This month marks our second birthday… which is why this week’s Metaversal Badge is so celebratory. We can’t believe how much we’ve achieved in those two years, and we can’t wait to show you what we’ve got cooking for the days, weeks, months, and years to come! But for now, grab the Badge, join the community, and get ready to be amazed!

DYOR 🔬

Yesterday, Sotheby’s hosted the “Grails II” auction (full title, “Grails: Property from an Iconic Digital Art Collection Part II). On offer were 37 lots of iconic generative art pieces from the collection of now-defunct hedge fund 3 Arrows Capital (3AC).

The star of the show was lot #3, pioneering artist Dmitri Cherniak’s “Ringers #879,” a piece nicknamed “The Goose,” thanks to the goose-like image the arrangement of code, colors, and lines creates.

The selection also included Chromie Squiggles, Fidenzas, CryptoPunks, an Autoglyph, and pieces from Jeff Davis, Casey Reas, Kjetil Golid, Hideki Tsukamoto, and others.

In short, it was a veritable treasure trove of generative art from some of its most beloved practitioners, making it a once-in-a-generation selection and the sort of offering we’re unlikely to see again any time soon.

Sotheby’s estimated The Goose would fetch $2-3 million dollars, but that proved to be extremely conservative. We were there to watch the action unfold (see the video above), and when the hammer fell, the price had climbed to $5.4 million (or $6.2 million once taxes and fees were accounted for).

That makes it the most expensive piece Cherniak has ever sold and the second most expensive piece of generative art ever sold. But why is The Goose so famous? Well, for starters, when 3AC bought it for 1,800 ETH (~$5.9 million), it made it one of the most expensive pieces of generative art ever.

But generative art fans also love how The Goose embodies the beauty and randomness of the form. The Goose is a happy accident made possible by Cherniak’s code but not preordained by it. It may have never come to be — such is the nature of the generative process. But it did, and now it’s a visual representation of not only the delightfulness of the random but also of the economic possibilities of the genre.

The buyer? None other than punk6529, the pseudonymous collector, commentator, and meme master himself.

The sale is a high water mark for The Goose but also an indicator that there’s plenty of appetite for iconic generative art, and that the sector has plenty of interest from well-heeled buyers… and plenty of growth still to come.

We’re huge fans of the “Ringers” series, and Le Random, the pioneering generative art institution we helped incubate, has three in its collection. Included in Le Random’s collection is “Ringers #999,” a piece as aesthetically pleasing as The Goose, if not as famous.

Yesterday was probably the last time we’ll see The Goose for sale for decades to come, because something tells us 6529 didn’t buy it to flip it. He’s on a mission to create the quintessential museum of crypto art, and with yesterday’s purchase, he may well have secured its Mona Lisa. But that doesn’t mean he won’t keep looking for the next Da Vinci…

To the moon 🌙

• Buyers of Nike’s OF1 digital sneaker boxes can now reveal the contents of their boxes if they so wish… or they can keep them sealed and hope one day the $19.82 they paid turns into significantly more in resale value thanks to their restraint.

• Speaking of sneakers, artist Fewocious this week announced a partnership with Adidas. Starting June 22, interested parties will be able to mint a pass that can be redeemed later this year for a physical pair of sneakers. Holders of various Fewocious and Adidas NFTs will get preferential access (full details over here):

• Curious about Recursive Inscriptions on Bitcoin Ordinals but not sure where to start? Check out this explainer from NFTnow.

• A series of Rocky Horror Picture Show-themed NFTs are dropping on OpenSea on June 19 (Monday):

• Miami’s crypto-keen mayor, sock aficionado, and Brylcreem poster-boy, Francis X. Suarez, has officially entered the 2024 U.S. presidential race. Suarez is approximately the millionth Republican hoping to bolster their LinkedIn profile while preventing Donald J. Trump from securing a second term in the Oval Office.

• Web3 sleuth, ZachXBT, is being sued by MachiBigBrother. Machi claims a 2022 Medium article by ZachXBT linking him to half a dozen rug pulls is false:

• Snoop Dogg, in partnership with Transient Labs, has released the “Snoop Passport” NFT collection that includes exclusive Snoop-related artwork and dynamic updates of behind-the-scenes and other footage from his ongoing world tour. The NFTs cost 0.025 ETH (~$42) to mint and also promise access to “future Snoop Dogg drops, events, and experiences.”

IYKYK 💎

Connect for more 🔌

You can find Metaversal on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok.

Metaversal’s content director, Craig Wilson, compiled this week’s edition.

Kathryn McCawley designed this week’s candlelit Badge.

Until next time, see you in the metaverse!

This month marks our second birthday… which is why this week’s Metaversal Badge is so celebratory. We can’t believe how much we’ve achieved in those two years, and we can’t wait to show you what we’ve got cooking for the days, weeks, months, and years to come! But for now, grab the Badge, join the community, and get ready to be amazed!