Jack Butcher’s Pepe-themed Web3 experiment

by · June 9, 2023

Web3 has no shortage of “crossover episodes,” moments in cryptoart culture where projects, memes, and personalities bleed into and influence each other in significant ways. Beeple’s daily commentary in the NFT space is a good example of this, but he is far from the only influential voice turning existing trends into something fresh and new, whether it’s a simple observation or a full-fledged Web3 project.

One of the most enduring symbols in the crypto world is Pepe the Frog, the iconic 2005 cartoon character created by Matt Furie. Since its creation, Pepe the Frog has become one of the internet’s most recognizable (and abused) memes. In Web3, it has appeared in everything from NFT projects based on the character to eponymous cryptocurrency memecoins.

So it’s little surprise that Pepe influenced the creation of Opepen, one of the latest NFT collections from Web3 wizard Jack Butcher, the artist behind the highly successful Checks NFTs project and creative agency Visualize Value. The Open is a collection of 16,000 open-issue NFTs whose artwork changes over a series of drops and reveals.

The project has the dynamics that Butcher has become known for in the space, and with a trading volume of more than 63,250 ETH ($116 million) and individual sale of almost 31 ETH ($58,000), Openpen has gained the attention of the entire Web3. Here’s everything you need to know about it.

What is Openpen?

Despite the sheer volume of the project, Opepen is not just another NFT gathering for digital art; it is also a community-driven experiment exploring the concepts of uniqueness, scarcity and abundance in Web3.

As much as it was inspired by the Pepe meme culture, Opepen also took its cue from the geometric works of digital artist batz, whose series of artworks made with just squares and circles caught Butcher’s attention this spring. Butcher decided to create his own version of the batz style, using only rectangles and ellipses. He named the project Opepen, a portmanteau of the “open” open-source NFTs, and “Pepe,” the controversial frog meme ubiquitous to Web3.

The Open launched 8 January 2023, as a 60-minute open edition of NFT. But this wasn’t your average open edition. First, the NFTs themselves were not revealed immediately, but rather over a series of drops that occur at regular intervals (on a timeline randomly determined by Butcher).

Also, each drop includes 80 openings out of a total of 16,000 (with 200 sets included in the entire project). Each Openpen owner must opt-in to artwork previews that they like (by signing a message in their crypto wallet) to have the full NFT revealed (which will only happen if the proposed metadata change receives a 200 percent sign-up rate).

Some of the drops are like art editions, meaning everyone in the set will get the same artwork. Others include slight variations or even 1/1 works. Even after you opt in, the distribution of the art is random.

For 200 percent enrollment to occur, the 80-NFT decline requires at least 160 enrollments. So far, demand for the drops has been well above that limit, sometimes reaching it more than 10,000 percent.

In creating this system, Butcher wanted to experiment with the idea of ​​uniqueness in the digital realm, a theme that often appears in his Web3 projects. But instead of leaning into themes of scarcity and rarity as he did with Checks, Butcher plays with the concept of abundance in art and how it affects the choices his collectors make. With Opepen, he also wanted to create a sense of community among his collector base by allowing them to participate in the discovery process and influence the outcome of each drop.

The development of Openpen has been characterized by Butcher’s transparent management style. He has continuously shared updates and engaged in discussions about the project via Twitter, giving enthusiasts a glimpse into the project’s development and future and allowing holders give feedback while opening the door to further artistic collaboration.

Who started Openpen?

Butcher is a British-born artist, designer and writer based in New York City and the founder of Visualize Value. This platform creates and sells digital products that help people communicate more effectively.

Visualize Value started as a side project in 2017, where Butcher shared minimalist graphics that distilled complex ideas into simple images on social media.

Butcher is also an avid NFT creator and collector. When he released the open edition for his January 2023 collection of Checks, each check was minted for $8 and has since done over 54,800 ETH ($100 million) in volume at the time of writing.

According to one Tweet April 17, 2023 of Butcher, his intention as NFT creator is “the preservation of moments in time driven by major technological changes. The output: ‘artifacts’ that capture those moments. For Checks, the top-down disruption of institutional trust and the bottom-up normalization of truth-seeking. »

The prominent role of the Open

The Open’s success can be attributed to several factors. First, Openpen benefits from the reputation and vision of Butcher, who is widely respected and admired for his previous collections.

Second, Opepen stands out for its innovative drop mechanics that challenge the norms of NFT collections. Opepen doesn’t reveal the art for the drops all at once, and it doesn’t rely solely on rare traits to create value.

Instead, Opepen creates an abundance of art and choices for its collectors, allowing them to sign up for different drops and receive random artwork from different artists. In this way, Openpen creates a sense of anticipation and participation in a way that other collections do not. Also, Openpen rewards its collectors to hold checks NFTs, which create buying tools for both Butcher’s projects.

In fact, one of the rarest Openpens minted so far is a “Black Openpen Check”, which is a mix of Butcher’s projects.

The future of Openpen

Openpen is still in its early stages, just like that six falls out of 200 has been completed so far. There are still many more to come, with more artwork by Butcher and guest artists. Some of the guest artists that have been confirmed or hinted at include Robert Mallary, who creates generative art based on his physical sculptures; falsehigh, which creates gradient-based art; and ripe0x, who creates pixelated art.

Openpen is an experiment that tests the limits of digital art. Each NFT is a step in an open adventure that inviting all who are curious and creative to be involved.

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