I remember being on the Clubhouse call (RIP) with Farokh and all the famous Web3ers at the time while Bored Ape Yacht Club launch was imminent. I had been learning about NFTs and launching our own for our jewelry brand at the time (major fail). The energy in the air on that call was definitely palpable - but I couldn't get past the ponzi feeling… there was so much "convincing" happening, and at the back of my mind I hate to admit I was thinking… "Man, this is stupid". So, needless to say I did not spend $400 on a picture of a cartoon monkey - and yes I have regretted it at times!

With that being said, I have kept up with every move of Yuga and absolutely love what they have built their brand and community out to be. I think it's an amazing showcase for the possibilities that NFTs (and their communities) present around collaborative world building, shared IP development, and digital ownership.

I especially loved the concept around the Yacht Club's bathroom collaborative pixel art piece! When I finally discovered what was behind those bathroom doors, I was really excited about this mini game and gave a mental applaud to Yuga for this simple yet genius idea. And of course they have since gone on to blow our collective socks off with their Otherside launch, Trip 1, Dookey Dash, etc.

But today I found out something that bummed me out a little bit…

The collaborative but time restrained pixel art idea was originally executed by a subreddit called r/place in 2017! You can see it pictured below.

Users of the subreddit were able to choose from 16 colors to add 1 pixel to the board every 20 minutes. Eventually we saw members of different subreddit communities come together to create extravagant works, even including the Mona Lisa! An entirely new subreddit was formed called r/bluecorner to dominate… well the name is self explanatory. An entire game was made out of this experiment, communities were formed, clashes were had.. it was amazing.

So, I must say I was a little disappointed to find out that this was in fact not Yuga's original idea. But I still tip my hat to their Ode to such an epic piece of internet history. Here's to seeing what else Yuga has in store!

Thanks for reading our Blog — the musings of me, Nicholas Hildebrandt, a co-founder of GetCrspy — where I talk Web3, NFTs, blockchain gaming, and the metaverse!

Check out my Twitter where I am documenting our experience bootstrapping a Web3 startup with no community and no investors.

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