10K Drop (2024), Timelocked Ethereum ERC-721 NFTs of generative HTML5 animations.
A “10K Drop” is an NFT collection of ten thousand PFP character images released as a cultural event. The number ten thousand and the format of a series of characters generated programmatically from a library of visual elements is taken from the first collection of this kind, the Cryptopunks by Larva Labs which dropped in June 2017. Successful drops provide community, inspiration, and wealth. Unsuccessful ones provide embarrassment and loss. Buying early rides one of these waves. Waiting to see how a collection performed reduces risk but also reduces reward. For every Bored Apes, a dozen Disinterested Dogs.
Buying an individual token in such a collection became known as “aping in”. Going further and buying all of the cheapest available NFTs in a collection is known as “sweeping the floor”. This desire for belongings and belonging, for ownership, that grows in and around successful 10K Drops is both driven and frustrated by the fact that other people also own tokens in the collection. Without that ownership, the market could not establish the value that makes the collection valuable and desirable. With it, an individual’s ownership of the collection can never be complete.
10K Drop is an artistic fulfilment of this desire. Each individual NFT in the collection is a generatively created drop of 10 Ks, viewable as a live animation or as a high-quality static image. It is locked until the price of Ethereum also becomes 10K - ten thousand US dollars. This is a 10 K drop that will drop at 10K, a 10K drop squared. In this it produces an experience of total ownership that is increased rather than being frustrated or reduced by other collectors also owning a token in the same series. This is a familiar strategy from my previous projects Tokens Equal Text and Black Friday Sale, with a more complex visual aesthetic applied to the moment of NFTs entry into mainstream cultural consciousness in order to enable us to reflect on the desires that they produce and frustrate as a reflection of more general property relations.
Links
Conversation with Nguyen Wahed
Massive thanks to Georg Bak, Nguyen Wahed, Verse, and [aside]!
The drop sold out in less than two hours! Thank you to everyone who got involved!