Rhea Myers

On July 24, we launch the 10K Drop, the third collection of NFTs based on the [aside] protocol, in collaboration with Rhea Myers. This drop has a unique feature: all purchased NFTs will be locked at mint time and will only be unlocked when ETH reaches $10,000.

The [aside] protocol enables the immobilization of any NFT on the Ethereum blockchain, conditioning its release to external phenomena, whether natural (weather, earthquake, storm), astral (solar eruption, planetary transit), economic (inflation, deflation), financial (stock market), demographic, or social. Once locked, these NFTs remain non-transferable until a specific real-world event occurs, thus tying their tradability to the outside world.

The 10K Drop is an NFT collection of ten thousand PFP character images, released as a cultural event. Inspired by the first collection of this kind, Cryptopunks by Larva Labs, which dropped in June 2017, the 10K Drop uses a programmatically generated series of characters from a library of visual elements. Successful drops provide community, inspiration, and wealth, while unsuccessful ones bring embarrassment and loss. Early buyers can ride the wave of success, while those who wait reduce risk but also reward.

This desire for ownership and belonging grows in and around successful 10K Drops but is frustrated by the fact that others also own tokens in the collection. Without shared ownership, the market couldn’t establish the collection’s value, yet this shared ownership means individual ownership can never be complete. The 10K Drop aims to artistically fulfill this desire. Each NFT in the collection is a generatively created drop of 10 Ks, viewable as a live animation or a high-quality static image, locked until the price of Ethereum reaches ten thousand US dollars.

This 10K Drop will drop at 10K, creating an experience of total ownership that is enhanced rather than diminished by the presence of other collectors. This strategy, familiar from my previous projects like Tokens Equal Text and Black Friday Sale, applies a complex visual aesthetic to the moment of NFTs’ entry into mainstream cultural consciousness, allowing us to reflect on the desires they produce and frustrate as a reflection of broader property relations.