘NFT’. However, it doesn’t need to be that complex. The use of the word ‘NFT’ by the market has now evolved and gone well beyond its original technical definition of being a non-fungible 1/1 item. Rather, the term ‘NFT’ is now being used to refer to any tokenized digital asset that is verifiably scarce. Bottom line is, value is not attributed to an asset on the basis of a technical definition. Rather, the very moment that a digital item could be tokenized to chain and thus become verifiably scarce — that was the moment that the market forces of supply and demand leaped into action and ascribed that item value. The market has voted with its feet, and has well demonstrated that silly arguments over NFT semantics are now moot.
The need for a factual narrative & giving due recognition
I have chosen to provide this timeline of projects overlaid with Rogers Adoption Curve for a couple of reasons:
a) To illustrate my assessment of just how early we all are in this space, and the significant interest and demand to come.
b) To highlight just how far out in front of this innovation curve some these very early blockchain projects actually were.
I wish to highlight this because there has been an unfortunate and inaccurate narrative that had gripped the market which overlooked some of the most important innovators and most influential projects that first pioneered this NFT space. Specifically, there has been an inaccurate notion that this new movement of NFTs started with cryptopunks.
The market is now starting to realize that this was not the case, and that there were several innovative and influential projects that came well before it. These facts do not diminish the historical significance and value of cyptopunks (I’m a fan and include cryptopunks in my holdings), however it is important that the earliest of innovators and projects are also given due recognition for their role in this world changing technology.
There are a number of people to whom this refers, and I’m not able to list them all here, however I am especially wishing to draw attention to the important place in history that Shaban Shaame, and Joe Looney hold due to their very early pioneering work with the projects Spells of Genesis and Rare Pepes respectively (amongst other projects).
As outlined in the information below, these two projects have triggered a chain of events and a subsequent NFT movement that has reverberated around the world and will ultimately expand beyond most of our imaginings.
Similarly, the pioneering work of Etheria has been too long over-shadowed by this erroneous narrative, and it too is deserving of credit and recognition. I have great respect for the early genius of the Etheria developer who launched the project only 3 months after Ethereum went live. I can only hope the founder also comes to recognize that no-one can nor should seek to control the revolutionary decentralized technology that this project had been so quick to leverage. Etheria v1.1 and v1.2 are both historically significant and will forever be valued existing independently on the Ethereum blockchain.
There are many others also deserving of recognition for their pioneering work including Christian Moss and Koji Higashi who also contributed to the very early Counterparty projects, as well as Kevin McCoy & Anil Dash(Namecoin, Monegraph) and of course Matt and John from Larva Labs who created such an innovative and iconic project (Cryptopunks) that has become the face of the NFT market. These various early projects are not competitors. They are complementary, and together with the various others listed in this article form the rich history of this world changing technology.
Similarly, the vintage assets associated with these projects do not compete for value, but rather, together they form the early digital antiquities market. There is no limit to the supply of tokenized assets that will emerge in future, but there is an iron-clad hard cap on the scarcity of those in the past. This timeline and article has sought to map these out for you (well, all those that are known at the time of writing).
NB. The dark horse that I believe will soon further amend the NFT historical narrative will be the early achievements of Namecoin, which for the moment remain largely unknown to the market.
House Keeping — BTC Assets Wallet (via Counterparty)
If you are seeking to purchase BTC/Counterparty assets you’ll need a compatible wallet, or else to understand how Emblem Vaults work on Ethereum. Further information to guide you through this space is available here.
Important information before we get to the good stuff
a) I have tried to cover a lot of ground and in so doing have kept the information on each project to a minimum for quick reference. I certainly have not gone into the depth that is required to do justice to each of these amazing early pioneering projects. I recommend you undertake further research to better understand and appreciate their rich history.
b) I have tried to provide as accurate information as possible, but I know that there will inevitably be errors. There may also be some projects that I have missed, and if that is the case I apologise in advance. It is important to me that the accurate historical narrative attributes credit where credit is due. If you identify any errors/omissions pls advise me and I will seek to incorporate edits where possible.
c) The information I provide is my opinion only and is not financial advice. It is important you do your own due diligence and draw your own conclusions.
d) I am a collector of vintage tokenised assets, and — full disclosure — naturally I do hold a number of the assets described in this article because I do believe in their worth. However, rather than this being an attempt to ‘shill my bags’ I simply offer insight into the value asssessment framework that I have applied for some time now and some additional information that can help you access these vintage assets which are often unknown to the market or difficult to locate.
e) I have tried to provide some value to readers through the information provided, however I am not a trained expert in this field. I would at all times defer to the expertise of Martin Lukas Ostachowski who has undertaken extensive research and who I consider to be the foremost expert on the history of cryptoart.
Projects on the Timeline ~GOLDEN EMERGENCE ERA
1. Colored Coins (27 Mar 2012)
Although these are not strictly NFTs themselves, they were broadly recognized as where the early concepts of NFT technology was first conceived. It is a method that was designed to represent and manage real world assets using Bitcoin.
For further information refer to the White Paper first published by Yoni Assia in March 2012.
A follow up more detailed paper was also later released which was authored by: Yoni Assia, Vitalik Buterin (pre-Ethereum), Lior Hakim and Meni Rosenfeld.
Sources and other useful links:
https://cryptoadventure.org/a-brief-history-of-colored-coins-what-made-them-special/
https://andrewsteinwold.substack.com/p/the-history-of-non-fungible-tokens
https://opensea.io/blog/guides/non-fungible-tokens/
2. TEST (13 Jan 2014), TESTER (19 Jan 2014), THING (7 Apr 2014) etc.
These were the earliest tokenized assets in the form of titles on BTC using the internet protocol Counterparty. A range of other titles were similarly tokenized around the same time. These early names did not have any further text, images/audio (etc) associated with them.
Sources and other useful links:
counterparty.io
3. Quantum (02 May 14) Blockheads (2014–2015) Comicons (2014–2015) CryptoEggs (2014–2017)
Some of this content regarding Namecoin projects has been provided by @EarlyNFT
There are few within the market that understand the significance and innovation of Namecoin which holds the very first NFTs that were ever created. These NFTs are ancient ‘prehistoric’ treasures that will no doubt become better known soon as they find their way onto the open market.
Namecoin became the first hard fork of Bitcoin back in 2011. Originally known as BitDNS, Namecoin is noteworthy as being the only other blockchain that Satoshi Nakamoto (and Gavin Andresen) contributed to and publicly supported. This is well documented on the BitcoinTalk forum. Namecoin’s original intended purpose is to free speech from censorship by decentralizing the domain name system. Only in 2013–2014 did a company called OneName build a platform to use Namecoin for their decentralized identity platform and hence the need for avatars.
Namecoin remains to this day one of the most decentralized chains in existence due to the way it is co-mined together with bitcoin.
Quantum
This is believed to be the very earliest cryptoart NFT — which was done so on Namecoin.
This original artwork by Kevin McCoy was more recently retokenized to Ethereum and sold at a Sotheby’s auction in June 2021 for $1.4M. However, there is some significant controversy relating to this sale.
The public were advised that that the original ‘token’ had been destroyed and for this reason it was reissued on Ethereum. However, new information has emerged indicating that the original asset may have simply failed to be renewed (a feature of Namecoin) and was claimed by a new owner once it had expired.
This therefore raises the question about which is the ‘original artwork’? Is it the retokenised work by the artist or the original token? To answer that, there is legal minefield to walk through in terms of digital ownership and IP in this very new NFT paradigm. The recent buyer of Quantum has subsequently expressed confidence in regards to having genuine ownership of ‘Quantum’, whilst the current owner of the original Namecoin token is equally confident in their ownership. One thing is for sure, this is not going to be the last controversy over ownership rights to emerge in this emerging space as significant value is increasingly attributed to these assets.
Sources and Other useful links:
https://video.foxbusiness.com/v/6258820256001#sp=show-clips
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/nfts-werent-supposed-end-like/618488/
Blockheads
These are amongst the earliest NFTs ever created and the earliest known PFPs (Profile Pictures) which significantly pre-date the popular 2020/21 PFP movement. Blockheads were not created with the intent to be a collectable, but rather as a unique avatar representation of an individual’s digital identity tokenised to Namecoin.
The drawings actually look very similar to the iconic Cryptopunks. The punks were released into the wild by LarvaLabs in 2017, but given the remarkable similarities, it would appear that they may have been inspired by this much earlier project minted on Namecoin. Blockheads have a 4-bit design and a similar pixelated look.
LarvaLabs produced 10,000 Cryptopunks, however in contrast it is estimated that there are only 35–45 Blockheads NFTs in existence. All Blockheads are 1/1s and may themselves have been modelled after the popular pixel art figures from world of Minecraft.
ComicCons
The ComicCons avatars are more modern looking avatars than your ‘typical’ 2014 NFT. The ComicCons NFTs are the middle ground behind the old school pixel avatars and the current hyper caricatures we see being minted in 2021. Characters like Insane Moe and TallSam look more like Garbage Pail Kids than the real world individuals whose likeness we may never know. The avatars were created using the program ‘FaceYourManga’. The variability available to users of the program had a wide range of features they could select from to settle on a look that best represents them in the digital space. Pair the avatar’s trait customizability with their being ‘one of ones’ and you have a set of NFTs with genuine rarity.
CryptoEggs (Twitter Eggs)
These eggs were issued automatically by Twitter between 2014–2017 for new users. They would sit in the place of avatars until the user added their own pictures. However, the problem arose that people become quite fond of their colorful eggs and kept using them instead of replacing them with a profile picture. To address this the eggs were subsequently dropped for the more familiar and mundane ‘shadow’ avatar that we see today. Some however immortalized their original Twitter eggs by tokenizing them on Namecoin.
There are roughly 200–220 CryptoEggs that reside on Namecoin and were minted between September 2014 — September 2015. Ordered from most common to most rare: Purple, Green, Light Orange, Red, Grey, Dark Orange, Green-Blue, Blue, Neon Green and Light Blue.
As we increasingly move toward new chain-agnostic market platforms, it is expected that more vintage Namecoin assets will be available in the marketplace. As an interim measure, work is presently being undertaken with EmblemVault to enable the assets to be listed for sale on OpenSea.
Chain: Namecoin (An early BTC fork)
Current Prices:
Given there currently in no active marketplace and any sales to date have been OTC, it is difficult to assess current prices.
It is anticipated that Namecoin NFTs will soon be available via Emblem Vault on OpenSea.
Markets to purchase asset:
Contact me for further information here
Sources and other useful links:
Satoshi — Bitcointalk
Namecoin token explorer
4. OLGA (12 June 2014/15), NILI Coins (14 Sep 2014), MYSOUL (21 Nov 2014)
OLGA
OLGA was another very early name/title that was tokenized to Bitcoin (via Counterparty) but which also contained significant intention and meaning (ie in contrast with ‘TEST’ for instance). OLGA was used as a gesture of love whereby JP Janssen dedicated a token to his sweetheart ‘Olga’ with the additional text the ‘One & Only’ on 12th June 2014. Approximately a year later (August 2015) he added to the metadata a message and an image of a light pencil drawing of them kissing.
NILI Coins
Artist Nili Lerner releases her NILI Coin tokens which represent proportional ownership of her artwork. eg. the recognisable I-COKE tokens.
MYSOUL
Artist Rhea Myers tokenized her soul conceptually as a MYSOUL token on Bitcoin (via the Counterparty platform).
Sources and other useful links:
YouTube — JP Jansen talking about his OLGA
Early Evolution of Art on the Blockchain
NILI Coins
Ostachowski — History of CryptoArt
5. FDCARD (11 March 2015) & SATOSHICARD (24 June 2015) — Spells of Genesis Cards
Arguably the historical holy grail of tokenized assets, and extremely hard to come by. The FDCARD is the first of many firsts…
It is the first collectable ever tokenized to chain (and was before Ethereum went live). FDCARD is card #1 within the Spells of Genesis game which was the first game to leverage blockchain for in game assets (aside from currency purposes), Therefore, the FDCARD is in fact the first tokenized asset of any game… ever.
The FDCARD is also one of the very first instances of tokenized cryptoart (Artist: Alejandro Hurtado).
The company EverdreamSoft, founded by Shaban Shaame leveraged the Counterparty platform to tokenize a series of assets on the bitcoin blockchain for use in their game Spells of Genesis which still remains active today. The original tokenized assets are now highly sought after collectibles constituting historical artefacts that pioneered the emergence of this entire new asset class and the associated industries and economies that are now emerging from it.
There were 300 FDCARDs tokenized on 11 March 2015. They were originally distributed to participants of the innovative FoldingCoin project as a reward for contributing their idle computational power towards a collective effort with involvement by Stamford University to find cures to diseases. The card was distributed in a fractionalized manner (a feature made possible by Counterparty), so that many recipients may have only received a portion of an FDCARD. The nature of this early distribution method in 2015 at a time when ‘tokenized assets’ were not well understood, means that a large proportion of FDCARDs have been left in forgotten wallets and forever ‘lost to the ages’. In fact, at the time of writing there are only 87 whole 1.0 FDCARDS left in active wallets (this figure can change), and only enough fractions remaing in active wallets for 100 whole 1.0 FDCARDs to still be reassembled. Thus, the lucky holders of an FDCARD make up a very small and limited group forming what could be described as the Origin #100 Club.
FDCARD Holdings Analysis
A number of other Spells of Genesis assets were also tokenized around the same the time, such as the revered SATOSHICARD (24 June, 2015). There were originally 1000 of these issued, however 800 were subsequently burned, therefore leaving only 200 for collectors to seek out. Over the course of the past 5 years it is uncertain how many more have been left in abandoned wallets and forever lost which would further reduce the available supply.
The 1st ever metaverse asset — the SATOSHICARD, showing how it manifests in the games Spells of Genesis and SarutobiIsland
Incredibly, through a collaboration between Spells of Genesis and Sarutobi, the SATOSHICARD is recognized as the first ever tokenized metaverse asset. The same asset/token was integrated into the two games by two different devs, providing different utility in each. This was the humble birth of metaverse, and served to be the first crack in the walled gardens of the multibillion dollar gaming industry. Over time the earth shattering significance of this innovation will become better known as these concepts work their way through. It is my firm belief that the degree of disruption this technology will bring to the worldwide multi-billion dollar gaming industry will ultimately cause it to be divided into two epochs, Pre-Ownership and Post-Ownership. Future generations will be bemused at the thought of people investing substantial money into games and assets that then had to simply be left on the gaming servers when one tired of the game.
This impending disruption all started here with the FDCARD, the SATOSHICARD and the other assets within the Spells of Genesis game.
The game itself was in beta by Sep 2016 and then released in May 2017, and remains active to this day. Spells of Genesis have released over 400 blockchain assets between 2015 and 2019, all with varying images, meanings and rarities. Adding to the unique value of the Spells of Genesis assets, EverdreamSoft took the visionary decision to incorporate into their tokenized cards a representation of rich historical events throughout early blockchain history. Therefore, the game assets and their associated artwork preserves a historical narrative of this important emergence period for posterity. A few examples of these include: SATOSHILITE — “The Imitator”, GOXCARD — “The stealing of Mountain Gox”, BLOCKSIZECD — “Battle for Block Size”, ETHERERUMCARD — “Sir of the Ether”, and many more.
Chain: Bitcoin (Counterparty)
Issuance:
There were 300 FDCARDs minted, however many of these are believed to be lost to inaccessible wallets due to the unusual early distribution method. At the time of writing there were just 87 that remain intact as full cards in active wallets.
There were 1000 SATOSHICARDs issued, and subsequently 800 were burned leaving just 200 of these elite vintage collector’s items to be fought over.
There are over 300 Spells of Genesis cards of varying issuance numbers from 200–3000, with many dating back to 2015.
Current Prices:
FDCARD
Given the rarity and significance of this asset there has been little market activity, therefore it difficult to determine a floor. The current lowest price on OpenSea is 120 ETH, and then it moves up to 540 ETH.
SATOSHICARD
Similarly, there has been little market activity, therefore it difficult to determine a floor. The current lowest price on OpenSea is 90 ETH.
Other SoG Cards:
There is a broad range of prices available for the other cards in the series. These vary in prices. Given these are the first set of collectibles ever tokenized to chain as well as the first blockchain gaming assets, I expect the Spells of Genesis cards to be some of the most highly sought after digital assets by collectors into the near future.
Marketplaces to purchase asset:
https://opensea.io/assets/emblem-vault-matic?search[resultModel]=ASSETS
https://crystalsuite.com/store/
Sources and other useful links:
https://www.orbexplorer.com/collection/?collection=eSog
https://spellsofgenesis.tumblr.com/post/116644097515/what-is-an-fdcard
https://bitcoinist.com/moonga-spells-genesis-taking-cryptocurrency-online-gaming/
https://cointelegraph.com/news/tokenized-mobile-gaming-spells-of-genesis-bitcrystals
6. Etheria v1.1 (29 Oct 2015)
and
7. Etheria v1.2 (31 Oct 2015)
This project is very historically significant given that it created the very first Non-Fungible Tokens on the Ethereum chain (an accolade which until recently the market had been erroneously attributed to cryptopunks). Etheria was launched just 3 months after Ethereum went live.
Etheria was also the first decentralized world on Ethereum, and the first virtual real estate which could be owned as NFTs (the first of many tokenized virtual worlds and the first virtual real estate that has now a booming market across many games). In Etheria players can own land tiles, farm them for blocks, and build things — although this utility has been significantly hampered by high gas costs.
Etheria v1.0 was an early buggy contract that did not have the functionality to be effectively traded.
Etheria v1.1 was the first set of NFTs on Ethereum that could be owned and traded.
Etheria v1.2 was tokenized 2 days later with some minor changes and is designated as the Etheria that is being further developed by the founder.
The founder of Etheria has previously acknowledged that v1.1 is the “first 3rd-party tradeable NFT” on Ethereum, and v1.2 is the “living version of Etheria that everything will flow from”. (20/3/2021 discord)
Unfortunately, there has been other unhelpful rhetoric about these assets and an attempt by some to diminish and suppress the value of v1.1. One can only assume this derision may be due to a fear that the v1.1 assets could be considered of greater value by the market than v1.2 given that it is an earlier contract. However, it stands to reason that both versions 1.1 and 1.2 have significant historical value. Both exist independently in a decentralized form on the Ethereum blockchain. Both can be owned and traded.
In regards to Etheria v1.1, even if the Etheria founder takes these assets no further, any developer in the future could develop other visualizations, a wrap and marketplaces to interact with the contract. There has been some indication that work in this regard may already be underway. Given the history-making status of these unique assets, it is reasonable to postulate that these will forever be highly sought after.
Who knows, given its rarity and historical status Etheria may become the most expensive real estate (physical or digital) in the world…?
Chain: Ethereum
Issuance:
Etheria v1.1 and v 1.2 are each made up of 420 NFT assets of different rarities. i.e. The ice, mountains, and islands are significantly more scarce than the hills, grass and sand plots.
Current Prices:
Prices vary according to the location and attributes of the land. At the time of writing, the floor price for Etheria v1.1 tiles is approximately 6 ETH and for v1.2 approximately 28 ETH.
Marketplaces to purchase asset:
https://etheria.world/exchange.html
Sources and other useful links:
Ethereum Archaeology: Etheria v1.1 Tile Claiming | by Digital Oil | Medium
https://www.aetheriaworld.com/
Decrypt Article about Etheria
An insightful synopsis of the v1.1 and v1.2 issues by Leonidas NFT
8. SaruTobi Island (6 May 2016)
SarutobiIsland Gaming Assets
A very early innovative game developed by Christian Moss (@Mandelduck) incorporating assets tokenized to bitcoin via Counterparty. There was an early release of the game with some functionality in August 2017. The game has remained active (accessible only in some regions) but also unfinished. This is one of the very first games, after Spells of Genesis to incorporate blockchain assets.
There were 10 assets created (some of those integrating with the game Spells of Genesis and which is understood to be the very first instance of a tokenised ‘metaverse’gaming asset — ie SATOSHICARD). The asset issuances ranged from 5,000–21,000,000 however @Mandelduck has recently indicated that he will be burning a large number of the assets to significantly reduce supply.
Chain: Bitcoin (via Counterparty)
Current Prices:
The are too few of these relics that have come to market to assess the purchase prices at this time.
Marketplaces to purchase asset:
OpenSea — Emblem Vault
Sources and Other useful links:
https://medium.com/@mandelduck_57082/a-brief-history-of-sarutobi-c5e6b87679ca
http://mandelduck.com/sarutobiisland/crowdfund/
https://mandelduck.medium.com/sarutobi-island-released-cb1e405c6204
9. Force of Will (12 Aug 2016)
Force of Will Cards on BTC / Counterparty
Force of Will is a Japanese fantasy series that centers on a physical trading card game and associated stories. By 2016, FoW had achieved significant success, selling cards in more than 30 countries and ranking 4th in sales volume in the North American hobby channel collectible game category (after Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, and Pokémon TCG).
In September 2016, Force of Will released their cards as tokenized assets along with a currency ‘WILLCOIN’ on bitcoin via Counterparty. It had been intended that a game would be launched in which the assets could be used, however the game never eventuated.
Issuance:
There are 160 cards in the series.
1000 of each card was issued, and 500 of each card was subsequently burned.
Chain: Bitcoin (via Counterparty)
Current Prices:
Difficult to establish a floor price There are too few of these assets that have come to market to assess the purchase prices at this time.
Marketplaces to purchase asset:
https://opensea.io/assets/emblem-vault-matic?search[resultModel]=ASSETS
Sources and Other useful links:
https://bitcoinist.com/force-will-digital-blockchain-assets/
https://news.bitcoin.com/blockchain-tcg-force-will-september/
10. Rare Pepes (9 Sep 2016)
The significance of this project to the birth of cryptoart cannot be overstated. This unique and innovative project largely defined the concept of tokenized cryptoart as we understand it today and is credited with spawning the global cryptoart movement. Going beyond the early individual experimental work that had tokenized artwork on Namecoin, the Rare Pepe project engaged and captured the imagination of a community of artists, enthusiasts and collectors around the world.
Also, as distinct from Spells of Genesis and other emerging projects, Rare Pepe was the first to demonstrate the use of blockchain for a community of enthusiasts to create, own and trade art simply as ‘art’ (ie. not assets for gaming use or any broader utility).
There is such a rich history to this project which one cannot do justice to in this short summary, therefore some resources are provided below for those wishing to understand this more. In a nutshell, a number of early innovators (Rare Pepe Scientists) led by Joe Looney provided an opportunity for artists/individuals to submit ‘dank’ Pepes to be included in the RarePepe collection. These crowdsourced submissions were reviewed by the ‘Rare Pepe Scientists’ who took a light-touch approach to curating the collection — accepting those that were sufficiently ‘dank’ and were not offensive to the peace loving values of the Rare Pepe community. These Rare Pepes were tokenized to bitcoin using the Counterparty Platform and were made available to be purchased through the user-friendly RarePepeWallet. Many of the Rare Pepe cards have imagery that draws on pop culture and provides cultural and/or political commentary (usually with much satire) regarding key historical moments.
There are over 1700 Rare Pepes, divided into 36 different series. The rarity of each card varies greatly from 1/1s to those which have multiple zeros well beyond any numerical name I am familiar with (!). However, the center of the bell curve sits around the 100–300 issuance levels, and some cards have also been subject to significant burn reductions.
Some of most valuable cards include the Nakamoto Rare Pepe (300 issued, Series 1, Card 1), the revered LordKek (10 issued, Series 1, Card 34), DJPepe the first audio-visual tokenized asset (169 Issued, Series 4, Card 29), UFOPEPE the first tokenized gif (800 issued, Series 1, Card 37), and of course the HomerPepe (1 Issued, Series 2, Card 32) which is considered by many to be ‘the most important NFT in crypto art history’. The are various other 1/1s and other Rare Pepe cards
Rare Pepe is also credited with holding the first known live cryptoart auction in Jan 2018. It was at this auction that the sale of the HomerPepe for $39,800 is said to have lit the first match for the cryptoart market and movement. The HomerPepe was recently resold for $320K in 2021.
Chain:
Bitcoin (Counterparty)
Current Prices:
Prices vary greatly depending on the rarity, creator, series, community sentimentality and historical significance of each Rare Pepe card. Members of the Rare Pepe community are presently exploring options to provide a value assessment guide for buyers. In the meantime, best to DYOR.
Marketplaces to purchase Rare Pepe assets:
(Note: This site requires Pepecash or XCP to purchase Rare Pepes. These currencies can usually be obtained via this dispensers link, or via a small number of crypto exchanges. More help can be obtained here: https://t.me/Counterparty_XCP)
https://freewallet.io/ (the wallet to hold BTC/Counterparty Assets and to access a DEX)
https://opensea.io/assets/emblem-vault-matic?search[resultModel]=ASSETS
Or DM to: https://twitter.com/WRabbit1111
Sources and Other useful links:
11. Age of Chains (30 Oct 2016)
Age of Chains Collectables
Age of Chains, inspired by Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone, is a very early blockchain trading card game set in an intergalactic clash of cultures, billions of years in the future. Players decide whether to defend the decentralized Milky Way or join in the corrupt Andromeda Empire. He game provides 1 on 1 player verse player battles.
The game seems to have flown under the radar of the general market, but is a very early innovative project with some amazing artwork that has been tokenized into cards for use in the game. The age and quality of these assets are likely to present as highly sought after historical relics in the period ahead.
Chain: Bitcoin (Counterparty)
Issuance:
777–1,000,000
GUARDIANCARD is the 1st in the series.
Current Prices:
There is insufficient market activity to determine asset value.
Markets to purchase asset:
https://freewallet.io/ (the wallet to hold BTC/Counterparty Assets and to access a DEX)
OpenSea Emblem Vault
Sources and other useful links:
https://www.orbexplorer.com/collection/?collection=eAoc
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1692890.0
https://xchain.io/asset/GUARDIANCARD
12. Pixel Map (17 Nov 2016)
There are a few Ethereum projects being rediscovered a bit like this one — but this is the earliest of its kind to date (and at this stage is the only known Ethereum project that was created in the 2016 year — refer to LeonadisNFT).
PixelMap is bascially a decentralised advertising board that users can purchase ‘tiles’ on to display whatever images and information that they may wish to. It may sounds like a simple concept, but it is the very early vintage of the project that gives it signficant value.
Adam McBride, who provides a very useful article with tips and further information, describes some of the early tile owners as having put artistic icons on their tiles — people, forests, and a spider — and embedding websites into their tiles metadata.
Chain: Ethereum
Issuances:
3,970 tiles.
Current Prices:
The floor price at the time of writing is 2 ETH.
Markets to purchase asset:
https://opensea.io/collection/wrapped-pixelmap
Other useful links:
https://adamamcbride.medium.com/pixel-map-lost-2016-nft-project-78fc00e62179
13. BitGirls (20 Dec 2016)
BitGirls collectibles used for voting
This is such an unusual and well hidden historical project and assets. Most believe that the NFT space has been quietly working away largely out of the site of the ‘mainstream’ until the very recent broader media reports and interest (in 2021).
However, in 2016/17 there was a Japanese TV Show that aired in Tokyo and surrounding area (14.3 million households) featuring young Japanese women known as ‘BitGirls’ Episodes air on a weekly basis, and participants could use Torekabu-nushi (Trading-share-card holders) to cast votes after each episode. The voting included having the girls wear different costumes and changing standing positions during each show. Each girl’s performance on TV would affect her popularity, thus increasing or decreasing the value of her token, and influencing viewers’ trading behaviors.
The new TV series included a crowdfunding event whereby participants purchased voting tokens. Investors could then trade the BitGirls currency on the Zaif exchange. This early innovative approach was effectively one of the earliest forms of ICOs or governance tokens before it had even been given the term.
There are 26 x BitGirls assets, each with a supply between 500–1000. Many of these assets remain in the original central wallet and it is unkown if anyone still has access to this. It is very difficult to find these assets for sale, and is almost impossible to know how many of these remain in circulation.
Chain: Bitcoin (Counterparty)
Current Prices:
There is insufficient market awareness and activity to determine asset value.
Current floor is 1 ETH on OpenSea at the time of writing.
Markets to purchase asset:
Open Sea Emblem Vaults
Sources and Other useful links:
https://www.orbexplorer.com/collection/?collection=eBtg
https://news.bitcoin.com/cryptocurrency-tv-show-bitgirls/
https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-rebranding-in-japan-bitgirls-tv-show-to-sugarcoat-mtgox-drama
Projects on the Timeline ~ SILVER EMERGENCE ERA
14. DieCast Club Collection (3 Feb 2017)
DieCast Digital Collectables
Collectable Diecast is a popular supplier of physical miniature car models for collectors. The company was founded in 1988 as a family business and then bought out by Collectable Brands in 2017.
The interesting history behind this one is that EverdreamSoft and Collectable DieCast shared an office building during this early innovation period. After coming to understand each other’s business, it was agreed that an attempt would be made to transition the interest of collectors from the traditional physical medium to the digital realm by tokenizing them to the BTC blockchain via Counterparty.
Needless to say, this innovation was very early for the market at the time, and the customer profile of DieCast Collectables was not exactly made up of ‘digital natives’. Therefore, the DieCast digital collectables were created, but did not take off at the time.
However, these early digital treasures remain tokenized to bitcoin and are now being unearthed by savvy collectors and digital archeologists. These DieCast collectables are historically significant in that they represent one of the earliest attempts to transition a well-established traditional collectors’ domain from physical to digital assets in this very early emergence period.
To appreciate how early this innovation attempt was, one must consider that these assets even pre-date other very early innovations such as curio cards, cryptopunks and cryptokitties.
In order to draw attention to these assets and reward users, EverdreamSoft partnered with @Mandelduck and coordinated an innovative distribution of some of these assets in connection with a geocaching app called Takara. The unusual method of distribution and innovation forged new ground in this new space of ‘air-dropping’ digital assets.
Chain: Bitcoin (Counterparty)
Current Prices:
DieCast asset are very rare and hard to come by. There is little market awareness of these treasures and insufficient market activity to determine asset value. The few times they have come to auction they have sold for several hundred dollars each. At the time of writing a full set is available on OpenSea using Emblem Vault for 42 ETH.
Markets to purchase asset:
OpenSea Emblem Vault
Sources and Other useful links:
https://www.orbexplorer.com/collection/?collection=eDie
https://collectablediecast.com/
https://medium.com/book-of-orbs/takara-diecast-token-giveaway-campaign-details-14e5ffe6922d
https://medium.com/book-of-orbs/diecast-collaboration-and-orb-giveaways-99a6ff1b0c7f#.5rvu0v5se
https://medium.com/r/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.everdreamsoft.com%2F
15. MemoryChain (8 April 2017)
Memorychain was a Japanese user-generated content collection aiming at depicting and commemorating significant events, people or projects in the blockchain industry. There were multiple artists and a community telegram that curated and voted on submissions. Information about this early community and project is hard to come by now. However these amazing artworks laden with blockchain history are left as valuable relics from this period. Lead innovator Koji Hagigashi has recently written an article providing some amazing insight into this early project and others.
Chain: Bitcoin (Counterparty)
Issuance:
152 different cards, each with a variety of issuances.
Current Prices:
Limited market activity make this difficult to assess. It has recently been made accessible on OpenSea via Emblem Vaults and the lowest price 0.02ETH
Markets to purchase asset:
OpenSea Emblem Vault
Sources and other useful links:
https://www.orbexplorer.com/collection/?collection=eMyc
16. Curio Cards (9 May 2017) & ENS Domains (7 May 2017)
Curio Cards
Curio Cards
“Curio Cards is an online art show and permanent gallery that launched on May 9, 2017. The goal of the project was to use a distributed network called Ethereum to create a new model for digital artwork ownership — a model that allows for the sale and collection of unique digital artwork without taking a cut of the artist’s revenue.
Today, it is the oldest known example on cryptoart on Ethereum and features 30 unique series of NFT cards from 7 different artists.
Curio Cards was referenced in the ERC-721 EIP, having been developed and released before the ERC-721 NFT standard was proposed. Curio Cards contains many features and concepts that were included in ERC-721 and other NFT standards.
A wrapper was more recently developed that lets users take their ERC-20 Curio Cards and “wrap” them inside an ERC-1155 token contract, for use on modern NFT marketplaces like OpenSea.
ENS Domains
Nick Johnson and Alex Van de Sande of the Ethereum Foundation led the initial development of ENS domains. The Ethereum Name Service (ENS) is “a distributed, open, and extensible naming system based on the Ethereum blockchain”. The service has been provided for uses such as operating like a DNS/website domain and also for connecting with an owner’s wallet address. ENS are considered by some to be an early form of NFT, and 2019 they transferred to the ERC721 NFT token standard.
Chain: Ethereum
Issuance:
CurioCards:
30 assets, all with different issuances. Refer to details here: https://gallery.curio.cards/
ENS Domains
Unlimited
Current Prices:
CurioCards:
Various prices, depending on asset and rarity — starting at 1.0 ETH at time of writing.
ENS Domains:
Yearly renewals cost $5/year for names that are 5 characters or longer. 4 character names cost $160/year, and 3 character names cost $640/year.
Markets to purchase asset:
CurioCards:
https://opensea.io/collection/curiocardswrapper
ENS Domains
https://opensea.io/collection/ens
Sources and Other useful links:
CurioCards:
https://twitter.com/mycuriocards?lang=en
https://art19.com/shows/state-of-the-art/episodes/9b91ed7a-ece4-409a-828d-38b82185e4f9
ENS Domains
https://decrypt.co/resources/ethereum-name-service-ens-explained-guide-learn
https://www.coindesk.com/ens-minting-nfts-23-top-level-domains-what-that-means
17. CryptoPunks (22 June 2017)
Cryptopunks have captured the imagintion of the NFT market
Needing no introduction, cryptopunks, developed by Larva Labs have become the ‘face’ of the NFT market.
“The CryptoPunks are 10,000 uniquely generated characters. No two are exactly alike, and each one of them can be officially owned by a single person on the Ethereum blockchain. Originally, they could be claimed for free by anybody with an Ethereum wallet, but all 10,000 were quickly claimed. Now they must be purchased from someone via the marketplace that’s also embedded in the blockchain.” https://www.larvalabs.com/cryptopunks
Cryptopunks are credited as inspiring the ERC721 standard, but are in fact an early standard. Cryptopunks are highly technologically and culturally significant and have largely inspired the plethora of the ‘PFP’ (Profile Picture) projects that have followed since.
However, there has unfortunately been an erroneous narrative about these being the first ever NFTs. This incorrect narrative quickly gained traction and has overshadowed awareness of the earlier innovative projects that came before it. However, the broader market is now starting to realize this as the facts and history become known.
As described above, there is no debating that Etheria was the first NFT on Ethereum, and this was created significantly earlier (almost 2 years). Even earlier than this, NameCoin hosted a number of NFTs and the earliest form of PFPs (Profile Pictures).
Furthermore, RarePepes had also established a community-sourced set of tokenized assets (including some 1 of 1 NFTs) considerably earlier than the release of cryptopunks.
The re-discovery of these facts do not in anyway diminish the value of cryptopunks, but rather, it simply results in additional value and credit also being directed to the other early innovations than came before it.
Chain:
Ethereum
Current Prices:
Floor at time of writing is 83 ETH
Markets to purchase asset:
https://www.larvalabs.com/cryptopunks
https://opensea.io/collection/wrapped-cryptopunks
Sources and Other useful links:
Various articles linked here: https://www.larvalabs.com/cryptopunks
18. Digital Zones (30 Aug 2017)
Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility is a non-fungible token artwork developed by Mitchell F. Chan and first minted on August 30, 2017 at InterAccess in Toronto.
“The artwork is significant not only for being one of the earliest NFT artworks to be exhibited and minted in a legacy art gallery, but also for imagining, in 2017, the ways that non-fungible tokens could advance the conceptualist project of separating the commodity form of an artwork from the experienced form. In also explored the ways the separation changes a collector’s relationship to art.
The Digital Zones tell a story about how different concepts of ownership are fundamental to the experience of an artwork. The artwork — and the 33-page essay which accompanied it — speculated that if, at some point in the future, artworks were owned and transacted through immaterial blockchain tokens, that shift in the commodity form of the artwork could also precipitate a shift in the material (or immaterial form) of the artwork.”
Chain: Ethereum
Current Prices:
Floor price at time of writing is 115 ETH.
Markets to purchase asset:
https://opensea.io/collection/ikb-cachet-de-garantie-1
Sources and Other useful links:
19. MoonCat Rescue (9 Aug 2017)
Inspired by cryptopunks, the MoonCatRescue project was a very early deployment of collectible NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain that actually pre-dated the celebrated CryptoKitties project and the CryptoCats project. The project was developed by Ponderware in 2017, and was effectively left abandoned for several years before then being ‘rediscovered’ in 2021.
It is understood that there are 25,600 MoonCats that were ‘rescued’ from the smart contract. The vast majority of these ‘rescues’ took place following their rediscovery in 2021, however approximately 13% of MoonCats were minted in 2017 when the project was originally launched.
Upon the community rediscovering the project, an official and unofficial ‘wrap’ was developed for the MoonCats which allows them to be held and traded on ERC-721 compliant platforms such as Opensea. Accessories of varying rarities have also been deployed more recently that can interact with the MoonCat contract (only applies to the Official Wrapper which are identified on OpenSea as “Official MoonCats Acclimated”).
Chain: Ethereum
Current Prices:
Prices vary according to MoonCat attributes. The Genesis MoonCats (black or white cats) are priced significantly higher than the others (80 ETH+). There is a premium for the MoonCats originally rescued in 2017 (1.2 ETH+), whilst the floor for the remaining MoonCats sits around 0.68 ETH at the time of writing.
Markets to purchase asset:
https://opensea.io/assets/acclimatedmooncats
https://opensea.io/assets/wrapped-mooncatsrescue
Other useful links:
https://decrypt.co/61316/an-ancient-nft-project-called-mooncats-is-eating-up-ethereum
20. Thousand Ether Home Page (26 Aug 2017)
In a similar theme to PixelMap, Weicards and Numberboard, Thousand Ether Home Page is an early project that allowed users to purchase ‘tiles’ on a decentralised ‘board’ and then add information to those tiles for public viewing.
Chain: Ethereum
Issuances:
There are 1,621 tradeable tiles.
Current Prices:
Floor is 0.015 at the time of writing.
Markets to purchase asset:
https://opensea.io/collection/thousand-ether-homepage
Other useful links:
@ketherhomepage
https://twitter.com/LeonidasNFT/status/1433118045002678280?s=20
21. Dada — Creeps and Weirdos (31 October 2017)
Creeps & Weirdos is a collection of 100 unusual limited-edition drawings made by artists worldwide on DADA. The collection has five levels of scarcity, from common to extremely rare drawings, making up a total of 16,000 digital assets.
The original contract allocated 40% of purchases directly back to the artists, which has presented some challenges to the project when now trying to list on OpenSea which applies a different policy.
Nonetheless, work is underway to enable full market access to these historic artworks.
The only works that are presently functional for purchase are the red faceless woman and the blue cyberwar piece.
All the Dada Creeps and Weirdo pieces are historic, however for the collectors to whom the minting date matters, it is important to check this before purchasing. All editions from #946 or lower were minted in 2017/18, whereas all higher numbers were minted in March 2021 when the contract was rediscovered.
Chain: Ethereum
Issuance:
100 x pieces, 16,000 assets in total.
Current Prices:
Difficult to ascertain until there is full market access. The floor price for the pieces accessible on OpenSea are 1 ETH.
Markets to purchase asset:
Dada Collectible Marketplace on OpenSea: Buy, sell, and explore digital assets
Sources and Other useful links:
https: https://discord.gg/j2QYg9xH//powerdada.medium.com/dada-is-everywhere-for-now-d6d4143bd9cd (until expired)
22. Lunar Plots (20 October 2017)
This 2017 project is another historic and cultural gem. Capturing the 2017 catch cry that was found in every telegram chat across the litany of ICOs and random alt coins… ‘wen moon?’
Lunar Token is an early NFT project that allows users to purchase real estate plots on the moon.
The Lunar Token team were inspired by countless “to the moon” memes — plus the nostalgia of online star registries from the 1990s and decided to build the first decentralized real estate marketplace. Starting with 400 plots on the Moon.
CryptoKitties which has often been credited with the first use of the ERC-721 standard on the Ethereum blockchain. However, the Lunar Token project pre-dates this and the contract was based on an early draft of the ERC-721 Ethereum proposal.
A moon marketplace was also launched at the time which included an interactive 3D map featuring imagery and laser depth mapping collected by the 1994 NASA Clementine mission
Soon after the original 400 plots were claimed, the price of ether crashed in 2017–2018. At this time the team reports that “The moon subsequently fell into darkness, forgotten, and went offline for nearly four years”.
The project was then rediscovered more recently and was brought back to life by a number of early collectors and enthusiasts.
Chain: Ethereum
Issuance:
400 plots
Current Prices:
The floor at the time of writing is 10 ETH.
Markets to purchase asset:
https://opensea.io/collection/wrapped-lunar
Sources and Other useful links:
https://lunartoken.medium.com/lunar-token-post-launch-update-da1052e09561
23. CryptoCats (12 Nov 2017)
An early NFT project on Ethereum developed as part of a blockchain hackathon in November 2017.
“CrytoCats are cute little 8-bit cats on the Ethereum Blockchain. Inspired by Matt and John of Larva Labs and their CryptoPunks. Starting with the smallest MVP possible, the initial release was 12 cats, deployed to mainnet on 12 November 2017. Available CryptoCats could be claimed from the contract.”
This was then scaled up to 625 cats in total.
These assets are significant because of how early the project is and the limited number of assets available. These cats were actually deployed to the Ethereum mainnet before the iconic CryptoKitties project launched. It was however preceded by MoonCats who are recognized as being the 1st cats on Ethereum (because it has become inexplicably apparent that the crypto community just can’t get enough of cats).
Chain: Ethereum
Issuance:
177 Cats during the blockchain hackathon event in November 2017.
436 Cats following the event in Dec 2017
Total = 625 Cats
Current Prices:
Floor is 5 ETH at time of writing.
Markets to purchase asset:
https://opensea.io/collection/wrappedcryptocats
Sources and Other useful links:
https://cryptocats.thetwentysix.io/
https://abcoathup.medium.com/introduction-to-cryptocats-bc68b8f5ea7e
https://dappradar.com/blog/what-is-cryptocats
24. Numberboard (16 Nov 2017)
In a similar theme to PixelMap, ThousandEther HomePage and Weicards, Numberboard is an early project that allowed users to purchase a number on a decentralised ‘board’ and then add information against that number slot they had purchased. This was another old project that had been buried, but was more recently rediscovered (by Schatz). The original developer remains unknown, but interestingly, thanks to some investiagtive work by Adam McBride, it seems they had over 44,000 ETH in their wallet(!).
Chain: Ethereum
Issuance:
The contract actually provides the opportunity for an infinite amount of numbers to be minted on the numberboard.
This lack of supply cap is of course likely to suppress the price of ‘numbers’, however there nonetheless appears to be price tiers emerging whereby there is a premium applied to the lower digit numbers and significant numbers (eg under 10, under 100, under 200, 69 (lol), 21M etc. Only time will tell how this develops.
Current Prices:
It is just the price of gas for numbers not taken. Significant/lower digit numbers range from 3+ETH.
Markets to purchase asset:
Sources and Other useful links:
https://adamamcbride.medium.com/numberboard-2017-nfts-strike-again-508b5649933b
25. Skara — The blade remains (22 Nov 2017)
This is one of those random sets of vintage treasures that were tokenized to BTC and then forgotten about. The creators apparently intended to develop a game within which the assets would be used, however this never eventuated. According to the original 2017 information:
“SKARA — THE BLADE REMAINS is a Free-to-Play game set in a fantasy world. It is currently available for PC in its Beta version, the game has already gathered about 300 000 players. Skara is a rich world thought up by creators Pablo Rodriguez.”
Given the timing, one could guess that the sudden frosty winds of the bear market that came a short time later knocked all plans off the table.
Nonetheless these assets remain early treasures, having been minted on the day before the birth of the genesis Cryptokitty.
Chain: Bitcoin (Counterparty)
Issuance:
12 assets were created with 1000 editions of each.
Recently EverdreamSoft burned 978 of each card, leaving just 22 of each card in existence. Thus these have become a very rare and unusual set of vintage assets.
Current Prices:
No market activity to guide.
Markets to purchase asset:
None presently known.
Contact https://www.everdreamsoft.com/
Sources and Other useful links:
https://www.orbexplorer.com/collection/?collection=eSka
https://xchain.io/asset/HELMARISE
26. CryptoKitties (23 Nov 2017)
This is another project that needs little introduction. Cryptokitties was one of the earliest blockchain games on Ethereum and was developed by Canadian studio Dapper Labs. The game allows players to purchase, collect, breed and sell virtual cats, and is credited with helping define the ERC721 early NFT standard.
CryptoKitties was a truly history-making game which caught the imagination of the crypto community in relation to the potential of digital collectables on the blockchain. The project also gained a great deal of attention due to the high level of in-game activity that served to bring Ethereum to its knees in terms of speeds, congestion and high fees. The very high prices that users were paying to buy and breed kitties was also making headlines at the time.
The game still operates and new kitties continue to be bred. It is the endless supply of new kitties that may have contributed to a reduction of interest and value amongst collectors. However, there remain many kitties with rare attributes along with the Founder kitties that have retained significant value.
Chain: Ethereum
Current Prices:
Varied depending on rarity, age, breeding speeds etc. At the time of writing the lowest price for a Founder kitty is 65 ETH. A floor kitty is 0.004 ETH.
Markets to purchase asset:
https://opensea.io/collection/cryptokitties
Sources and other useful links:
https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/cryptokitties-nft-crypto-ethereum-token
https://medium.com/cryptokitties/understanding-the-cryptokitties-marketplace-f0a6f32ac090
https://decrypt.co/resources/cryptokitties
https://blockgeeks.com/guides/erc-721-token/
27. WeiCards (23 Dec 2017)
WeiCards was an early blockchain project that allows users to buy, lease and sell promotional cards on the site. The WeiCards homepage is filled with cards ranked from 1 to 100. Each card is made from a descriptive title, a redirection URL and an image set by the card owner.
Owners have the option to rent their WeiCard out to someone for a fixed price and duration, sell it to a fixed price and edit their card details
Although WeiCards looks like a regular website, it’s not one, it uses Decentralized Applications (DApps). Cards are not loaded from a database (nothing is hosted) but instead is directly loaded from the Ethereum blockchain. This blockchain acts like a decentralized database where everyone can see its state and cannot be tampered by anyone. Once a user acquires a card, it is written in the blockchain and it remains forever theirs. https://willdn.github.io/weicards/#/
WeiCards are a particularly unusual asset, and I suspect that they will remain a highly sought after historical relic in perpetuity.
Chain: Ethereum
Issuance:
100 cards available (minus a small handful of defunct contracts)
Current Prices:
The floor price at the time of writing is: 5.5 ETH.
There are a small handful of buggy WeiCard contracts on the site, so if the buy price seems too good to be true — it probably is. Given the age of the site, you will need to manually connect your MetaMask wallet (a setting available on Metamask) and if the gas fee seems extraordinarily high then do not proceed as you are most likely interacting with on of the defunct contracts.
Markets to purchase asset:
WeiCards can only be purchased on the original website: https://willdn.github.io/weicards/#/
Sources and other useful links:
https://willdn.github.io/weicards/#/
Early historical discussions
28. EtherRocks (25 Dec 2017)
Launched in 2017, EtherRock was one of the early crypto collectible NFT-type projects on the Ethereum blockchain. Only 100 rocks can ever be available with are of varying shades of colour. The buying and selling of rocks is managed via the Ethereum blockchain with a decentralized smart contract.
Soon after having launched the project was largely forgotten until very recently. Users quickly minted the remaining rocks still available via the contract.
The website advises that these rocks serve no purpose beyond being able to be bought and sold, “and giving you a strong sense of pride in being an owner of 1 of the only 100 rocks in the game :)”. The developer has recently said that very little effort went into the rock pictures themselves and that he only built the contract and website in order to practice using solidity (the Ethereum coding language) which he was learning at the time.
It is fair to say that these very dull and useless rocks have sent the market wild, with rocks being sold for over $2M at the time of writing! Aside from this being a vintage project there appears to be something very appealing to the crypto-market to be able to own one of these elite and expensive assets which in its simplicity so utterly offends the sensibilities of the ‘pre-NFT’ world.
Chain: Ethereum
Issuance:
100 rocks of various shades of color.
Current Prices:
The floor price at the time of writing is: 500 ETH.
Markets to purchase asset:
The rocks can only be purchased on the original website that the current time: https://etherrock.com/
However, a wrapper is presently in development and will soon be deployed so that the rocks can also be traded on OpenSea.
Sources and other useful links:
29. Cryptobots (29 Dec 2017)
Just sneaking into the 2017 year, cryptobots appears to have become quite a popular game in early 2018 whereby bots could be purchased and battled. Apparently the more expensive bots were selling for over 100 ETH each at its peak. This project had been lost for a while but is now being revived.
Still only a limited amount is known, and no doubt futher history will emerge on this project.
Chain: Ethereum
Issuance:
9,300 (To be confirmed)
Current Prices:
Floor is 0.07 at time of writing, with prices varying according to attributes/rarity.
Markets to purchase asset:
https://opensea.io/collection/cryptobots
Sources and other useful links:
https://medium.com/@cryptobots
https://cryptoclarified.com/cryptobots-selling-for-over-200000-dollars-how-to-play-earn/
30. Realms of Ether (30 Dec 2017)
Finally, the last known project that slid into dying days of the 2017 year was the Realms of Ether game.
This one look like a pretty innovative gaming project in which players can own fortresses, farm resources, attach other players, create buildings and recrute troops. The game is still playable.
As with many projects, the game appears to have been buried during the 2018 bear market and has only recently been rediscovered with much enthusiasm.
There is a useful summary on the site’s twitter thread which is adapted here:
Realms of Ether was launched by a single anonymous developer on December 30, 2017 in a Bitcointalk forum post. The game attracted initial interest with 25 posts in the launch thread and a handful of Fortresses minted over the first month.
The developer intended the project to be fully open-source and provided Github links plus a Medium post detailing their experiences developing the game.
In early August 2021, the game was uncovered and a wide range of collectors began to mint the remaining Fortresses. Minting capped out at 500 and the collectors banded together in Telegram to figure out next steps.
Efforts to find the dev have not been successful to date, therefore the community engaged other devs who were able to utilise the existing code and contract to develop a working wrapper for OpenSea trading.
Chain: Ethereum
Issuance:
500 Assets (TBC)
Current Prices:
Floor at time of writing is 2.9 ETH
Markets to purchase asset:
https://opensea.io/collection/realms-of-ether-1
Sources and other useful links:
https://realms-of-ether.github.io/
discord.gg/K4XmQ6fYHy
https://twitter.com/realms_of_ether
31. 2018 Onwards — Various Projects
From 2018 onwards, the number of assets and platforms began to increase significantly. I have not listed these projects along with the various early pioneering artists and developers as I would inevitably miss some and not give sufficient recognition where it is due. However, the following projects from 2018/19 onwards are provided as a point of reference in the timeline given their high profile and significance in expanding the adoption of and interest in NFT technology.
32. Axie Infinity (Feb 2018)
33. Autogyphs (April 2019)
34. NBA Top Shots (July 2019)
These projects are well known and easily researched. The focus of this article is to provide information and insight relating to the digital antiquities of the very early NFT emergence period 2014 -2017.
Final Words
Finally, I often get asked, ‘what are the grail assets from the early NFT emergence period’? So here they are. I have idenitified the following as elite grail assets due to the degree to which they represented a significant socio-cultural or technical ‘first’ within NFT / blockchain history:
Golden & Silver Emergence Eras — Grail Assets (2014–2017)
Collecting these beautiful vintage assets is a lot of fun and they bring much joy.
However beyond just the fun, it is also to our advantage to realise that we are in a very unique emergence period of a world changing asset class. Therefore the mindset to my collecting is to ask myself ‘what NFTs have historical significance so that their value will be anchored to something firm that is beyond the immediate volatility of market fads and passing fancies?’
Taking it a step further… if I were about to travel back in time to when the very first baseball cards were being released, what would I do? Of course I would scoop up as many as I could because I would know the value that is to come.
The new digital asset class that is emerging before our very eyes is far more significant than baseball cards, and it will have world changing impacts. The assets listed in the above timeline are the very first of their kind and I contend that they will be highly sought after as part of a broader digital antiquities market that will continue to be trading many years into the future (NFA). Therefore right now I believe we have a ‘glut’ of very rare and historically significant NFTs, which will soon disperse and I expect will substantially increase in value and scarcity over time (I have written in more depth about the framework that I apply to assess the longterm value of NFTs here).
It is my hope that the information provided helps you make good decisions as an NFT collector and that it brings great benefit to you, your family and your community. I also hope that the information provided contributes to a more accurate narrative about the emergence of NFTs and helps to ensure that due recognition is given to those early innovators who saw things well before any of us, and took action to build this space we now enjoy.
Please leave a comment or contact me if you identify any errors or ommissions that need to be addressed. I will endeavour to update this article as more information becomes known.
Happy vintage NFT hunting :)
WhiteRabbit1111