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Snowfro, Squiggles & the Future of Generative Art
Recorded: May 22, 2025 Duration: 1:03:19Space Recording
Short Summary
In a vibrant discussion, Laura and Matt Miller explore the evolving landscape of generative art and its integration into the crypto ecosystem, highlighting partnerships, growth trends, and the increasing acceptance of digital art by traditional institutions. The conversation underscores the importance of innovation and community engagement in shaping the future of Web3.
Full Transcription
Thank you. So GM, GM everybody, welcome.
And we're going to be opening up very, very soon the conversation.
Thank you for being here.
Let's just wait a few minutes. Thank you. Hello, everyone. so
GM and welcome everybody.
We're going to be starting in a few minutes.
Thank you for being here.
And the space is pinned up top.
If you could start retweeting the space, we would really appreciate it. Thank you. so gmgm everybody welcome once again to this wonderful conversation.
This is your host, Laura, also known as the Miami Ape.
I am so excited to continue this special series with OpenSea,
where we are giving the spotlight to visionaries, creators that are
truly shaping the Web3 culture with creativity, innovation, and so much more.
Today, I am joined by Matt Miller. Balloon,
thank you for being here. I'm so excited to go host this wonderful conversation today.
And we have a true legend in this space. I feel like if you have been in the Web3 space,
you definitely are familiar with Snowfro. So Snowfro, thank you for being here. I can't wait
for today. And everybody, please,
let's retweet the space. Let's get more people in here. It's really important that they find us,
and hopefully everyone is going to enjoy the conversation as much as we all are.
So kicking it off to you, Matt, how are you doing this morning?
Hey, doing well. Nice to have you here, Eric. Do we have him on stage, by the way?
I'm here. I'm here.
Okay, it says listener on my side, so cool.
What's up, dude?
How's everything going?
Nice to see you.
Yeah, nice to see you guys. Thanks for having me.
Yeah.
Happy to have you. And it says listener for me, too. So it's not just you. I was like, how are you talking?
I was wondering why i kept getting
those requests it's all good just another day in spaces well let's let's get you know the
conversation started i i still see you as listeners if at any point it drops off. Please just give us a heads up or a little wave.
We're very happy to have you here, Eric.
I don't know if you want to go by Snowfro or Eric, whatever you feel more comfortable.
But we could start with an intro to warm up the conversation.
I mean, if Matt is Matt, I'll be Eric today.
I'm slowly but surely trying to stop juggling two identities
it's a lot of work good luck how anyone does it they're just i'm slowly merging them but i think
it's officially matt balloon miller yeah i think that's how most people have me in their phone at
this point so we're just gonna roll with it you're just ballooning my phone, man. Sorry. Hey, it works.
It's actually kind of a funny story.
How did it, I think a lot of people may not know it, like the snow fro come about, speaking of which.
Yeah, well, first of all, there's so many familiar faces on this call.
And I feel like they've heard all these things a million times.
But I'm also really excited to meet some new people
and hopefully kind of share some of these stories with some new folks.
And so I hope it doesn't get too taxing for people that have heard all these things.
But in 2001, in 2000, I started a snow cone stand at the University of Texas in Austin.
It was called Snowfro Refreshments.
And I had an afro that was, I mean, I let my hair grow out and I have very curly hair, so it looks like an afro.
And it was, I don't know, maybe like eight inches from the top of my head. It was like pretty big.
And if I shook my head, it would stay in place. And so I started this snow cone stand called
Snowfro Refreshments. um and then you know i stopped
selling snow cones but my friends kept calling me snow fro after that and so can we bring back
snow cones at uh artblocks marfa this year oh we've talked about it every year too and the
machines aren't even that expensive it's just there it's it's sticky and uh uh i don't know
generative snow cones yeah like a random flavor combo so i would wake up every
morning and mix 31 flavors with with a friend of mine uh only for the bees to like attack them and
like get get lodged in the snow cone stuff uh yeah good good times but uh you know so when i joined
crypto it was you know everybody was anonymous and you know that was that was the first thing that came to mind was like well
I'll just be Snowfro um interestingly it's not a super common uh handle and so in various different
platforms like even on discord I was able to get like you know the Snowfro 01 or whatever it was
the earliest one uh so I don't have to compete so much uh it. But if you, if you look up snow for,
at least right now,
I guess if you look up snow for on Google,
there's a lot of stuff around what we're doing,
but at the time there was,
you know,
there was a bunch of people with like bright white hair,
Afros that,
that,
that were showing up.
that makes sense.
Never thought about it that way.
Yeah.
I think I'd never heard this story before so i love that this always started
the conversation like um i i highly doubt you know many even if they're familiar with you i
don't think they're familiar with this origin story um and yet it just gives me ideas like
maybe for marfa you know you could bring it back there you go ice cream i don't know i mean i want
to give everybody afros at some event like some afro wigs and walk
around.
I think that'd be really fun.
It's, you know, I think maybe the, as I've always been an entrepreneur, I've always liked
to like tinker and mess around with businesses and ideas.
And I don't know how I found out, but because I was just a student in college and I found
out that you could rent a 10 foot by 10 foot section of the sidewalk on the biggest street
in Austin, like right across from the university for four hundred dollars a year and so like i didn't even know what i was going to put
on that but i was like 400 bucks like for 10 foot but directly across the street from the co-op if
anyone's ever been in austin like that like the biggest store for all the students and so i i
started with like okay uh i'm gonna get a 10 foot by 10 foot section of the sidewalk that i'm gonna
call mine for a year i'm gonna pay 400 bucks and i'm gonna figure out what what i'm gonna put on there and it gets
really hot in austin in the summer uh and uh so i somehow i ended up on snow cones which is probably
a lot cooler than uh calling cards which is what my neighbor on the sidewalk did but every morning
i'd wake up and i'd bring this big wooden stand out and set it up there and sit there and sell
snow cones to people it was a lot of fun and i traded them for like burritos because there was a chipotle
right in front of me so i never i didn't pay for chipotle burritos for like
a full year because i would trade snow cones with the burrito ladies it was it was great
chipotle burritos are valuable assets now yeah and also back then it was kind of a new thing
you know it was just kind of getting started so yeah it's cool that's amazing yeah
so it really just sounds like you you have always been this very curious individual and just you
know going with it and trying new things and saying hey you know what this was 400 bucks why
not let's give it a shot I don't know what a shot. I don't know what I'm selling. I don't know what I'm doing, but something's going to happen.
So I wonder how curiosity has played this role in your life,
and how did it lead you to generative art?
How did it lead you down that path?
Yeah, I feel like most of my life has been based on there's this thing
that I want to have, and it doesn't exist,
and so I'm going to figure out how to make it exist myself.
And, you know, even going back to the snow cone stand, it's like, okay, well, what would I like on a summer day at Austin?
A snow cone.
You had to, like, you know, drive a few blocks to get one.
And so I was like, I'll just put one right here.
There's this, like, curiosity that's associated with like creating something that
somebody wants it it's it's it's a really interesting like i guess that's the idea of
entrepreneurship in general it's like really interesting satisfaction that you created
something that somebody would be willing to work for or drive to or spend money on uh whether it's like you know 50 cents snow cone or uh you know a specific
ceramic tile product that i thought would be interesting to bring in from italy and so yeah
most of my life i've just spent most of my time just thinking and tinkering around things that
uh you know would be interesting for people to to have and sometimes that interest like for
example with art blocks it's you know i've been
making generative art for i don't know well over a decade at the time and i'd been tinkering with
making art with code and projection mapping and all these different algorithms i started writing
algorithms so that i could make ceramic tile mosaics for my customers when they wanted to
make a gradient uh with tiles and they didn't want to like manually place every single tile on a on a CAD drawing I
wrote some algorithms that would help them place gradients across like a backsplash or a full wall
in a gym or something like that and so that's what I kind of really started tinkering with using code
for making visual outputs because once again like that thing didn't exist and people needed it and
would spend sometimes like five six hours on making these these gradients um and then you know when i started making art with code realizing just
how ephemeral art with code can be because its native state is on the computer screen a lot of
uh you know my favorite artists were also doing plots because plots are also kind of a native
using a plotter to like plot out a generative artwork is
also like a native use of the medium but the purely digital pieces that they were there's
it was ephemeral on instagram on on reddit every single day you'd see like some beautiful creation
that somebody would make and then the next day there would just be another one and the one from
the day before always felt forgotten and so when i thought about the idea of creating art blocks which you
know I came up with the initial concept as I was claiming crypto punks it was this idea that like
we could have this ephemeral this otherwise ephemeral thing actually have some weight and
some permanence like you know I do talk about this a lot like the moment I claim my first crypto
punk to me it's we're eight years Next month, it'll be eight years.
And to this day, every morning I wake up with this massive amount of joy
that you can own something digital.
That still hasn't gotten old for me.
I don't know if it's starting to get old for people.
Obviously, sometimes things get old when they don't make a bunch of money.
But the technology hasn't changed.
And the beauty of being able to capture something as ephemeral as code-based art or software-based art uh in
a container that is not only provably ownable but also easy to show easy to share infinitely
scalable uh is something that i found really interesting and so i started building that
initially just kind of for myself as like a way that I would be able to share my stuff.
And as I started doing that, I thought, well, maybe some other artists would want to do it as well.
And they didn't.
For many years, I pitched Art Blocks to artists and they told me I was absolutely lunatic.
But, you know, just put it out there myself and worked with Danny, my brother Danny and Jeff on releasing something on the first day of Artblocks. And it seemed to make sense for people at that point.
And that's kind of where it went from there.
Matt, I was going to let you jump in, but I... Oh, man, sorry. My mic was off when I was talking.
All right, I should be on now. I'm such a boomer when it comes to spaces.
So, Eric, I was curious, like, you know, obviously, you kind of talked about, talked about starting your artistic journey and starting Art Blocks, but now how do you think about balancing being an artist with a founder?
Because obviously you're trying to run a business, but you also are an amazing artist at the same time.
So how do you kind of juggle those two things and where are you at right now when it comes to that?
right now when it comes to that yeah well right now i'm in a better spot than i've been just
because i'm actually working on an artwork and it's been a really long time since i've been able
to like do that at least two years since i got to work with jordan on heart and craft and i did the
red bull collaboration and um i uh you know my whole life i've balanced kind of the creative side
and the um you know entrepreneurial side uh what changed with web3 is adding the kind of the creative side and the, you know, entrepreneurial side. What changed with Web3 is
adding the kind of the collector side as well. And being able to wear all three hats is both
a curse and a blessing. Like, you get to really understand what it feels like to be each of these
three different things, but also the pressure of being each of these things kind of adds up pretty quickly.
But it's interesting because you've got, you know, like you've got
this ecosystem that sometimes conflates like an artwork, an artist and a platform as like a single entity, like in, you know,
there as individual entities or entities that kind of like are umbrellas
around other things and trying to manage all of that is really tough.
And trying to manage expectations, not just as an artist,
but also as a platform is really tough.
And then I guess, you know, the most interesting thing is,
you know, most of the things that I've built in my life
are meant to be long-term and thinking about things
with like a really long-term perspective.
And so balancing the kind of the really quick, short,
immediate expectations that kind of have formed around Web3 with trying to create something that has a long lasting mean it's really hard but not being all those three things together would make it even harder because it's so easy to kind of focus on one or another uh and and just do what's
best for that one stakeholder whether you're yourself as an artist your collectors or like
the the company that that that you're working in um but yeah it's it's it's it's a tough balance
on top of that you know trying to trying to have a normal family life.
You know, it doesn't really help.
I feel like my kids are growing up, you know, when I'm out of town.
But it's all worth it.
And I don't know.
I think the people that have stuck around over the last few years, like, I just huge thanks and gratitude.
Like, we've all kind of stuck through this together.
It's been insane. And that things really feel different right now and i don't know if it feels yeah i mean obviously you know bitcoin all-time high ethereum's kind of on its way back up again
it looks like art is moving again that's great that's like more it's it's less of like it's more
of a validation that like what we have been sticking through over the last few years was worth it.
But I don't know if we would be on the spaces. I don't know what things would be like if it wasn't for like the individuals that have
just been around since the very beginning, never really left, expressed their honest
frustrations, but also their enthusiasm, supported each other, supported the platforms.
And that's really what, that's really where the balance comes from if there
is balance is the people that are that are here yeah it's it's great to see everyone who's stuck
around i feel like it's it's really been it kind of like everyone seems more aligned than ever before
in the sense that like you know i remember like minting art blocks back whenever you're around
when y'all first started and thinking like no one's going to care about this stuff for like 10 years.
And so it was kind of like a shock to see what happened like six months or whatever later.
But I think at the end of the day, like, you know, that belief still holds true for a lot of us.
So it's really nice to see.
Well, you're one of them, man.
And I have to say, like, it's like, I can't tell you how many late night conversations I've had with you, dude.
Like, you know, because it's like we go to these events.
I run into Matt, you know, just about every event I go to.
And we end up, you know, at some kind of dinner and then just talking.
We literally reinvented this universe like five or six different times.
And if we're not open to reinventing it, then we're probably, you know, putting that last nail in our grave.
And so we just have to kind of rethink it and reinvent it and find the best of what's going on and keep pushing forward.
I love that. I think that, you know, a lot of things that you mentioned is a lot of intention in the work that you do,
but also gratitude along the way and being able to pivot, right, To try new things, to be able to, I don't know, to adapt to the reality of the space,
but also to stay true to your values and to what you want to put forward in the space.
So, you know, I don't know, I commend you for doing all things, right?
Like to being an artist, being a family man, and then also, you know, being in charge of this huge responsibility, but then having fun along the way. And I think that
that has been, at least for me, very exciting for the space to see how many of us kind of like
stuck it through the ups and downs. But Eric, how do you think those values have impacted your creative process today and also the way that you collaborate with other artists and other people?
Because you do open doors for different artists in the space and that definitely doesn't go unnoticed.
I appreciate that.
I mean, I try.
I think the point of this whole thing was democratizing access to art and democratizing access to releasing art.
That was, you know, on top of the ability, like all of the things about the provable ownership of a digital asset and all that, that's like a bonus.
Like what this technology has allowed us to do is make artwork accessible to anybody that wants to.
And obviously there's price points. And so there's always going to be an affordability perspective but yeah i'd love to have a ferrari but i don't
like that's a price point that's out of my reach but like there's there's a certain amount of uh
at least openness that this technology brings even at the very core of ethereum anybody in the world
with three dollars worth of gas can deploy an artwork maybe these days it's less i don't know
it was down to like
25 cents earlier in the year like anybody in the world can do that you the the learning curve is a
little bit is a little bit steep but um for everything that's interesting and important
in the world there should be some kind of learning curve because once you learn it once you go to that
rabbit hole you come out of it with like this feeling of like victory, like I figured something out. And it's a filter.
And, you know, I think filters are so important when, you know, we're in a totally open ecosystem,
a totally open environment. At some point, everybody comes with different reasons and
different expectations. And it's those filters, whether they're imposed by the protocol,
by the blockchain, having a steep learning curve, or whether it's coming to Marfa and you have to travel an insane amount just to get there. Those filters in the end are the filters
that allow the people that really care or really are interested to have their presence or have
their space. In 2021, there was less NFTs than the number of people that wanted NFTs. And so
the value of all NFTs were high and uh we knew i at least i
mean i i hope we all knew but maybe some of us you know did not want to believe it that like there
was going to be a time where there was going to be more nfts than the number of people that wanted
them there was going to be a time where there was going to be more artists than the number of people
that wanted like were even able to collect and there's this it's a push pull between number of people that
participate in the space as a collector and number of people that participate in the space as an
artist and just like with anything in the world sometimes you're going to have surges in both
directions and what we've experienced over the last couple of years is the surge on the on the
on the productivity side the surge on like the creation of art, on the amount of artists that
kind of figured out that learning curve and a decline in the number of people that found it
interesting, whether they got hurt in 2021 and 2022 with prices, whether they got burnt out from
just like the grind of being on crypto Twitter or Discord. And, you know, I think what is
inevitable is, you know, I don't think we're going to wake up one day and think this technology was interesting and then the next day wake up and be like, yeah, that was fun.
Let's start sending each other digital art as email attachments.
Like I don't see, I see an inevitability of this technology becoming ubiquitous for anything of value that's digital.
And so as that inevitability persists, it's just a matter of this cycle of supply of people that are interested in participating in the technology.
And hopefully there's a new group of people entering the space.
There's a new kind of like fresh excitement around not just the things of the past, but the things of the future.
Because there's going to be a lot of artists that are going to come into the space.
They're going to want to like enjoy and participate in this ecosystem.
And in order for them to be successful, we need to have more people that are interested
in collecting and participating in the work.
So yeah, it's a balance, but we do it.
We make it happen.
Absolutely.
And one of the things that you mentioned now it sounds
like curation and how that impacts like the perception and the longevity um of of the
community but also of generative art like how do you see those two coming together like having
the proper curation and the impact that that causes. Because you're right, I never thought about it that way of like, you know, the location
of Marfa and, you know, how not everyone is going to get out there, but then the people
that do get out there are the people that you want.
Not everyone is going to be involved 24-7 with, you know, with the space because of
the ups and downs, but yet the people that continue to stay around, then there is, you
know, there is importance there.
So how does that impact curation processes?
Well, curation is a double-edged sword, right?
Because if I'm sitting here talking about how exciting it is that this is inclusive and available to everybody,
and then the moment that you start curating, you're gatekeeping in some way,
whether you're gatekeeping a person or whether you're gatekeeping an artist.
whether you're gatekeeping a person or whether you're gatekeeping an artist.
What I found that I think is for me, without a doubt,
like the most successful form of curation is the curation that happens organically.
So the curation that happened organically, for example,
at the beginning of Artblocks was like there was only a few number of artists
that were able to create an algorithm and deploy it in that way.
rhythm and deploy it in that way they just didn't really know most people didn't have that like
They just didn't really know.
Most people didn't have that.
art blocks was was was originally this like when when art blocks was was starting to get off the
ground and artists were finding success there it was like this moment where people had been making
art in a way that had been generally underappreciated uh in the world and then they
finally had this moment where they could put it out there and people would appreciate it and that that, you know, that was a filter. There was only a certain amount of people
that did that. But little by little, it's, you know, I mentioned this a lot. There's this,
the best article I've ever read in my life called On Geeks, Mops, and Sociopaths. And I encourage
everybody in this call, if you have not read that article, to please read that article because it
literally just draws a picture of kind of how every one of
these quote-unquote curations happen over the course of anything that's new or interesting
in history whether it's in music or whether it's in digital art or whether it's in you know you
name it and so curation is a double-edged sword like you know we we we started off to be this
platform art blocks started out to be this platform for anyone that can create something generatively to put something out there.
And then we realized that there was this beautiful, like insane quality of art that was coming in and felt the need to kind of distinguish the stuff that like really was, I mean, selfishly stuff from artists that I had been following for years prior.
from artists that i had been following for years prior um and so we started curating and i i you
know i the result of that is this curated collection which to me uh you know obviously
i'm very biased but i think it's you know the the greatest accumulation of art of the time in the
generative medium over the course of 2020 to today and um but at the same time that curation process created uh a bit of a hypocrisy
in terms of the uh openness of what the space is is meant to do and you know and in the long run i
think uh you know the the these things are constantly in tension with each other the idea
of openness and curation openness and curation are intention both in the side of the artist
that's trying to release work and also on the side of a collector
that wants to collect work and feels like they're not able to do so
because of some constraint that's been put in front of them
other than, obviously, price will always be a constraint.
So yeah, I like that Marfa organically happened as it happened
and it organically has created a filter and you
know every year i tweet about marfa right before we were going to marfa weekend but like it's so
important to consider that so many people that absolutely uh are critical and important to this
ecosystem can't make it out to marfa like just because it filters you out doesn't mean you don't
belong there it's like some people just can't set aside the time to like travel to the desert. Some people can't fly from across the world to
like go there. And it's important to understand that even in the filtration, you're losing some
of the most high quality people that exist in the ecosystem. And I'd say the same for Artbox Curated.
In that filtering process, yes, we were able to capture some of the best work,
but we also, through that process,
lost some of the greater artists
that are out there as well
because of whatever.
It took too long to release
or because the constraints
were too tight.
And I think that's something
we're going to have to keep balancing
as we move forward in this ecosystem
is trying to understand
the balance between curation
and openness.
I think, you know, I see Jack on this call.
Jack Butcher, I think, has done a really great job of trying to balance that and understand
that within his ecosystem while still maintaining like a decentralized aspect of it.
And it's harder the more and more people that come into the space and the more and more
expectations that people have.
It becomes infinitely
harder to do a good job of curation whether you're curating art or collectors or experiences
yeah and speaking of experiences we're excited to be sponsoring marfa again this year hopefully
easing some costs and making it easier for people to attend as one of the goals to that sponsorship
because i think the more people you get to see in Marfa,
the more like amazing interactions you get to have there.
And there's just,
those are just so invaluable and a big part of why I still show up every day.
But I guess while we're, yeah, yeah, go ahead.
I just want to say thank you.
And I think, you know,
the invaluableness is also just kind of like the position that Openc has taken over the last i don't know year year and a half has been
just so refreshing and so rewarding and you know i think we've all kind of gone through this thing
with everything in the last few years whether it's you know like i i tweeted the other day
about the acquisition of the crypto punks and that you know i shared my thoughts about
like i think yuga has done a phenomenal job with crypto punks but when it first happened like it
was this like moment of like oh what's going on and I feel like we've
gone through that but Artblocks, OpenSea, Yuga, Punks, whatever and I just this maybe this
contributes to this feeling this vibe that I have right now that's just so positive like it's just
like it feels like everything's kind of grown up a little bit matured a little bit uh and maybe had
a little bit more of a long-term horizon and uh i think you know open seas participation to marfa is is is just very much part of that
evolution and i'm eternally grateful for you guys for that yeah and at the end of the day the space
is still so nascent like relatively speaking so everything like ups and downs are inevitable as
much as everyone wants it to be up only all the time. That's just not going to be the case. But I think while we're on the subject of the ecosystem in general,
and I don't want to make you give an answer that's like,
more people should be doing this or more people should be doing this less.
But I am curious, since you kind of have seen enough ups and downs
over the last four years, what would you like to see more of?
Or I guess a different way to frame it would be
what are you like really encouraged by what you're seeing and maybe like how do we continue
to lean into that and make more of it happen well ah that's a tough question yeah i mean i didn't
want to put you no it's a bind here but i i think what i want to see more of uh again it's like
anytime i i i really strongly kind of push back when someone
tells someone what they should be doing right in general but i think one thing to really think
about is like why are you here and why are you still here and and sometimes just like like the
other day i was talking to someone about um resolution agnostic for because you know our
boxes had this like crazy constraint where everything has to be able to scale with the size of the browser and it's five years in and like they
had no idea that that was happening they had no idea that even artblocks stuff is like on chain
it's just it was just another jpeg and i'm saying this in that like time goes by and we forget the
reasons that we're here or we forget the reasons that something was like a powerful concept or an exciting concept and um you know going down there's a there's this there's this element of uh self
satisfaction when you go down a rabbit hole and you discover something that you find really exciting
uh on your own and the deeper you go into the rabbit hole, the more excited you get, the
more infectious that excitement is when you come out of the rabbit hole and you share it with other
people. And it's really hard sometimes to go down that rabbit hole when like the narrative is only
about dollars and or, you know, altcoins or whatever, if you're really interested in art,
or you're really interested in like long-term presence of this ecosystem.
And so right now, as the ecosystem is kind of shifting, once again, a little bit more
in the artistic direction, which I think is fantastic.
Obviously, that's why I'm here and why a lot of us are here.
Think about why you're here.
Think about what you find interesting about this technology, what you find interesting
about the art, what you think about interesting about the distribution mechanism of the art.
Because we can go all the way back to June of 2017.
What made CryptoPunks so brilliant on top of the fact that it's these fun generative
characters is the way that they were distributed.
The fact that Larva Labs didn't have to email people 10,000 different images, that they
were self-serviced, that the provenance was built in from the very beginning.
Those core concepts, we've seen millions of innovations in this ecosystem ever since 2017,
but those concepts are still true and they're still absolutely the underlying fuel for what
makes all of this possible.
And I think every now and then we just forget just how beautiful this technology is and
just how exciting this technology is.
And if you go back to those roots and you go back to focus on that and then watch just how everything is flowered from that in such a magnificent way, not only does it give you
more energy and more excitement and more validation for being in the space, but it also, when
you communicate to others why you're excited about this space, there's so much more to
talk about than, you know,
I made a bunch of money flipping a JPEG. Like, that's okay. That's a great thing to talk about as well. But like, what made these JPEGs flippable in the first place is actually way more interesting
than the amount of money that you made flipping them. Because if it weren't for that technology,
we wouldn't have been able to get to this point where you could do that. And so yeah, I'd say that would be my number one thing is a little bit of retrospective.
It's been it's been five years since Artblocks.
It's been eight years since Punks.
There's there was stuff even before Punks.
And just every now and then take a moment and think about why you got into this space.
What got you excited about this space?
Because we all win if we get more people to be excited about the space the way that you were
and i don't mean excited about this space in 2021 and 2022 like mania i mean what got you excited
about art blocks between november 27th and may of 2021 like those before things started getting
crazy when the community was like, everything was really exciting,
what got you excited about art blocks,
punks, apes, whatever,
so that we can maybe get people
to be excited about it once again,
especially as the market
has kind of collapsed in many ways
and the entry points are more accessible
than they've, well, maybe not in the last month,
but the entry points had been more accessible
than they had ever been up until recently.
Well, and somehow that's a good thing, right?
I think it's sort of, it's the double-edged source once again, right?
It's like the excitement and the innovation
and the distribution of like how CryptoPunks came to be.
Why don't you tell us about the distribution for Squiggles and, you know, sort of a little
bit more about Artblocks.
I feel like a lot of people are familiar, but also some might just be newer in the space and they never got like that, that detail of how, I don't know,
in such a unique way that you sort of distributed this and like so many people
could have claimed and many didn't. Right.
So I always think it's crazy.
Like those numbers of the people that actually were able to claim them.
And the ones that probably found out years later.
So, can you do that?
Well, so, you know, the Kermis Google was born in 2018.
You know, my brother had made the first algorithm called Genesis to help me prove what Artblocks was at the time I was, you know, if you code, especially if you don't make it your profession,
you go in these like dry spells where like then just getting back into coding feels very daunting.
And when I was kind of ideating the idea of Artblocks,
my brother stepped up and kind of created this piece called Genesis,
which he released on day one of Artblocks,
to kind of demonstrate how a hash can randomize
the visual output of an artwork.
In 2018 of that year, I used to run a ceramic tile business.
And because I think a lot of the success of the ceramic tile business was that we were always focused on innovation and technology.
And one of the most boring businesses of all time, which is tile, in terms of innovation, like tiles have been made the same way for hundreds of years.
But, you know, like in 2017, I gave everybody all to that. I had 2000 clients like in our client list and I gave them all one coin of an altcoin
that I was very deeply involved with called monetary unit, if anyone's ever been around
long enough to do that.
And so I printed out these little paper cards and every single interior designer got a seed
phrase with like one monetary unit, which at the time was worth 25 cents.
And then, you know, we did friendship bracelets for our clients.
It was a different version of friendship you know, we did friendship bracelets for our clients. It was a different
version of friendship bracelets, but we did, every client got like a little box and it had
friendship bracelets in it. And these clients, what they do is they kind of collect all these
artifacts and they put them all under their computer screen in the architecture firms that
they work at as little kind of mementos every year. And so some vendors bring donuts and take
people to dinner and to lunch, is great but like I always wanted
to create something that people would actually hold on to so in 2018 I kind of was like okay I
want to demonstrate what I'm doing here with our box but I I want to make something myself that I
can actually share with my clients so I created the Chromie squiggle and it once again it was kind of
a proof of concept to demonstrate what our box does and I printed 2,000 copies of it and I
placed them in these tiny little acrylic frames,
and we gave them away to 2,000 interior designers.
And inside, there was these claiming instructions.
And so out of the 2,000 people, 14 people claimed the squiggle.
Now, it wasn't the real squiggle.
It wasn't the final squiggle that was released in 2020.
So then in 2020, I airdropped all 14 of those people
a real Chromie squiggle.
The Chromie squiggle is an edition of 10,000, mostly inspired by Larva Labs and their edition
of 10,000. It was created under zero assumptions that people would actually want them or care for
them. In fact, it was originally not even going to be an Artblocks release. It was just a proof
of concept. But there the thing there's this
concept where like or this is idea that like you can show up somewhere and you know if you're a
regular kind of like business person in in the early 2000s you hand someone a business card and
say okay this is who i am this is what i do here's how you reach out to me and there was this desire
of mine to be able to like explain continue to explaining what our box was with the chromie
squiggle and that edition size
was big enough to where i thought it would last forever uh obviously you know danny and jeff's
pieces sold out on the first day and we sold like 500 something chromie squiggles on the first day
um but after five weeks they were on their way to selling out and so i stopped the mentor i stopped
at 9 000 and made them only available uh to to be given away with an exception of 300 of them
that I sold because I got to work with this gallery in New York and it was a really interesting
experience to get to kind of be working with a gallery so we also released 300 of them for sale
via a gallery but about 500 or no about 700 crummy squiggles were given away as gifts after that I
wanted to be able to make this still be
as accessible as possible. And at some points, a floor price on a Chromie Squiggle was like $40,000.
Probably 500 Chromie Squiggles were gifted at a floor price of $40,000. And it was because I know
how crypto works and I understand how these things happen. And they happen very quickly
and they become very inaccessible given that they were minting as fast as they were. And I wanted to be able to make sure
that new people that came into the space could still feel as special as people that had been
there on day one. There's something really difficult. This is why, you know, abundance
is such a beautiful thing. We hyper-focus on scarcity, which makes total sense for artists to hyper-focus on scarcity.
But abundance is that thing that allows it to eternally live on and be available to people as we go.
And $10,000 was not enough, Chromie Squiggles, to achieve the goal that I wanted to achieve of making these things available for people over time.
of making these things, you know, available for people over time.
In fact, you know, in the last couple of years, I started a company called Generative Goods
that I work with my brother and my wife on to once again try to create this idea of like,
it's not so much about scarcity.
It's like for 10 bucks, you can have that rabbit hole that you can go down and figure
out generative and distribution mechanisms and blockchain art.
And then, you know, all things come to an
end in, in July of last or August of last year, the final Chrome Squiggle was finally minted.
It was minted to the, to the wallet of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which is a very
special moment for me and hopefully a very special moment for all of the collectors.
I got to work with Def Beef, who's, you know, one of the artists I look up to the most around here,
on a smart contract to kind of create a farewell to the final Chromie Squiggle,
where 3,500 people came and just signed a transaction to say that they were there.
There was like a love letter that I wrote in there to the Chromie Squiggle
and to everybody that's been a part of this as a sign-off.
as a sign off and then that smart contract actually executed the mint for the last chromie squiggle
And then that smart contract actually executed the Mint for the last Chromie Squiggle.
so you know from from original conception to a proof of concept to eventually like having the
last one be something that's sent off by the community in really the toughest time in crypto
possible to end up in the wallet of the lacma who is now has it on on, which is wild as well, because usually it takes a few
years for museums to exhibit the work. It's been a ride, y'all. It's been a really crazy few years,
and I still think we're just at the beginning of all of this. We're still figuring it out,
and anyone that thinks they've got it figured out is wrong. And so we just have to kind of
We just have to kind of keep figuring it out as we go and be open-minded and see what the next thing is.
keep figuring it out as we go and be open-minded and see what the next thing is.
Well, actually, so squiggles were supposed to be infinite, right, at one point, and then you decided to make it 10K.
Is that right?
Well, squiggles were never supposed to be, like, sold out.
Yeah, that's right.
You thought 10,000 was, like, a number that was never going to actually be gotten to.
Yeah, it's kind of interesting.
Like, I always think about
this a lot, especially when it comes to Jaron of Art and, you know, scarcity, you kind of alluded
to it earlier. How do you do you oftentimes like when you have an algorithm, do you know, like,
whether it's going to be like, this one's built for 200 pieces, or this one's built for 10,000?
I guess, how do you think about the relationship between like i guess the fixed supply and like the algorithm itself and then i guess do you also advise other artists on this as
well or i guess how should artists more broadly be thinking about it well we try to advise artists
but ultimately we've tried to take as much of a hands-off approach with artists as possible right
like we haven't we've tried not to like tell artists what they need to sell their stuff for and
i think there's an argument to be made that that was a mistake,
that we were not more forceful at our boxes to like how much,
how people should price their work, how they should release their work
or what their edition size would be.
In the curated collection, we did put a rough restriction of a thousand mints.
And even that feels really high.
Like in the most recent releases, you know,
we were down to 50 on the James Merrill and that we did just a few weeks ago uh and mostly because that that's that's the the scale
that james uh felt the algorithm was was intended to be um it's really you can't like you just
when things are going nuts it's really hard for an artist or for art blocks or for anybody like to
like when you acknowledge the fact that if you made this an edition of 50 or an edition of 2000
it would sell out like no matter what like it's really hard to help an artist understand or even
for the artist themselves to understand like what the right edition size is because you have also
the demand factor which you know during the 2021 2022 period was
just like excessive it was a crazy amount of demand and so i don't i don't think it was easy
uh actually i think it was incredibly hard and painful for artists to like actually understand
and know exactly what the right edition size was like at some points artblocks was asking artists
to make additions bigger because we were getting so many complaints about guests and uh you know um like uh things were selling out too quickly and people
were getting left out and people were getting cut out and like the very first reaction that we had
to that at Artblocks was okay we'll make the addition size bigger but that that there is a
there is a finite level to how big the algorithm can or should be. Yet we've also proven with other things that
that's not the case. I mean, like we have 10,000 punks, 10,000 squiggles, 10,000 penguins,
whatever. Like there's just so many different things that demonstrate that 10,000 can be
just fine or even 50,000 can be just fine. So the reality is more less based on the market and more just thinking about the ubiquitousness of generative art as a medium.
I think that, you know, I've stated this a few different times.
Like, you know, if everybody starts to go to school at the same time and starts like their studio at the same time and they're still learning, a lot of the stuff is going to look very similar.
It's not until you graduate from architecture school that you start kind of creating your own thing and start uh you
know hitting the world with like your own unique aspects every now and then there's going to be
like a standout person in your studio second year studio that's just going to be like a you clearly
can tell this person is like a a breakout person but most people have to go through a learning
process and i think that you know when i started our blocks i think that i knew of at least like
maybe about a hundred generative artists.
And a year and a half later, there's probably 10,000 people that were creating stuff with code.
And a lot of it looked the same and felt the same and similar.
And the addition sizes started going down simply because I think the innovation and, you know, in this ecosystem, there's this expectation that you innovate or die.
Like you have to raise the bar or it's a it's a failure um i think it started to just become
there's just so many generative artments you know i remember at one point artblocks was at like 200
000 total like tokens you know i think at one point fx hash around the same time announced
that they had hit their millionth token like there was so much stuff out there and uh uh at that point it just felt like
you know reducing the size um made sense and also like the the amount of things you can do with
fully on chain work like yes i think that we haven't fully explored it but as you have more
people exploring it and the you know a generative artist can be very prolific.
It starts feeling like you hit the ceiling of like kind of what you can do with the work as in terms of the innovation on the screen.
And it then becomes more about the message of the artist and the community of collectors, et cetera.
So I don't know that I've really given you a straight answer.
It's just very, it's, it's very hard and it's not, there's not a right answer.
It's just very hard.
And it's not, there's not a right answer.
And I think the artist just needs to feel it in their gut and just needs to make sure
that what they're feeling in their gut is not based on how much they assume people will
want to buy.
They should look at the algorithm and say, this is how much I want.
This is how many I want there to be.
Yeah.
I mean, I think this, this topic alone could be its own like two hour discussion because
like we kind of talked about earlier, we are still,
everyone's figuring stuff out in real time.
And it is so unique to this particular medium and art form as well.
Like, it's not like, you know, I mean,
I guess without going too far down the rabbit hole,
just kind of like my closing thoughts on that is like, you know,
a painter makes one painting and that's it.
Like the artist makes an algorithm that could make an infinite amount of outputs.
And then you kind of have so many artists doing the same, using the same toolkit.
Like you said, it did get like a little like monotonous and redundant at times.
But I think at the end of the day, that does force innovation to take place.
So I'm really excited to kind of see people still find ways to come up with something unique and creative all the time.
And so it's exciting just to kind of see the bar get pushed higher and
higher as we kind of go deeper into the space.
Eric, and one of the, the things you mentioned was about, you know, how,
how we have so much more, you know, so many,
so many more artists at this time.
So how's the process for you to select
them or to support the artists that are joining artblocks platform in case like someone's
listening and they they want to you know get involved well um look uh artblocks over the
course of the last three years has has has really put on the brakes on kind of what we're doing and trying to focus more on more specific initiatives.
And we always are excited to discover new work.
And we're always really excited to discover new artists specifically.
And so we have a submission process that you can go and you click and you can submit your work.
But the likelihood that we will release it has decreased significantly over time.
You know, Artblocks went from releasing, I think, 200 projects a year to like formally as Artblocks,
not like with, you know, we have our engine partners, we have studio, et cetera, to releasing less than 10.
et cetera, to releasing less than 10.
And so we've also tried as much as possible
to have an ear to not be deaf to not just the ecosystem,
but also to kind of what's happened
in the innovation of Generative
and what people can do with Generative,
and try to really be selective and pick the things that truly
stand out as unique.
And the perfect example of that is like the bokeh release
uh with with with mp cause you know instruction based uh digitally instructed physicals to me is
something i'm like just like so fascinated by uh and then like the the very the very small and sweet
uh group show that we did at the end of the last at the end of last year and then finally the thing
we did with uh james merrill this year like those things are uh they're very special maybe uh extra special to me and um uh for for various different
reasons but we we want to see like you know to matt's point like this forces innovation uh one
of one of my favorite artists in the world a couple years ago three years ago you know i said
look artbox and and just nfts in general are not
forcing artists to bring their best work forward like they're not incentivizing artists to bring
their best work forward because everything sells no matter how it like what it looks like and it
really um it really meant a lot and like after that you know we got rid of this the the factory
at art blocks which the factory was like anybody can release anything that they want as long as it works. You know, we kind of moved away from just like anybody being able to release
anything to like a more curated submission process, which we call presents. And then
that then dwindled down to like just doing a couple curated and releasing this product called
the studio, which is where artists are able to release on their own accord. The ability ability to release on the studio is not, you have to have an Artbox contract to be
able to release in the studio.
And as things have slowed down, we've also just been more selective with who we give
those smart contracts to.
However, we would love to see great work that sparks curiosity and maybe gets people to
go down a rabbit hole.
And we encourage people to submit.
And if you go to the Artbox website, you can apply.
And we'd love to see the work.
We'd love to see what everybody's working on.
Thank you for that.
I think that it gives us a better understanding as to the why's behind it.
And it totally makes sense.
You have also worked with some major galleries and institutions.
And what has been, you know, seen that a traditional art world, like, truly embracing and, you know, accepting generative art for you?
And has there been, like, any major, like, milestones or exhibitions that just stand out that you're like, okay, wow, this, you know, I can't believe this happened.
Or this has been incredible to be able to partner or work. You mentioned a few throughout
the conversation, but I'm curious to know which one like truly stands out. Well, I mean, a lot of
them are things that, I mean, I'm very proud of a lot of the things that we've done, but I do think
I want to kind of call out that in 2021, like no entity was immune to the draw of the dollars that were being talked about
in the media or like the amount of money that was being traded and like entities can be ever anything
from like you know traditional art galleries to even you know like the auction houses to uh you
know i think the ones that kind of stayed away for a little while during the mania was the actual art
museum and the institution which i think was a very smart move. I think what's shifted is as that, like, I, you know, I'm glad that a lot
of money was made in 2021 and 2022. And that's great. But I actually think that the ecosystem,
the generative art medium, the digital art medium as a whole would probably be in a more sane place
if the level of the mania in 2021 had not gotten so high.
And what's happened is that there's, you know, time heals wounds.
And over time, we've healed this kind of like weird bad taste in the mouths of the traditional
art world and the institutions thinking about the madness of 2021 and realizing that coming
out of that, there's like real humans, real collectors, real artists making real work and really trying to contribute to the future of, you know, whatever art looks like in the future.
And I think whatever art looks like in the future is still to be determined.
of milestones that have been just super impactful, whether it's museums collecting
digital art pieces, art blocks pieces, chromie squiggles, museums reaching out and wanting
guidance on how to participate in this ecosystem. That wasn't on my bingo card. But a lot of museums
are trying to understand how they fit in. And then maybe, because it's fresh on my mind, but I think
maybe one of the greatest milestones for digital art is not just the inception of Node out in Palo Alto, which recently acquired
the CryptoPunks IP, but their kind of stance of saying, look, we're tired of waiting for
the traditional art world or the institution to come around to this.
We see what's happening.
We see, in the words of Derek Edwards, this idea, this idea that, you know, we spend more of our
time in front of a computer than ever, every generation, not just like us in crypto Twitter,
we value digital things more than we've ever valued them. And we're heading in a direction
where there's going to be a complete shift in how culture, cultural artifacts, digital culture
impacts the art world. And, you know, I think the existence of Node, especially acquiring the
Punks IP and coming in and saying, look, it very much aligns with who I am and saying, okay,
this thing doesn't exist. I'm kind of tired of waiting for someone else to like make it happen.
I'm just going to come in and do it myself. And I think that's probably one of the most
impactful things that will ever have happened within our ecosystem is like the the born from scratch authentic kind of
like institutional adoption not institution in the way that we've seen it before but non-profit
focused on elevating this medium in a with good enough funding to be able to survive for a while
i think that's one of the most impactful things and i i it is it is truly a win for every single
person in this ecosystem every artist
every collector every founder even just the appreciators that are just on the like
watching all this evolve
yeah it's so awesome and excited to see what they keep doing down the road I feel like I have like
50 more questions but we're like pretty much out of time here.
So we'll just have to save it for another day or another late night chat.
Maybe in Lisbon.
You're going to be in Lisbon, right?
I will be in Lisbon.
I'm so excited.
Yeah, it's going to be fun.
Yeah.
So looking forward to seeing you up there.
And I'll pass it off to Laura with any closing kind of remarks or thoughts.
We're up against the clock here.
Yes, no, just grateful for the conversation, Eric.
I love to see the passion and the, you know, the work that you have put into, but also
the sort of like the thought behind each and every aspect of the things that you do with
you and the team, since there's no right or wrong way
of doing this right and i feel like even even from from this conversation like that's that's
all i could get it's you know you could innovate but you could also have to i mean you also have
to be ready to pivot and try something new and and see where the where the state of the market is
where the people the interest and and and see how can we truly continue
to make an impact while having some sort of curation, but then accessibility.
So yeah, just, I don't know, excited to see what's next.
And I want to make sure that before we leave, that you have the opportunity to share with
us anything that you're working on that we should
be looking out for or anything that we didn't touch on that you think is important for everyone
in the audience to hear or to learn from you. Thanks, Laura. I mean, yeah, so I think right now,
this could just be just based on how crazy things have been.
But I'm in I'm personally in the best mental state I've been in a really long time.
I'm personally more excited about what we're doing at Artblocks this year than I have been in a really long time.
I'm personally more excited about what's happening within this ecosystem across the board than I've been in a really long time.
We are headed in a direction. I mean, it may not be another massive mania.
In fact, a massive mania like that may set things back a bit,
but we're headed in a direction towards longevity,
and we're headed in a direction towards thinking about the future
more than just like a couple weeks ahead.
And that's really powerful and really exciting,
and I'm really excited about all these things.
I couldn't be happier with what we're doing with Artblocks, with Generative Goods.
And then on a personal level, really excited to be putting more art in the world.
It's been a long time.
And my piece that I'm working on is absolutely a commentary on this ecosystem and my experience.
But it's a self-portrait.
And the idea is that it's this invitation for people to put themselves and feel the same thing
that they have been like maybe have been feeling for the last however long but
not been able to put like their their finger on it and and so understanding
and seeing this like shifts in attention and appreciation and that kind of
happened and because yeah it's happening to me but it's happening to every single
artist and every single collector in this ecosystem so really excited to do something along
those lines and then just really excited about marfa again this year i think marfa is going to
be great i just so encourage people to to try to make the track and and come on out and have that
experience it's uh you know when when we look back whatever many years in the future i think you know
there's there's there's some legacies that have that are going to be left that are going to be stuff that, you know, I can die a proud man.
And one of them is going to be the legacy of what we, the entirety of what we released on our blocks within, you know, this beginning of this new technology and this new kind of intersection.
And the other one is Marfa and this new kind of intersection. And, and the other one is, is Marfa and, and kind of what that,
what that felt. And, uh, you know, I, uh,
I have these posters of the people that have signed, uh,
every time they've come to Marfa and, you know,
I see some names on there that have come to every single Marfa and I see some
new ones. And, uh, I just, I can't wait to see everybody out in the desert.
It's in October, October, um, I got 16th, I think. Um,
but just check our blocks, um, I got 16th, I think. Um, but just check our
blocks, um, discord or tweets. Um, but yeah, I'll just, I'll just leave it at that. There's a lot
of exciting stuff going on. I, I, I commend everyone for having stuck around and been a part
of this, uh, over the last few years. And, uh, you know, let's figure out how we together
collectively can, can make, you know, just make the next few years absolutely incredible for everybody involved.
Absolutely. I'm so inspired by you and the intention behind, you know, all the work.
I can't wait to see what you do next.
It's I'll say a fun fact.
I was like, I didn't know if I should share it or not.
But about two years ago, I got to host you in Spanish with Sergito.
And a lot of people didn't even know that you spoke Spanish.
It brought me back to the inspiration that you could give to different people.
I don't know.
We need to do that again, Laura.
We need to do that again.
We should have just done this whole one in Spanish and surprised everybody.
You see?
Podemos cambiar español.
Hablamos español.
There you go.
AI can translate immediately now.
You don't even need, we can do it in Spanish and still say the same thing.
Look at this.
Amazing.
And you know what?
Because sometimes representation is overlooked.
But when someone's so, like, yeah, like, so emblematic in this space, I feel like sometimes
that's like my fun fact.
I'm like, oh, do you know he speaks Spanish? And it's actually really good Spanish. And they're like,
what? No way. I can't believe this. But yeah, but just to speak on the representation that you give
to Latinos in this space. So thank you for that. And yeah, we should do it again. We should do it
again next time. We'll have this whole conversation in spanish so i appreciate your time i'm really
grateful for everyone that tuned in today for sharing the space for you know gifting us an hour
of your day and if you know someone that might enjoy this conversation make sure to
share the replay and yeah i'll see you guys the next time eric thank you thank you thank you
matt you were a wonderful co-host.
Can't wait to do this again.
Thanks, everybody.
Love y'all.
Thanks, Eric.
See you.
Appreciate it.
Bye.
