While decentralisation sits as the core ideal of the project, there has always been a tension revealed in the idea of only 40 node points in this artistic network. The following editions allows for a much larger community to interact with the project and engage in the various histories and locations that speak to the origins of crypto.
The 40 NFTs are published in editions of 5, 10, 20, 30 and 4 Open Editions in order to create different price points and make them as accessible as possible to as wide a range of people. Only the Open Editions feature the same amount of code on their top tier as the 1/1s - making them the rarest and most significant. Across the other Blocks they are broadly modelled in terms of the rarity around a conversation between the Block # (with earlier numbers being more rare than later ones, excluding numbers like 21, 34, 38 (the block containing the genesis code) and 39 (the last Block), and then the locations - their significance historically and the aesthetic beauty of their cartographic structure. For example - there are only 3 islands out of the 40 locations, and so these are rarer than others. The rest is for the community to decide. While rarity structures are nice to contemplate, and bring me back to Hal Finney's iconic "Cryptographic trading card" post in 1993, it would be my intention that people focus more on the stories contained within each location and collect ones they find commonality with.
The first layer of the NFT displays the opening and closing digits of code in each segment of BTC v0.1.0. Drawing on the aesthetics of cuneiform tablets and the history of the written record, the digital digits are carved out of Houdini and based on top a fine blue mesh.
The second layer corresponds to the location of each Block in the series, drawing connections between these particular locations and the pre-history of crypto, while formally alluding to the ideal of network structures, particularly decentralized ones, within the cartography of the world.
The third and final layer is an allusion to the shape and form of the Blocks themselves, encased within the structure of the portolan chart. Itself, a decentralized network structure, the portolan chart carries many narrative similarities to blockchain networks. Emerging in the 14th century, the portolan chart came from mysterious origins. No one knows who invented it, and it moved forward the ability to navigate globally by over two centuries.
The 40 NFTs are published in editions of 5, 10, 20, 30 and 4 Open Editions in order to create different price points and make them as accessible as possible to as wide a range of people. Only the Open Editions feature the same amount of code on their top tier as the 1/1s - making them the rarest and most significant. Across the other Blocks they are broadly modelled in terms of the rarity around a conversation between the Block # (with earlier numbers being more rare than later ones, excluding numbers like 21, 34, 38 (the block containing the genesis code) and 39 (the last Block), and then the locations - their significance historically and the aesthetic beauty of their cartographic structure. For example - there are only 3 islands out of the 40 locations, and so these are rarer than others. The rest is for the community to decide. While rarity structures are nice to contemplate, and bring me back to Hal Finney's iconic "Cryptographic trading card" post in 1993, it would be my intention that people focus more on the stories contained within each location and collect ones they find commonality with.
The first layer of the NFT displays the opening and closing digits of code in each segment of BTC v0.1.0. Drawing on the aesthetics of cuneiform tablets and the history of the written record, the digital digits are carved out of Houdini and based on top a fine blue mesh.
The second layer corresponds to the location of each Block in the series, drawing connections between these particular locations and the pre-history of crypto, while formally alluding to the ideal of network structures, particularly decentralized ones, within the cartography of the world.
The third and final layer is an allusion to the shape and form of the Blocks themselves, encased within the structure of the portolan chart. Itself, a decentralized network structure, the portolan chart carries many narrative similarities to blockchain networks. Emerging in the 14th century, the portolan chart came from mysterious origins. No one knows who invented it, and it moved forward the ability to navigate globally by over two centuries.
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