On-Chain Artworks Bryan Brinkman Sold in 4 Minutes

Over the weekend 400 digital artworks by Bryan Brinkman, and stored on-chain on the Ethereum blockchain, sold out within four minutes. Brinkman launched his generated artworks through Art Blocks for 0.2 ETH each. He named the computer-generated clouds Nimbuds.

Each of the generative artworks pictures a cloud with eyes, a mouth, perhaps a mustache, a blush and colorful cables attaching it to the sky. These generative, on-chain artworks by Brinkman tie-in closely with his recently launched Cloudy artworks on Nifty Gateway.

Art Blocks facilitates the technical part of the drop. They create a generative script for each project and store it on the Ethereum blockchain. Art collectors purchase a version of the artwork they like, and then a script randomly generates the artwork instantly. Users buy an ERC-721 token tied to a seed, which connects to the generative script and therefore always produces the same artwork.

Having art or entire programs on-chain is considered a holy grail among blockchain enthusiasts. The reasoning behind this is quite simple, because a decentralized product is immutable. For example, an exchange powered by the community and running completely on-chain using smart contracts, can't be shutdown by a government. We can say the same about games, other applications and of course art.

What is crypto art?

Crypto art or digital art has been around for many years. However, without the existence of blockchain technology it was impossible to verify authenticity and rarity. Now digital art is connected to a token on the blockchain. That way buyers can see how many copies of a certain artwork there are, and whether the product is original.

The concept of seeing a digital image as art, is one thing. However, for many people it will be a challenge to consider digital images as valuable. Consider this: The Mona Lisa is worth many millions of dollars. If I would paint the Mona Lisa in an exact copy, it would be worth only 50 dollars. Because we all know where the original version is. Being able to verify the authenticity and rarity of a piece of art is crucial.

Some people don’t care about the Mona Lisa. It’s just a painting. They are happy to download an image for Google Images, print it on canvas and hang it in their living room. Others want the real deal. The same rules go up for digital crypto art.