Curios Cards: First Art NFT on Ethereum

With the 2017 rapid increase in cryptocurrency prices, or “bull run,” the first NFTs proper appeared. Predating CryptoPunks by just over a month, Curio Cards stand as the first-art NFT project on Ethereum. While sales and popularity were modest, the works clearly anticipated the major upcoming trend of digital ownership well before the concept caught up in broader pop culture. Like Rare Pepes, this early project was free, rarity-driven and community-led. The project consisted of 30 numbered series from seven artists: Cryptograffiti, Cryptopop, Daniel Friedman, Marisol Vengas, Phneep, Robek World and Thoros of Myr. A misprinted card, “17b,” adds an unofficial 31st card to the series. Curio Cards were developed by Thomas Hunt, Travis Uhrig and Rhett Creighton. Curio Cards emphasized rarity, creating between 111 and 2,154 edition cards per series, totaling 29,700 cards. With 4,000 lost and no more able to be created, the circulating total is around 25,000. The project—like ascribe and Monegraph before it—was meant to empower artists by leveraging blockchain technology to sell their work directly, with 100% of primary sales going to the creators. Curio Cards set the stage for future NFT innovations, which would be unearthed as NFTs gained in popularity in the early 2020s. While proto-NFTs had existed on Bitcoin and its various forks like NameCoin, Curio Cards would directly influence the upcoming ERC721 standard, cementing their significance. What Curio Cards, Monegraph and ascribe had in common and clearly demonstrated was that early NFT attempts were artist-led endeavors and predated many of the negative associations surrounding NFTs. The technology broadly originated to empower artists.