Made in 2021 with sampling of OpenSea historical data. This was just a draft at the time exploring the history of NFTs on Ethereum. The visualization is a dynamic word cloud. Each date is rendered with the names of prominent NFT projects, font size proportional to volume each day from 2018 to late 2021, from the kitties to the on-chain text SVGs. Slow, suddenly, suddenlier. These visual dynamics intrigued me. They highlight our space’s tendency then and still to focus like an attentional flock on a concentrated set of winners. And around these winners, a frantic expansion of the space, others seeking a slice of that attention. This pattern is not unique to crypto. Such attentional dynamics seem natural to socioeconomic systems. Crypto reflects them and makes it easy to measure them. I never contemplated minting back when I created this, but looking back, the way it "burns out" in the last few seconds also expresses how the market could feel. I submit this animation as-is: It derives directly from those feelings then, feelings probably shared by many at the time.
Two versions were made, they can be viewed here:
takenstheorem.github.io/dam-submission
