Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have been dominating the news in 2021, with high-profile figures like JayZ, Steve Aoki, Paris Hilton and Gary Vaynerchuk jumping into the trend, which makes NFT assets even more popular. They have all purchased their own pixelated character, too, with a strong belief that these digital assets would be worth more in the future. And recently, global payments giant Visa bought CryptoPunk for 49.50 ETH, which is currently worth $150,000 at the time of the purchase. There have been many high profile NFT auctions, including both the major traditional art auction houses Christies and Sotheby’s, which sold digital art in NFT format for millions of dollars. However, it turned out that these and other Non-Fungible Tokens, including famous NFT avatars like Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks,, were just a little more than metadata pointing out to some place on the web where the actual artworks were stored, leaving the owners at the mercy of hosting service providers. Here is where Invaders NFTs hit the ground, starting a new story of on-chain generative art.
Inspired by the legacy of the digital art genius Jared Tarbell, as well as street art and the world’s most influential first arcade, Space Invaders, the Invaders NFTs are pixel mosaics generated with Solidity code. However unlike generative art of the last century, arcade games and street art, Invaders NFTs are designed as intrinsically timeless, limited supply, luxury digital assets. With just 238 bytes in size, Invaders can be permanently stored on the Ethereum blockchain.
Developed by an anonymous crypto-native whiz kid creator, working on the brink of math, digital art and blockchain coding, who prefers to stay pseudo-anonymous, Invaders are the next-gen on-chain digital art that is just above and beyond all the other NFTs known today. Here is more on the Invaders and what makes them so unique, and the project roadmap.
Invaders NFTs Made Simple
Each of the 1,150 Invaders is a unique 5×5 pixel, minimalist art stored on the blockchain. Invaders are colourful and joyful, reminiscent of the early arcade games, bridging the symbolism of Space Invaders for the gaming world of the 20th century with the impact of NFT technology on the art world today. Their aesthetics and visual appeal are, to a large extent, explained by the intrinsic harmony of math and algorithms behind each Invader NFT.
The idea of algorithmic art is not new and dates back to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was reputedly the author of the music game, generating finished music pieces out of randomly selected fragments. The connection between math and art has been known for centuries and is very well represented in mosaic tile art, which is another source of inspiration behind Invader NFTs. These ideas, combined with aesthetics and ingenious implementation to enable storage of the artwork directly on the blockchain, make Invaders NFTs truly unique and one-of-a-kind colour bitmap art ever to be created.
One of the biggest challenges for the Invaders was the limitation for the storage of real image files on blockchain, which took a completely different way of thinking for developing algorithms. Another task was to generate and store image files on Ethereum without overstepping reasonable gas limits that was also successfully fulfilled.
Meanwhile, the efficiency of the algorithms behind the Invaders was coupled by choice of Base64 encoding, provided for shorter and more efficient code. Besides, choosing Base64 made it possible to render Invaders in any web browser, even in the absence of an Internet connection.
How Invaders Are Different From Other NFTs
By design, Invaders NFTs are unique blockchain assets with real intrinsic value. Unlike other NFTs containing only an URL without the art itself, each Invader includes on-chain and JSON metadata and the art object encoded into the token.
Secondly, the decision to go with the Base64 encoding made Invaders autonomous and more efficient compared to other alternatives such as ASCII or SVG formats. Contrary to other choices for generative art, Base64 makes Invaders fully independent of browser technologies.
Last but not least, Invaders are not only ingeniously crafted NFTs but the real on-chain generative art, bringing in the vision of the digital art pioneers and arcade nostalgia of the past century. All in all, Invaders represent the most advanced blockchain art assets known today.
With a resolution of 25 pixels, Invaders are just 238 bytes in size, browser independent, fully scalable colour art living on the blockchain. They embody the vision of generative art pioneers, the harmony of math and the legacy of the world’s most influential shooter arcade of all time.
What Is the Prognosis for Invaders NFTs?
Although the algorithm allows producing 32,768 unique shapes, not including colour variations, only 1,150 Invaders NFTs will ever be minted. The first five (#0-4) NFTs will go to the artist, while the remaining 1,145 will be offered for sale and priced on a linear bonding curve, with the price increasing for each next purchase. Thus, the price of Invader #5 will be set at ETH 0.1, and each next Invader would be priced by 0.1 ETH higher than the previous one, providing incentives to the early adopters.
After minting the NFTs, the Invaders will stay forever on the blockchain and can be sold and resold multiple times and be a part of the estate. Similar to other rare and valuable art objects, limited in supply by their nature, Invaders have great chances to appreciate in value over the years, remaining a part of the exciting history of digital art on the verge of math, art, gaming and blockchain.
Invaders are created as an NFT industry first, high-end luxury speculative art with an eventual target price of six figures. In essence, they represent a digital currency of ultra-low limited supply. They are also highly liquid, due to fractional ‘wrapped’ versions, available on ‘Decentralised Exchange’ (DEX) markets. They may also be used for NFT-collateralised loans due to their unique set of characteristics for storing the art both on blockchain and off-blockchain, choice of technology and implementation.
By being unique, Invaders NFTs are personalised art signatures that can belong to a few lucky owners whose number can never exceed 1,145. For the moment, Invaders are the best tickets into the world of high-end luxury digital blockchain art and, as such, are not to be missed.