Searching for Gralis
A Primer for Collecting Gen Art on FXHash
Gralis is a newsletter on all things FXHash. If you want to show your support for Gralis, consider collecting an edition of this on FX(text) (this is the genesis piece!) and subscribe:
gm, y’all!
I believe long-form generative art is the biggest shift in the art space of this generation. And we have the rare opportunity to be living while it blossoms, we can take part in it, help shape it, and participate in the financial (yes, I said it) upside of this movement.
Every generation claims art is dead, questioning why it has no Michelangelos, no Picassos, only to have their grandchildren point out generations later that the geniuses were among us the whole time. We have a unique opportunity to embrace some of the most important artists of our generation while most of them are still living (and working).
- Jason Bailey (from Why Love Generative Art?)
Why am I writing this article?
Writing helps me figure out what I believe—it forces me to codify my conviction, and observe how those convictions evolve over time.
This is the article I wish I had when I first started collecting on FXHash. Sharing my learnings will (hopefully) help others in their collecting journey. “A rising tide lifts all boats”.
I (selfishly!) want to attract other people into my little corner of the internet so that I can learn faster and meet cool people.
Please note: I am new to this space and still figuring a lot of this out, so take my writing with a (“lil saturn-flavored”) grain of salt.
[Disclaimer: Nothing said today should be taken as financial advice; it is for entertainment purposes only]
Today’s post covers:
→ My Start with FXHash
→ Rule #1: Buy what you love
→ Discovery tools
→ Where will the value accrue?
→ The 3 buckets of risk
Alright… let’s dive in!
My Start with FXHash
Over the Summer, I saw a tweet about something called “FXHash.” I had been following Artblocks for a while, but hadn’t collected anything yet (mostly, because it was too expensive for me—or, as they say in web3, “I didn’t have the liquidity”). I had seen mentions of FXHash before but hadn’t taken it too seriously. It felt like a place that was obscure, weird, hard to navigate, and (most of all) intimidating. Most of these turned out to be true, but these reasons are exactly what makes it such a special corner of the internet, at this particular moment in time.
One day, for some reason I do not recall, I decided to finally poke around. I opened the website and then joined the FXHash Discord. Very quickly, things felt different — an immediate sense of something fresh, unique, and curious. It drew me in. Within days, I had set up a Temple wallet (to use Tezos for the first time), converted some of my ETH to Tez, minted a “token”, and picked up a couple of others on the secondary market on FXHash’s built-in marketplace.
It was apparent very quickly that this was where I wanted to spend more time.
And, candidly, I felt it was very early, and an opportunity to collect pieces before tons of other people came over and drove up prices. But I wanted to be strategic.
My thinking was (and still is) that there is a window in time that I have, to collect great pieces of art, at very low prices. Great pieces of art are often referred to as “grails” — but in the case of FXHash, the meme is that they are “gralis.” My strategy quickly shifted from “what is FXHash?” to “where should I look to find the best artists and collections on FXHash?”
I am building a collection to hold for 5-10 years (hopefully I never have to sell and can pass my collection down to my children and grandchildren one day).
In this article, I’ll get into what I discovered as I asked myself these questions, and my strategy to find and collect gralis on FXHash. In order to pull off this strategy, it will take a little bit of science, a little bit of art, and a lot of luck. But it will be a ton of fun no matter what.
Rule #1: Buy what you love
The legendary Artnome (pictured above) puts it succinctly:
When I first joined the FXHash Discord, I posed a question. I asked: “I have X Tez to spend, and I’m considering buying 1 large piece or 5 smaller pieces, what would you recommend?”
There were a lot of great perspectives, but my favorite response immediately changed my thinking—Liam Egan gently asked:
What do you think will bring you the most joy? Much great art or one truly spectacular piece?
This changed my perspective on what to focus on in my collecting journey: buying great art that I love, no matter the price.
If you buy what you love, no matter what the price does over time, you will be happy to have that piece in your digital gallery, or even printed (or in a digital frame) on your wall in your home.
Now, after just a couple of months of collecting, I have almost 200 pieces, and a couple of large pieces (RGB, Zancan, Dragon, Hollow) so I guess I ended up choosing the answer: “both.” More on that, below. :)
Discovery tools
There are five places that have helped me with discovery and curation of collections on FXHash. I would add Twitter, but I don’t know where to direct you other than saying “follow artists and collectors.” But I don’t have a good list for you (feel free to look at who I follow on Twitter).
FXHash all-time sales chart
Price-discussion channel in FXHash’s Discord
Tender lists
Icons List
Grails List
Deca galleries
The Museum, by Lemonde2d
100 Small Bets, by Herefor_This
ArtBlocks and FXHash artists, by Sermad
Waiting to be Signed (Podcast)
1/ The all-time sales chart on FXHash
So, now that we have established “rule #1”, let’s talk about prices and value. Because, to me, this does matter.
NFTs do introduce a layer of objectivity—in that there is a (somewhat) liquid market—that has never existed before. Art is subjective. But, there are sales numbers to compare projects against and, at least relative to the traditional art market, get an objective ranking of sorts. It is not perfect, but it is helpful as a data point in assessing which collections/artists will have staying power over the next 5-10+ years.
Breaking onto the all-time sales list on FXHash is a big deal. Here is the current list:
Toccata was the latest project to break into the highest volume list. I believe it is well-deserved. And it was my first project to be around to mint — I ended up selling it and buying another one for about the same price, which I resonated with a lot more.
Which project will be next on the list? That is the big question.
2/ #price-discussion channel in FXHash’s Discord
This is where the vast majority of conversations happen about FXHash. Upcoming drops, price action of older pieces, art in general, and of course, laughs from the resident jester, Baya.
Come check it out, and know that it may take a bit of time to settle into this space, but it’ll be worth it.
3/ Tender
This is a phenomenal resource. They also have a DAO that you can join if you purchase a Tender Pass (I’m not a member) and they do curated drops alongside artists.
The two galleries within Tender.art that I highly recommend you check out:
Icons List
You can sort this list by Curated, Lowest Floor Price, or other parameters. So if you’re looking for collections that are cheaper, this is a great way to sort and look through projects that jump out to you.
Grails List
There are a few lists to go through, but my favorite is the Seventeen Grails by Seventeenblack:
4/ Individual Galleries on Deca
lemonde2d / the-museum
One of my favorite collectors and a very kind human is Lemonde2d, affectionately known in the FXHash community as “Lemonade.” His gallery is an absolute work of art in it of itself. Beware though, you will lose dozens of hours of your time once you jump into this gallery.
Be sure to check out his podcast episode on Waiting to be Signed.
100 Small Bets
Herefor_This is building a 100-piece collection on Tezos. No piece is more than 10 Tez. You can follow them at 100smallbets.tez and 100smallbets. I love this concept. Check it out here:
Sermad / ArtBlocks_and_fxhash_artists
Previous success is one way of filtering through a noisy space. It’s not perfect, but it’s a helpful proxy. It’s no surprise that Artblocks has been an explosive space for generative artists to prove their skills since launching in early 2021.
So, I was excited when I came across this gallery, made by Sermad, that shows cross-over artists who have done work on both Artblocks and FXHash. This was one of the lightbulb moments for me, showing me that FXHash art is underrated.
5/ Waiting to be Signed (Podcast)
I can’t talk about education and/or curation without mentioning the legendary Will and Trinity, from Waiting to be Signed.
I highly recommend checking out these two WTBS episodes: KRPDM and ClownVamp. Both are interviews with collectors, which is a great perspective to learn from.
If there is a place that I’ve learned the most, it would probably be the WTBS Podcast.
If you get value out of their show, be sure to support them by purchasing their artitlces on fx(text).
Where will the value accrue?
I believe we’re very early with FXHash/Tezos, and there is an arbitrage opportunity in the short to medium term. This, and the quality of art, plus the community, are the reasons that I am spending the majority of my time (and internet coins) in the FXHash ecosystem.
I have a wishlist of ArtBlocks projects, but when I think about spending 10+ ETH on a Squiggle or Meridian, or 6 ETH on an Anticyclone or Automatism, or 1 ETH on a Factura or Strata, I find myself calculating how much Tez that could be, and what piece(s) I could get for that on FXHash instead.
And every time lately, instead of making that ETH purchase, I convert from ETH into Tez and—feeling like a mini whale—I collect one or two more long-term Tezos pieces, as I continue to slowly collect all the pieces I have on my wishlist, in my insatiable search for Gralis.
Personally, I enjoy searching for the next Gralis. But the reality is, minting something for 8 Tez or buying something on secondary for 30 Tez, is much less likely to become a “blue chip” piece on FXHash, compared to buying an established piece that is already on the all-time highest volume chart (see: Lindy effect). It can happen, but it’s unlikely. I have learned to accept this risk and not worry about the Tez I’m spending, as I am fairly certain I’ll never see it again. And I’m okay with that. I want to support up-and-coming artists, with a very small chance that they 10x or 100x in value.
However, I do want to build my portfolio in a way that, the net value will increase over the next 5-10 years. Below is my strategy.
3 buckets of risk
That’s honestly a personal preference and dependent on how much time you will put in. Nfa and all, but “smart investing” says to try to diversify as much as possible and while that is true it requires more effort to manage a multitude of projects as opposed to 1 gm. It’s more likely in terms of statistical chance for you to get a better return from diversity but that also doesn’t take into account time spent. In the end just decide what is a better choice for you and like prime said do what your heart tells you.
- jhtown (via #price-discussion on Discord)
I am designing and implementing a 3-part strategy in my search for Gralis. There are three buckets that I’m collecting in.
The first is the least risky, but the least upside potential (I think!): Established Gralis. The second bucket is collecting established pieces that have not “run up” yet, I’m calling these: Potential Gralis. And the third bucket is the riskiest, but most potential upside: Minting New Collections. These essentially break down by amount of Tez (above or below 1,000, to keep things simple).
Here is my personal running wishlist tracker:
→ Bucket #1 - Established Gralis (1,000 Tez and above)
I think the only two that have cemented their place on this list so far are Zancan and RGBs. Zancan has three projects that all make the all-time sales list, which is damn impressive.
I do think that the all-time high stats are directionally correct if you were to ask artists and collectors who they thought should be considered in the top 5 list today. Others on that list right now include: Dragons, horizon(te)s, contrapuntos, Uninhabitable, Solace, hollow, Fragments of a Wave, and Toccata. (I did not include PFPs or Tender Pass).
→ Bucket #2 - Potential Gralis (under 1,000 Tez)
There are a few places I’ve looked to create this list of “Potential Gralis”: comments in #price-discussion on Discord, Twitter, searching collectors’ and artists’ Collections, and digging through a few galleries.
When I see a project takes off (ie: “pumps” or “starts running”) and I miss out on the mint or initial run-up, here’s what I do. Pause, appreciate the art aside from the price action, and then add it to a running list of projects that I keep to revisit later. There are a few of these each month.
I’ll revisit a project after forgetting about it for a couple of months, and then more times than not, see the price has dropped significantly, and go make a couple of offers at already-low prices (especially compared to what they were going for during “the pump”) and will get quickly accepted. From the owner’s perspective, they may have decided they don’t love the piece, or want the liquidity to buy something new, and haven’t had any excitement for the project in a couple of months, so they just let it go.
This is one sly way that I am slowly hunting and capturing Gralis.
→ Bucket #3 - Minting New Collections
In the last couple of months, a few projects have attempted to climb into the Gralis status and took the attention of the community. Gerhard, Tuner Light, Emotional Shell, and (most recently) Toccata and September. Out of this bunch, I predict Toccata and September are the most likely to get into the Gralis status over time—but they both still have a ways to go.
And who knows, maybe tomorrow something will mint that will prove to be a Gralis over time.
Keep searching for Gralis,
Lil Saturn
Great write up love it and thank you very much for this.... WAGMI
excellent write up. Thank you