The on-chain art platform PixelChain has announced the closure of its PixelChain Classic minting contract. As a result, nobody will be able to mint new pixel artworks in the PxC collection, meaning that there will only ever be 2,804 PixelChain Classic artworks.
Before the PixelChain developers renounce ownership over the smart contract, they will first replicate all the on-chain metadata on IPFS. That way the NFT marketplace OPENSEA has an easy way to fetch that data. Once that’s done, they will ‘lock the mint forever’.
Pixelchain allows users to create an artwork on their website using a custom editor, and then store that creation on the Ethereum blockchain. The original version of Pixelchain allowed users to create an artwork of 32?32 pixels. The entire artwork gets stored on the Ethereum blockchain, and the decoder for Pixelchain is open-source.
PixelChain will continue
In December the team released PixelChain Max, an upgraded version that allows artists to make pixel art on-chain with a higher resolution. This improved platform allows them to make 64?64 pixel art. In addition, it supports 32 colors, up from the original 16 colors. Just like the classic version, all artworks on PixelChain Max are stored completely on the blockchain.
Recent trends in the NFT space emphasize that there’s value in on-chain stored or generated artworks. On-chain-generated avatars have become super popular, generating billions of dollars in revenue. Furthermore, Art Blocks has become a household name, generating $535 million in NFT trading volume in the past 30 days alone.
Whether the PixelChain artworks will become just as valuable, remains up for grabs. However, some of the most popular digital artists in the NFT space have minted PXC NFTs. Some of these will likely gain value over time, like for example the works of established NFT artists like XCOPY and AlottaMoney.
XCOPY 12
16 Shades, by AlottaMoney
only U, by AlottaMoney
