What’s an Ethscription?
In the ever-evolving landscape of blockchain technology, a new and exciting concept has emerged that promises to revolutionize the way we create, share, and collect digital artifacts.
Enter Ethscriptions, a groundbreaking innovation that combines the power of Ethereum blockchain with nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to create a unique and secure method of ownership and authentication. What is the world of Ethscriptions? What is their significance? What potential to they hold for the future of digital art?
Introduction to Ethscriptions
As the digital art market continues to gain momentum, Ethscriptions have emerged as a remarkable solution to the challenges of provenance, authenticity, and ownership in the digital realm. By leveraging the Ethereum blockchain’s decentralized and immutable nature, Ethscriptions offer artists and collectors a transparent and secure platform that ensures the uniqueness and value of digital artifacts.
Ethscriptions in the Beginning
To create an Ethscription, artists encode their digital artwork or media as a nonfungible token on the Ethereum blockchain. This process involves utilizing Ethereum’s “calldata” feature, which allows artists to attach additional data to their tokens, such as metadata, descriptions, or even interactive elements.
By immutably linking the digital artifact to its token on the blockchain, Ethscriptions provide a verifiable and tamper-proof record of ownership and provenance.
Ethscriptions was developed by Tom Lehman, co-founder and former CEO of Genius.com. As a co-founder of Genius.com, a digital media company known for its online music encyclopedia, Tom Lehman brought his digital expertise and vision to the creation of Ethscriptions and ethscriptions.com. With a background in the digital music culture and industry, Lehman understood the potential of blockchain technology to be used in new ways to create, share, and collect art. His involvement in Ethscriptions happened by this commitment to innovation and Lehman’s passion for leveraging blockchain technology to empower creators and redefine the art market.
For collectors, the allure of Ethscriptions lies in their exclusivity and rarity.
Each Ethscription represents a unique digital artifact, making it a highly sought-after item for enthusiasts and collectors alike. The process of collecting Ethscriptions involves acquiring the tokens associated with the digital artifacts of interest. These tokens can be acquired through various means, including direct purchases, auctions, or even collaborations with artists.
Punks to Purrs
Paying homage to one of the best-loved, best-regarded NFT PFP art collections (and communities) in the world, Sartohsi’s CC0 mfers, entered mfpurrs.
mfpurrs are 10,000 original pixel art cats, inscribed and immortalized on the Ethereum blockchain. Beyond this, mfpurrs have become the first major Ethscription PFP collection, combining the core aesthetics and favorite parts of mfers with pixel art cats (including legendary meme Nyan Cat traits, courtesy Nyan Cat artist Chris Torres aka PRguitarman).
“I found it hilarious that someone discovered a new way to put images on-chain…and then instantly used it for a damn cat meme. They paid $0.19 in gas fees to slap that cat jpeg on Ethereum, where it will live forever in the calldata of an old transaction.”
“It just so happens that Ethscriptions is a fantastic medium for pixel art, so it felt right to do a large pixel art collection in honor of our cat overlord.”
Virtual Alaska, mfpurrs creator
The Mfpurrs collection is especially known for its focus on artistic expression and community engagement, appealing to both art enthusiasts and blockchain technology aficionados. The combination of unique artistry, digital scarcity, and the Ethereum blockchain platform has made the Mfpurrs NFT collection a significant player in the Ethscriptions world.
Tracking and Valuing Ethscriptions:
As the popularity of Ethscriptions grows, tracking and valuing these digital artifacts become crucial. Several platforms and marketplaces have emerged that allow collectors to manage and showcase their collections. Notably, these platforms utilize blockchain technology to ensure the authenticity and provenance of Ethscriptions, thus adding value to the artifacts themselves. Furthermore, the scarcity and demand for specific Ethscriptions contribute to their valuation, much like traditional art.
Beyond their artistic and collectible value, Ethscriptions have the potential to reshape the digital landscape in profound ways. By granting artists greater control over their work and enabling verifiable ownership, Ethscriptions empower creators and foster a more equitable relationship between artists and consumers. Additionally, the decentralized nature of the Ethereum blockchain opens up endless possibilities for innovation and collaboration, further fueling the expansion of Ethscriptions into various creative industries.
Enter Nakamingos
Nakamingos embody what matters about Ethscriptions. Nakamingos is an upcoming Ethscription that would be appreciated on any protocol.
Dreamed up by Snepsid aka legendary degen artist Sean Nelson, Nakamingos are a multiverse expression of Nakamigos, the 20k-piece collection that is a tribute to Bitcoin-creator Satoshi Nakamoto. “Imagine Nakamigos in another dimension where the Nakas are flamingos, and can travel between one dimension and another. That’s Nakamingos” says Snepsid.
Nakamingos mint Saturday, January 13, 6:09pm EST.
Equal parts Nakamigos homage, crafty degen pixel art, and wicked creative Ethscriptions community-crafting, Nelson and the Nakamingos team have taken six-months to buidl from idea to fully “feathered out” 20k-piece digital art collection. “Nakamingos is my first legitimate team effort for any of my art collections,” says the artist. “It’s for degens who are my friends. We are making Nakamigos to get our own friends into Ethscriptions. We are making Nakamingos as a gateway to Ethscriptions,” he laughs.
How to Create Ethscriptions
“The biggest secret about Ethscriptions is creating them is fun.”
Mike Mongo
This is true. Creating Ethscriptions is not only simple, it’s fun!
Here’s how (via Ethscriptions.com):
And that is how to create an Ethscription. That’s it. It is really that simple.
The one real limitation is Ethscriptions are the size limit. With a hard 96-kilobyte size limit, artist get to be economical and creative. The trade-off for memory size is on-chain art and accesibility.
Presently, this makes Ethscriptions a literal dream come true for pixel art fanatics and cryto art maxis.
The Future of Ethscriptions
Ethscriptions represent a significant milestone in the evolution of digital art, offering artists and collectors an unprecedented level of ownership, authenticity, and value. With their ability to securely encode digital artifacts on the Ethereum blockchain, Ethscriptions have the potential to reshape the art market, empower creators, and redefine the relationship between artists and their audience. As the world continues to embrace the technological advancements of blockchain, Ethscriptions stand at the forefront, inviting us to explore a new era of digital creativity and expression.
