How a Larva Labs project unwittingly gave life to one of the earliest Web3 PFP use cases, years before CryptoPunks.

On February 14, 2011, Larva Labs (the team who created CryptoPunks in 2017) launched an internal project with Google Creative Lab called Androidify. The idea was to create unique customizable avatars based on the Android brand robot, thanks to dozens of customization options and accessories, to be used as PFPs (term used for profile picture personal avatars) on Android devices and social media sites. As Larva Labs wrote, “Create Android versions of yourself and friends. Set as contact photo, or post to Twitter and Facebook. Resize, recolor and choose from lots of clothing options to get your Android just right!”. It ended up growing to become a crucial part of the global Android brand with over 10 million downloads!

As a matter of fact, there are multiple tweets as old as February 14, 2011, from the Official Larva Labs Twitter account (Now renamed @cryptopunksnfts). Announcing the Androidify project and even illustrating the rapid growth of becoming the #1 free app on Android a few days after the launch!

It was quite evident that the Larva Labs team took great pleasure in the creation of the Androidify project. For example. John Watkinson (co-founder) created a funny video of him dancing with his Androidify. It immediately went viral when numerous media outlets started talking about it! The YouTube video was watched more than 50,000 times and was broadcasted on a national commercial spot!

Additionally, both Larva Labs co-founders (Matt Hall - @matt2000 and John Watkinson - @pents90) have officially used their Androidify as PFPs on social media sites in the past. The images below can be found directly on the official Larva Labs Website.

Furthermore, over the past 11 years, both Matt and John have continued to use their own Androidify as their digital identity on the official Larva Labs website.

Did Androidify Inspire the Creation of CryptoPunks?

While we scavenge deeper into the rabbit hole, one of the most crucial questions remains. Did Androidify inspire the creation of CryptoPunks? The implicit answer is definitely yes. But let’s dig further and see what we can find out.

Made by Larva Labs + Echoes of Nostalgia

We certainly need to take into consideration that Androidify was one of the most successful products of Larva Labs in the company’s early stages. For comparison, a few years before, in 2005, they developed their first mobile game called “Gurk” which only sold 1 copy. As such, we can reasonably assume that the Androidify project may have given the co-founders of Larva Labs a wave of nostalgia and, as a result, may have motivated and inspired them to create a similar product in the future.

A Sense of Resemblance

We also cannot deny that both products have a sense of resemblance, along with the fact that the Androidify project was intentionally created for PFP usage. As such, you could easily customize your own personalized avatar with many different hairstyles, skin colours, and accessories like 3D glasses, pipes, medical masks, beanies, and much more!

To demonstrate this statement, I decided to use the original version of the Androidify App (Feb. 2011) to create similar-looking CryptoPunks. As you can see from the image below, it is quite evident that both products share lots of identical features and characteristics. It even appears that 44 CryptoPunk traits were present in the app in 2011, and 57 traits in 2014. This means that (61%) of CryptoPunks traits were present in the Androidify app by 2014!

Did They Confess Last Year?

Moreover, on November 11, 2021, an article by Wired magazine named “The 10,000 Faces That Launched an NFT Revolution” was published. In this article, the co-founder John elaborates on the history of Larva Labs and how the creation of CryptoPunks came to fruition.

“Loosely inspired by his experience with Androidify, Watkinson played around with the characters' looks, adding hair styles, pipes, hats. He zeroed in on a punky look, which he felt resonated with crypto enthusiasts' defiant bent. "I liked that it was very counterculture and sort of funky and kind of flying in the face of the establishment," Watkinson says.”

Androidify Tokenisation by Web3 Users

On March 9, 2014, one of the earliest Web3 identity systems called OneName was launched, based on the Namecoin blockchain and DNS system (basically, each user’s profile created on OneName was generating a Namecoin name entry on-chain containing all the data that the user added to his profile). It allowed users to create their own decentralized usernames, attach avatars, links and easily send/receive Bitcoin. It became quite a big surprise when tens of thousands of people jumped in during 2014-2015 (Matt himself as well as key people like Vitalik were OneName users) and started creating their first decentralized profiles which are stored on the Namecoin blockchain since then.

A few hours after the initial launch, on March 10, 2014, 11:32 AM +UTC, the Namecoin name entry “u/kiljacken” was generated (the namespace “u/” was used by OneName to generate and register users’ profiles into the Namecoin blockchain), within which we can see a link to an Androidify PFP used by the user who created this OneName profile.

As a matter of fact, this is the second example of a profile picture PFP being tokenized into the blockchain! That being the case, it currently predates the first Blockhead by approximately 11 hours, Blockheads were considered the first Web3 PFP use cases recorded until today after their 2021 rediscovery on the Namecoin blockchain (these being based on another avatar creation app called Eightbit developed in 2010 and launched in 2011.)

So far, only 6 tokenized Androidify PFPs have been discovered on the Namecoin blockchain, 4 from 2014 and 2 from 2015.

(#1): u/kiljacken - (March 10, 2014, 11:32 AM UTC)

(#2): u/davidkoldny - (August 2, 2014, 12:07 AM UTC)

(#3): i/tomasinsua-1 - (November 19, 2014, 3:52 PM UTC)

(#4): u/daddel - (December 9, 2014, 5:49 PM UTC)

(#5): u/semiterrestrial - (August 2, 2015, 2:15 AM UTC)

(#6): i/semiterrestrial-1 - (August 2, 2015, 9:54 AM UTC)

Want to create your own Androidify? Try it out!👇
(Android Version - 2011 )(PC Version - 2014)

🚨 Disclaimer: I am myself a Namecoin hobbyist who managed to acquire 3 of these Androidify following the discovery, so please DYOR, this is NOT Financial Advice in any way, only a piece of Web3 History that I felt ecstatic to share!

Written by: @Nick.bit