00. Listen

01. News

- fx(fam) 002

Earlier this week we participated in the second fxhash community discord event, fx(fam) 002, where we got an updated on params (due before the end of March), had an open discussion on the opening schedule, and heard an update from ajberni about what's new with Tender. Oh, and WTBS had a fun interview segment with Zancan.

In case you missed it, a recording was posted to Spotify:

- Le Random

fxhash OG thefunnyguys announced a new generative art group this week, called Le Random in tribute to the computer art OG Vera Molnar. In addition to the collecting RGB #1 as shown above, they also lay claim to one of the best Garden, Monoliths in the series (#156) in addition to a zancan 1/1, Lushtemples -- Highlights of the Hike, which was bought from co-host Pronoia for an astonishing 83,000 tez.

It's important to note that Le Random aims to be more than a fund (although collecting great art is part of it's overall mission). You can read more about the group via a recent interview with Metaversal.

- Amazon NFTs

E-commerce monolith Amazon announced this week that they are stepping into the world of blockchain with goods backed by NFTs. Although more details will sure to be forthcoming soon, it creates for fascinating speculation regarding their approach, potential use cases, and what it might mean for more corporate forays and experimentation within the world of web3.

Read more on Blockworks.

- WTBS interviews Thomas Noya

This week we released a new interview with one of our favorite artists, Thomas Noya. Be sure to listen to hear more about the AI x code approach that defines many of his biggest works, a wide variety of music recommendations, and some insights into the upcoming collaboration he is working on with us, the amazing duo behind Waiting To Be Signed. Listen here:

- Mapan on Tonic

Tonic is a relatively new player in the generative art space and they are placing additional importance on large scale physical prints.

William Mapan released a new project, Strands of Solitude, there this week and it quickly sold out of 400 editions. Each NFT comes with a free 9"x16" print, with the ability to pay a bit more for a larger size and / or framing option.

The twist is that each edition is only eligible for printing once (at least officially), making for some potentially interesting game mechanics on the secondary market.

- Tezos upgrade

The entire Tezos ecosystem is planning for an upgrade in the coming weeks, and many new features are quite exciting. Highlights include the halving of the block timer from 30 seconds to 15-ish, enabling much faster transaction turnover, and the introduction of smart roll-ups, which will allow more transactions to happen off of the main blockchain and be injected en-masse later.

It will be fascinating to see what impact these changes will have on the overall minting process (e.g., faster blocks favor bots but roll-ups may reduce gas). Stay tuned.

Read more on Medium.

02. Market index update

03. Projects of the week

- Fields

Erik Swahn's latest project on Verse, Fields, has been the talk of the town for weeks at this point. Thousands of iterations have been saved of this collector-curated project, with some power users saving hundreds of their favorite pieces. The WTBS crew minted six total, with them featured below.

Don't miss Verse's interview with Erik.

Pieces and project referenced -

- The Muses

The latest long-form generative AI project from Emergent Properties was released this week to great fanfare; Danielle King's project, The Muses, is an outstanding game changer for the platform with its extraordinarily articulated point of view on the history of women within the traditional art space. Read more in the project essay by Anika Meier, "Constructing AI’S Gaze; A Meditation on Danielle King’s ‘THE MUSES’," and don't forget to listen to our interview with EmProps founders Ira Greenberg and Emil Corsillo.

Trinity's mints -

- Supernal Memories

Diego Pintos and Tender teamed up to release beautifully colorful and lightly geometrical project that almost glows at the viewer from the screen. Another collaboration that was fully reserved for Tender pass holders before being opened to the public, it seems that they are getting the formula closer to optimal. For anyone who missed, Supernal Memories is available close to mint price.

Piece and upcoming collab referenced -

- Life in The Waste Land

Ross Goodwin's latest release was the prototypical slow mint that slowly climbs to floors multiple above mint price as folks slowly understand how cool it is. Don't let the thumbnails fool you, Life in The Wasteland is a genius project that meets at the intersection of generative poetry and Conway's game of life.

04. Shoutouts

- Ruins

This part of the show is dedicated to the projects that are still available to mint, and the fact that Hevey's latest offering is in this list is a testament to how bad the market is. Ruins is another technical masterpiece; read more about everything that went into it in Hevey's accompanying fxtext article.

- Single Use

We talked about this collaboration between 3DManatee and eviltypo previously and are thrilled to see it finally released. This is less than 10% minted and already shows a ton of variety in outputs; once the market improves we hope to see more attention paid to this very fun and colorful project.

- Territory B

The last on our list of "projects that are cool that we want to call out as still available to mint" is Territory B by L-A Labadie. In a normal market this feels like something that would sell out in minutes and be quickly (and successfully) flipped due to a good use of color, excellent geometry, and use of grain.

Also check out his prior project (under a different name), the appropriately named Territory A.

That's it for this week and, as always, join us next Sunday to check in on the market and art. We will be welcoming another secret guest host and tune in to fine out who!

As always, if you like what we're doing, don't forget to collect this article as the best way support the show, and donations are always accepted at 'WTBS.tez'. Have an excellent day.

xoxo

Trinity + Will (+ Pronia)