Web3 innovation studio VenturePunk rolls out Prohibition, an Arbitrum-based generative arts platform and marketplace.
The inaugural collection for the platform is “Monospatial” by generative artist Emily Edelman, featuring a series of designs featuring generative non-fungible token (NFT) letters. The collection goes on sale Tuesday afternoon with a supply of 100 tokens at a coin price of 0.05 ETH, or about $95 at the time of writing.
Backed by investors including Erick Calderon (aka Snowfro), CEO of generative art platform Art Blocks, and Devin Finzer, CEO of marketplace OpenSea, Prohibition empowers any artist to create, store, and sell a generative art collection .
Also see: Who are the 81 recipients of Snowfro’s latest Squiggle Mint?
Using the Art Blocks Engine, a tool built by Art Blocks to bring generative art to the chain, artists can code their designs on Prohibition to store their collections on Arbitrum, which is an Ethereum layer 2 blockchain. In addition, buyers can explore and purchase other generative art collections through Prohibition’s own secondary marketplace.
Jordan Lyall, founder and CEO of VenturePunk and former DeFi product lead at Web3 infrastructure company ConsenSys, told CoinDesk that as generative art has become increasingly popular over the past year, the barriers to entry have grown. Not only is it rare to find a code-savvy artist who can rise to the ranks of popular creators Tyler Hobbs or Dmitri Cherniak, but it’s also hard for artists to get selected in the first place to pitch their work to a platform . According to Lyall, Art Blocks only works with 2% of artists who sign up to create a collection.
With the release of Prohibition, he aims to recreate the early days of creating and trading generative art on Ethereum by breaking down the barriers and inviting all artists to strike.
“It doesn’t matter what you know, where you’re from, what your background is, where in the world you live – anyone can use our tools to create generative art,” Lyall said. “We really think if Art Blocks is HBO, Ban YouTube is where anyone can upload [their work.]”
Lyall added that when choosing a network to support, Arbitrum made the most sense because of its “90-95% gas cost savings” compared to Ethereum, which can cost several ether for a maker to run an entire collection on. chain to deploy.
Additionally, the implementation of the Art Blocks Engine in the platform – which companies like Web3 fashion brand 9dcc and NFT gallery Bright Moments have similarly done – helps ease the minting process, making generative art creation accessible to artists.
“We are the first to use these Art Block Engine protocols and open them up to everyone so that everyone can use these tools,” says Lyall. “Not only that, we are the first Art Blocks Engine partner to re-engineer the artist experience.”
Lyall added that he plans to add features in the coming months to further facilitate the minting process on Prohibition, including a match-making service that helps developers and artists produce collections, as well as a no-no code solution for artists to bring their work to life.
In November, Prohibition raised $1.5 million in pre-seed funding to build out its generative arts platform. In addition to Calderon and Finzer, it received capital from investment firm Bain Capital Crypto and Ethereum sidechain Polygon’s venture wing Polygon Ventures.
In addition, Prohibition is not the only platform to have recently implemented the Art Blocks Engine. In June, 279-year-old auction house Sotheby’s announced its plans to use the Art Blocks Engine as fuel for its own generative art program.
Read more: Dmitri Cherniak’s ‘The Goose’ NFT Sells at Sotheby’s Auction for $6.2 Million