1 Re-discovery
3254 Punycodes
2321 Twitter followers
1491 tweets
706 Discord members
32 DAO members
4 Puny Factory collaborations
All coming together to create the most historically rich, friendly and ALPHA filled NFT community in the space.
Discord: https://discord.gg/punycodes
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Punycodes2011
January 16th, 2022
Nearly one year ago, a few dedicated NFT historians found evidence on the namecoin block chain of artistic expression in the form of Punycode encoding. In an outstanding act of good will this was shared publicly on twitter and the great rediscovery of the earliest on-chain art began.
Due to the amazing work from the OG Punycode team, the distribution of assets was extremely fair and created a passionate community which I am extremely proud to have been a part of this year.
I'd like to give a huge thank you to:
Poodle and Callum
Without the time spent by these individuals, Punycodes would not be the innovative historical platform which it has become today. Their contributions include, but are not limited to, creating and running: the Discord, Twitter, DAO, Puny factory, Emblem vaults art generator and all other things Punycodes.
January 18th, 2022
The assets were quickly claimed within 24 hours with a good distribution. Seeing the rapidly growing community, Devoted created a Discord server that became the main hub for all Punycodes & other art discussions.
January 25th, 2022
Prior to January 25th community members who wanted to vault and sell their Punycodes were creating custom Emblem Vault images, titles and descriptions. This caused confusion for users attempting to purchase Punycodes. Cryptokorin took the time to develop a Punycode generator which provided an easy way for users to create uniform images, titles and descriptions for their Punycode vaults.
January 26th, 2022
While exploring the Namecoin forums which dated back to 2011, community members managed to find some of the earliest discussions about using Punycodes. Users wanted to express themselves on-chain using characters that were not first intended by the Namecoin developers and Punycodes were their solution! The first step in a fascinating story.
Below you can see Khal discussing the potential use of Punycode.
January 26th, 2022
@adamamcbride is an extremely respected collector / influencer in the Historical NFT community and was one of the first people with a large following to create a detailed thread on Punycodes and helped bring wider adoption to Punycodes.
February 3rd, 2022
@jakegallen_ is another well respected member in the Historical NFT community and took the time to do an interview with Devoted and n11stic. Another fantastic way in which the community learnt more about Punycodes at a time where everyone was desperate to learn more.
February 4th, 2022
With the Punycodes community growing the team had been hard at work building an extremely professional website to provide a landing page for new collectors looking to learn more about the project.
February 9th, 2022
Devoted created an OnCyber gallery, which the Punycodes community could use to display the diverse art styles presented in the collection. I believe this was a critical step in the early journey of the Punycodes community. Now, alongside the outstanding provenance of being the first Onchain ART, we have an extremely cool display to draw in the more visually driven collectors. Using pieces supplied by the community the entire range of different Punycode types and ages were now available for anyone to view!
Take a look around for yourself: https://oncyber.io/punycodes
March 4th, 2022
The community ran a thread competition which showed the talent of the community and created some fantastic content for learning more about Punycodes. You can find the full library of threads and other info about Punycodes in the Discord server.
I submitted an entry: A complete guide to Punycodes, if you are interested in learning more here's the link: https://twitter.com/SaruoCrypto/status/1509252654081347584
March 16th, 2022
Punycodes saw some amazing sales activity this year from dedicated collectors with highs of 28 Eth on Opensea! Alongside these grail sales there has been sales ranging all the way down to 0.1 Eth, due to the complex rarity and differing ages of these assets. Making Punycodes one of the most accessible historical grail collectables!
A full analysis of the different rarity factors can be found in discord under the “about-and-FAQ” channel. Here I have provided the most basic breakdown by year and type:
March 22nd, 2022
Punycodes did a collaboration with @mooncatrescue which marked the first community effort to show that Punycodes are just one piece to the amazing puzzle that is historical NFTs. The success of this collaboration was part of the inspiration for the Puny Factory which came later.
March 26th 2022
The Punycode team started to put together a few great podcasts which I highly recommend listening to! Having such a detailed discussion about Punycodes in a transparent and professional manner set the tone for the Punycodes community and began to spread the story.
Apr 29, 2022
@WRabbit1111 immortalized Punycodes in their extensive Digital Antiquities Market infographic. White Rabbit has spent countless hours researching and building a detailed picture of the ever evolving story behind the historical NFT scene. Work that I think is going to be talked about in crypto history classes in many years down the line. I am sure I speak for every project listed here when I say we owe a massive thank you to White Rabbit!
June 16th, 2022
Community members researching the deep history of Punycodes managed to find one of the OG artists @halluciphile. Halluciphile created 966 of the 3254 Punycodes and, without his amazing contributions, Punycodes might not have been what it is today. My favorite piece created by Halluciphile was the legendary “Space Whale” Punycode from 2017. Another example of an extremely wholesome community member who was creating the art for the sake of art, before the commercial value of NFTs and on chain art.
July 18, 2022
ChainLeft has done some fantastic work creating The Puny Factory which is a launch pad for collaborations between Punycodes and other projects and artists from the community.
The Puny Factory serves as a great value creation angle for all holders of Punycodes and especially the DAO members who receive an allocation of each drop. Giving community members the chance to showcase their talents and get their name out there keeps the community engaged and growing while the historical long term holds mature.
July 24, 2022
The very first Puny Factory piece “XN--CARD” was in collaboration with @MyCurioCards. Curio Cards are collectible digital artworks located on the Ethereum blockchain. Created in 2017, Curio Cards are commonly viewed as the first digital art collectibles on the Ethereum blockchain.
The artist for this release was Twicer, an extremely talented artist from the Punycodes community. Sold out in 2 hours.
August 15th, 2022
@LeonidasNFT was quick to get an interview organized with @halluciphile after the discovery that he was the OG artist behind so many historical NFTs.
September 7, 2022
The second Puny Factory piece “7 Strokes” was created in collaboration with @DogepartyXDP. DogepartyXDP is a layer on the Dogecoin network for new coins that foster creativity & promote social good. The first asset minted on DogepartyXDP was in 2014. A community art submission competition was used to select the art for this release.
The artist for this release was Inarus who is a skilled expressionist stroke artist.
Sold out in 3 minutes.
September 17th, 2022
As Punycodes are Namecoin assets they require a renewal roughly every 9 months. The Emblem Vault wrapper has a built in auto renewal feature which will keep a Punycode auto renewed for over 100+ years provided there is over 0.6 NMC in the vault along side the Punycode.
Many vaults were created without the required NMC for renewal and hundreds Punycodes were at risk around September. The Punycodes team spent a huge amount of time and filled all of the empty vaults with enough NMC to cover renewals!
September 28th, 2022
Punycodes were displayed in a PHYSICAL ART GALLERY!
The exposure in the mainstream art world showed that, despite differing opinions, art is whatever people perceive it to be. This helped settle the debate around whether Punycodes constitute art. Massive shout out to the organizers: @elementumart
Personally I think this display was extremely cool and I really look forward to the next installation and an increase in real world adoption of crypto art. Another unique show of conviction and love from the Punycodes community.
October 13th, 2022
With Punycodes being such a complex and nuanced topic, there has been endless discussion and FUD around what is art. Chainleft put together this extremely thoughtful and informative article “Are Punycodes art?”.
October 30th, 2022
Historic NFT Fest took place between 28th-30th and the Punycodes DAO voted to cover all expenses for the legendary Punycodes artist @halluciphile to attend and be a speaker.
November 7th, 2022
The attempted FUD against Punycodes often focused on the Provenance of Punycodes and Namecoin assets in general. Are Punycodes even NFTs? Are they really from 2011? This debate can get very technical and Chainleft produced another fantastic article which digs into this topic with better than we could have hoped for.
November 21, 2022
The third release from The Puny Factory “Underworld” was an epic collaboration with @v1punks. V1punks are the original CryptoPunks created in 2017 by LarvaLabs, now tradeable via an ERC-721 wrapper.
The artist for this piece was frankofficial.eth.
December 14, 2022
The fourth and final Puny Factory release from 2022 was in collaboration with @Crypto_Skulls and was called “CryptoSkull - #129h”. Crypto Skulls are 10,000 collectible ERC-721 NFTs stored on the Ethereum/Polygon blockchains since 2019!
The artist for the last piece of the year was Halluciphile, the OG Punycodes artist who created nearly 1/3 of all Punycodes in existence! Sold out in 2 hours.
Pre/post Punycodes 2021-2023
Punycodes have used the @EmblemVault wrapper since the rediscovery due to the lack of a native marketplace for Namecoin assets. The wrapper is used for many historical NFT projects and has been a fantastic tool for the entire historical space. EV allows for trading of NMC assets on @opensea and @LooksRare.
The team at EmblemVault even managed to implement an auto renewal feature for vaulted Namecoin assets before the Punycodes discovery. This means holders can vault their Punycode with 2 NMC (roughly $2) and their Punycode will auto renew for 100+ years!
In addition to all of this, the EmblemVault team is developing curated custom collections for notable EmblemVault assets. Punycodes is on the list to be added this year! This will be a major catalyst as the current process for finding the Punycodes listings can be slow and confusing for the casual investor.
Huge shout out to:
DesktopCommando , shannonNullCode
and the two newest memebers: @adamamcbride and @jakegallen_
For all the support they have given the entire Historical community
In conclusion Punycodes were unknown at the start of 2022 and just one year later there is a thriving community celebrating the art, the history and the fascinating story behind these assets. I feel honored to have found this team and I plan to be a champion of this community and these assets for years to come.
With such a smart and active community, the ALPHA calls shared in the holders analysis channel and exclusive opportunities presented to DAO members have been extremely beneficial. Alongside that ALPHA, if you ever need a helping hand or a friend to talk to, there is always someone willing to lend their time!
I personally missed the rediscovery by a day and did not manage to claim any Punycodes at the time but I have slowly been accumulating Punycodes wherever possible. My goal for 2023 is to try and add a 2012 Punycode to my collection.
Thanks for reading and I can't wait for another year of growing together!
