XCOPY, Cryptoart Legend

Dear Bankless Nation,

There are cryptoartists minting NFTs today whose works will have considerable cultural significance many decades from now.

One of those artists is likely XCOPY.

For starters, cryptoart wouldn’t exist as we currently know it if it weren’t for creators like XCOPY who jumpstarted and helped sustain the ecosystem since its inception.

People are starting to wise up to this, which is why one XCOPY piece just sold for 1,000 ETH on SuperRare. It won’t be the artist’s last high-profile sale, that much is clear!

-WMP

XCOPY Sets SuperRare Sale Record!

XCOPY is universally respected in the cryptoart community, not least because he’s one of the pioneering artists who’ve validated and raised up cryptoart since its very beginnings.

Indeed, the London-based artist has minted through defunct OG proto-platforms like Digital Objects and R.A.R.E. Art Labs, ever staying the course since then by publishing his iconic animations to contemporary cryptoart platforms and helping these platforms bloom to what they’ve now become from their earliest days.

Source: “DOOM Party” by XCOPY on Async Art

For example, XCOPY’s been minting NFTs through SuperRare since the dapp launched back in 2018, so some of SuperRare’s earliest mints are XCOPY’s. From then on, the artist has released nearly 140 NFTs on SuperRare and over 750 cryptoart pieces altogether. According to Richard Chen’s cryptoart.io, the current value of this existing oeuvre is impressively ~$6M!

XCOPY’s been prolific, then, and his works have reflected modern life and the rise of cryptoart in truly signature fashion. As such, the 2021 cryptoart boom is leading to the artist’s pieces seeing a major increase in demand among NFT collectors.

That reality was evidenced perfectly this week when the cryptoartist’s piece Death Dip, the 14th NFT ever minted on SuperRare, sold for a whopping 1,000 ETH in an SR secondary market transaction. The purchase, which notably saw a royalty payment of 100 ETH sent straight to XCOPY’s Ethereum wallet, now marks the largest all-time sale made on the popular cryptoart platform to date.

The sale instantly sparked celebration throughout the cryptoart scene. It further validates XCOPY as a great artist, worthy of great consideration. It further validates SuperRare as a platform where great artists pioneer. And it further validates NFTs as a way for creators to take direct control of, and innovate around, their creative outputs.

As for the new collector of Death Dip, that’d be the 4156 Collection, named after its crown jewel NFT, CryptoPunk #4156, which Beeple recently lionized (or should I say apefied?) as seen below.

On the heels of their 1,000 ETH purchase, 4156 took to Twitter to hail XCOPY as “the most important living artist.” Whether you personally agree or disagree, it’s clear 4156’s been putting their money where their mouth in this regard, at least if their recent transactions are any indication. This month alone the 4156 Collection has added multiple XCOPY pieces, including:

• Hope
• Post Debt
• Panic Stations
• Editions of Mortal

Looking ahead, 4156 is working on a website for their wider cryptoart collection and might be exploring fractionalization efforts. XCOPY’s works will surely feature as a major attraction on the site, and they’ll surely feature heavily in any of 4156’s ongoing fractionalization considerations. It’s a brave new NFT world, after all, and great NFTs hold great power therein.

Action Steps

• Go check out some of XCOPY’s early works on SuperRare. Respect!