Arguably the biggest artist in the NFT space and digital art world as a whole, @beeple/ Michael Winkelmann lit Twitter and the Metaverse afire recently when he joined the Meebits army and launched a broadside attack on @danny_p3d/ Daniel Poschinger and the simians from the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Retaliation was swift and brutal with @youngandsick bringing home a Meebits skull as a trophy before cooler heads prevailed and the fighters hugged it out.

 

 

At this point you’re probably wondering wtf I’m talking about, wtf is a Meebit and wtf is The Bored Ape Yacht Club. In the wake of such hugely profitable collectable projects such as Cryptopunks and Crypto Kitties, it was only a matter of time before similar projects and innovations would begin popping up. From bitmap art, to 2D, to 3D art, creators have been searching for the next big thing and how to monetize it.

 

LarvaLabs, the creators of the Cryptopunks, recently  released the Meebits. Unlike their Cryptopunks, which only included 10,000 NFT’s in the collection of algorithmically generated 2D art, the Meebits consist of 20,000 3D voxels characters that owners can use as their avatars in the metaverse. They also have the option to load their Meebits into almost any standard 3D modeling software, and animate their collectables as they see fit. There is also a trustless marketplace built into the smart contract allowing trades of up to 100 Meebits per transaction.

 

The Bored Ape Yacht Club is a project of 10,000 cartoon ape NFT’s programmatically generated and stored as ERC721 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain. Released around the same time as the Meebits, BAYC exploded on the scene during the peak of the NFT boom last month, in early May 2021 with countless remixes and derivative pieces stemming from popular digital artists floating around the interwebs. Bored Ape #8023 recently sold for 49.99 ETH, or more than $132,000 at the time, and the Bored Ape Remix has built an Ape-arel line around the property selling T-shirts, hats and accessories. One stand out artist is Daniel Poschinger @danny_p3d who’s 3D renders have been pushing the already hot secondary  market into new territory.

 

 

Enter @beeple, the level of attention that an artist of his stature brings to these projects can’t be overstated or accurately quantified but for people whose first exposure to either the Meebits or the Bored Ape Yacht Club was through the first of what may prove to be countless digital skirmishes between two distinct camps of crypto enthusiasts.  This serves as a window into a world where creatives are pushing the boundaries of collectibles, monetization, and community building. Hype aside, the popularity and variety of artists associated with these two projects bodes well for their financial viability, and the health of the NFT marketplace overall. I for one can’t wait to see what happens next.

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