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A new type of non-fungible token is doing the rounds on Crypto Twitter. And it’s selling for 100s of ETH each.
Hashmasks and a frenzy
Spend an hour on Crypto Twitter today and you’d likely run into mentions of “Hashmasks,” a strange, mystic card that looks like comic drawings made by a child.
Mystical. Mystical. Mystical. Abstract. Mirror. pic.twitter.com/VxzOMGY7aY
— Hashmasks (@TheHashmasks) February 2, 2021
But don’t end up assuming the prices just yet: They are being sold for as much as 100 ETH ($14,400) in some cases, not counting a token airdrop that was done to Hashmasks holders which has itself surged by tens of percents. So what are they anyway?
Hashmasks are a type of collectible art cards in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT). The latter, for the uninitiated, is a special type of cryptographic token which represents something unique and mutually interchangeable. This makes the holders of NFTs the only holder of that NFT—making them a rarity.
As per the official site, Hashmasks are said to be a living digital art collectible created by over 70 artists globally. Its makers—Suum Cuique Labs from Zug, Switzerland—claim them to be a collection of 16,384 unique digital portraits.
Okayyyy @Hashmask rarity time! (n=1943)
Below is a sample of 2k hashmasks and the rarity of features. There may be rarer masks but at the moment Mystic is a winner at .1% frequency (#16251) pic.twitter.com/kZxD23149Q
— Lewis Freiberg (@LewisFreiberg) February 2, 2021
Each of them is created by a combination of several different artists. They have varying masks, eye colors, items, and other attributes. This means all Hashmasks are rare, but “some are rarer than others.”
As a means of fair distribution, users do not know what Hashmask they purchase for the first 14 days after the sale. The NFTs themselves are already generated, but not indexed on the blockchain yet.
Double rare
There are also two layers of a rarity on Hashmasks. As per its creators, the project has introduced a combination of digital art and collectibles with a value hierarchy determined by both the creator and the consumer of the artwork.
All bears cry pic.twitter.com/xzsr1MiwnQ
— Hashmasks (@Hash_masks) February 1, 2021
This is unlike other collectible projects, where the rarity of all traits is already predefined. On Hashmasks, the buyers themselves control the name of each unique NFT, meaning a unique design with an even more unique name is supremely rare (at least in the minds of the project makers).
By holding the artwork, users also accumulate the NCT token on a daily basis, which allows them to choose a name for their Hashmasks portraits on the Ethereum blockchain. “This is your opportunity to be among the first to participate in one of the largest collaborative NFT art projects in existence,” explains the site.
OK so I spent 200k USD on fkin hashmasks and I just realised that I now have 1,421,883 "name change token" for them.
NCT is trading at 30cents.
So I have $426,564.9 before you even look at the masks?
LMAO
ok
lmao
— KING CO?IE ?? (@CryptoCobain) February 1, 2021
Such metrics meant that the Hashmasks sale saw unexpectedly high demand during the initial distribution period. The team even had to limit a maximum of 20 Hashmasks per transaction, to avoid clogging the Ethereum network.
The NFTs themselves are seeing high prices too. Some Hashmasks on the NFT platform OPENSEA is trading for over 5 ETH already, while some have even fetched over 100 ETH, with a very active market for NCT already.
Just don’t ask whether it’s a mania or not.