Autoglyphs

What is Autoglyphs NFT?

Autoglyphs is a revolutionary, first-of-its-kind generative art project, brought to life by the creative minds at Larva Labs. The project is based on a highly advanced algorithm that can generate billions of unique artworks, each one wrapped inside an ERC-721 standard. The artworks are stored as NFTs, making them truly one-of-a-kind. Unlike traditional NFT artworks, which store the data off the blockchain, Autoglyphs artwork is stored on the blockchain itself, allowing anyone, at the minting event, to create and store an Autoglyph with just a small minting fee of 0.20ETH.

The minting fee was donated to 350.org, an organization that fights against climate change and promotes the use of clean and renewable energies. The algorithm used to generate Autoglyphs is programmed to produce a limited number of artworks, with a total of 512 Autoglyphs created before the generator shut down, making it impossible to ever mint anymore. As a result, existing Autoglyphs can only be purchased on secondary markets like OpenSea.

The ownership and generating code for Autoglyphs are now public, ensuring the total security and authenticity of the digital art. Thanks to the ERC-721 standard, the rightful owners of the Autoglyphs are validated and the data is stored on the blockchain.

In summary, Autoglyphs is an ambitious and experimental generative art project that uses advanced algorithms to create unique artworks. These artworks are stored on the Ethereum blockchain as NFTs, and originally anyone could create one by paying a creation fee of 0.2 ETH.

The team behind Autoglyphs donated all the creation fees to 350.org, an organization that fights against climate change. The algorithm generator shut off after creating 512 Autoglyphs, making them highly valuable and scarce. They are considered a true piece of history, being the first-ever on-chain generative art project.

Who is behind NFT Autoglyphs?

This project, since its conception, has been met with great expectations because of those behind the project. Undoubtedly, the team in charge of carrying out the Autoglyphs NFT, are synonymous with success in the crypto world and especially in the NFT niche.

The Canadian software developers, John Watkinson and Matt Hall established Larva Labs. Their first project was, maybe the most famous NFT project ever, CryptoPunks, followed by Autoglyphs in 2019. Lately, they launched their most ambitious project to date, "Meebits," which sets users inside a futuristic Metaverse.

Both Watkinson and Hall are convinced that blockchain technology will solve many future problems. As a result, they are constantly pushing the boundaries with their projects to meet the demands of future technology. In this regard, the Autoglyphs NFT are another example of this objective.

How does the Autoglyph NFT work?

The Autoglyphs are generated by a generative algorithm that is highly efficient in creating billions of one-of-a-kind artworks. Each artwork is then encapsulated in an ERC-721 interface, which is the standard for NFTs.

The Autoglyphs use a cutting-edge algorithm to produce billions of unique artworks. These artworks are then wrapped in an NFT token, which holds the original data of the piece. The artwork is stored permanently on the blockchain, inside a smart contract. This gives Autoglyph its nickname, "art on the blockchain." Therefore, the code for the algorithm is always publicly available on the blockchain.

An important point, of the process of creating Autoglyphs, is that it’s a self-governing process. Once the project is deployed on Ethereum, the developers have no control over the code that generates the art or manages the ownership of the tokens.

This gives a long-term guarantee of ownership, provenance, and edition size that is independent of any central authority,” said Larva Labs. Later on, the firm made the ownership and the generating code public, which led to the creation of derivative projects such as ColorGlyphs and PaintGlyphs.

What is on-chain generative art, the concept behind Autoglyph?

Many NFT projects, like CryptoPunks or Bored Ape Yacht Club, fall under the category of generative art NFTs. In fact, most PFP NFT projects can be classified as such. However, it is important to note that the actual artwork is not stored on the blockchain, but rather in a database off-chain. This raises concerns about the preservation and safety of these images in the long term.

Autoglyphs NFTs, on the other hand, stand out in this regard.

“With CryptoPunks, the ownership and provenance is permanently and publicly available and those rules are set and fixed,” says Watkinson. “But there's still an imperfection in that the art comes from outside of the blockchain and stays there, just referenced by a smart contract.”

“We don’t have any complaints about CryptoPunks, but we felt there was an opportunity to go further,” he adds. “With Autoglyphs, we asked ourselves, ‘Can we make the entire thing completely self-contained and completely open, operating on the blockchain?’”

And that is precisely what the Larva Labs have achieved with Autoglyphs. The art is stored within the contract itself, making it truly "art on the blockchain." This was no easy feat, given the limitations of blockchains when it comes to storing large image files.

They have experimented with various generators before finally discovering the perfect combination of a small amount of efficiently running code to produce a fairly small, efficient output. The final artworks are simple yet striking, featuring a combination of symbols like +-|, /, |-/, and O|-. They pay homage to the pioneers of generative art, Ken Knowlton and Michael Noll.

Autoglyph NFT mint Price

On the mint day, any user could generate their own Autoglyph by donating a creation fee of 0.20ETH, $845 at that time, to a chosen charity. However, now you can buy them on various NFT marketplaces such as Opensea.

Autoglyph NFT Floor Price

Since every single one of the 512 Autoglyphs has already been minted, your options for obtaining them are limited to the secondary market.

Autoglyphs are unique in that they are entirely algorithm-generated, with no human input. This project revolutionized the NFT industry by being the first-ever generative art project on the blockchain. It opens up new possibilities for creating billions of artworks inspired by Autoglyphs, each with its own tamper-proof identity, provenance and authenticity.