Twitter has been alive with the sound of a new NFT project over the weekend, merging digital collectibles with crypto art – Hashmasks.
At the time of writing, Hashmasks NFTs are the number 1 collectible dapp across all platforms on DappRadar and number 5 across all Ethereum dapp categories within the last 24hrs. Interestingly, Hashmasks is the only collectibles dapp in the top 5. Impressive for an NFT project that officially launched on the 27th of January 2021.
Looking at the collectibles category on DappRadar reveals that since its launch Hashmasks has taken the top spot by a considerable margin. An impressive number of unique active wallets of over 2.8k and $9.2 million in volume accumulated over just 4 days has propelled Hashmasks to the top of the collectibles chart.
Looking at the smart contract on Etherscan we can see that almost 10,000 transactions have occurred since launch. In the first 2-days between the 27th and the 29th of January. The project pulled in just over $1 million in volume.
Notably, Hashmasks in the last two days generated more than $8 million as once the project got noticed, the community reacted quickly.
We can see from looking at the latest Etherscan transactions at the time of writing a sale for around 3.4 ETH occurred. However, the average price is around 1.2 ETH.
Jon Jordan first look at Hashmasks
What is Hashmasks?
Hashmasks is a living digital art collectible created by over 70 artists around the world. More precisely, It’s a collection of 16,384 unique digital portraits brought to you by Suum Cuique Labs from Zug, Switzerland.
Unlike other collectibles such as CryptoPunks or Avastars. Where the creators set out the rarity of all traits. Hashmasks has a different angle as they have included two layers of scarcity.
One layer is intended to provide general guidance to the consumer, but Hashmasks has also created many implicit traits not accounted for. Above all, control over the rarest of all traits – the name – is given, in full, to the consumer.
NCT Tokens
By holding the artwork, owners accumulate the NCT (Name Changing Token) token on a daily basis. Spending 1830 NCT tokens allows them to choose a name for the portrait on the Ethereum blockchain.
Each holder has the ability to contribute to the completion of the art piece by giving a name of their preference to the Hashmasks they hold via the Name Changing Token.
After 10 years, the possibility to re-name individual art pieces becomes increasingly exclusive as the emission of new NCTs comes to a halt. The art series will reach completion when one day, name changes are not possible anymore because all NCT tokens have been used.
The NCT token also appears to apply a textbook utility case for a supporting token. It has a well-defined, easy-to-understand purpose within the Hashmasks ecosystem and without it, the entire mechanics would not function.
Looking ahead
This further level of innovation applied by Hashmasks to NFT ownership appears to have captured the imaginations of the NFT community. Furthermore, the introduction of the NCT token brings a very realistic use case to the sector at a time when some platform tokens are being questioned for utility.
Giving control of scarcity and traits to the user is a new concept not previously seen and it will be fascinating to watch and analyze the Hashmasks project as it develops further.
As the team behind the project put it in their manifesto – “Truly an art piece for the people, by the people. And we expect chaos.”
