Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s Quantum

NFTs Enable Digital Ownership

While previous explorations of the blockchain existed prior to Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s Quantum—many of them can be found previously on this Timeline—none presented a complete package of what NFTs would be than the McCoys. Quantum was also, critically, publicly explained and presented the following afternoon, after it was “minted” on May 2, 2014. This legendary presentation by Kevin McCoy and Anil Dash at Rhizome’s Seven on Seven Conference at the New Museum played a fundamental role in Quantum being more well known ten years later than work on ascribe. Quantum highlights the role of chance—fittingly—and communication in art history. What cannot be disputed is that the work played an important—if not truncated—role in priming the world for the concept of digital ownership and transfer. Another important point to highlight is that art and artists played a foundational role in the concept of digital ownership and NFTs. The idea was an artist’s and was publicly announced by an artist at a very well-respected digital art institution (Rhizome) and at a museum (New Museum).

The work stands as an important piece of Bitcoin and Ethereum art history with its clear ties to Bitcoin (read below) and eventual mint on Ethereum for Christie’s in 2021.

Kevin McCoy spoke to this author, Peter Bauman, about what is the first concept of an NFT explained in public and publicly executed:

“Monegraph was doing something special, which was unique, and in many ways warrants a first, in the sense that it was explicitly about provenance and transferable ownership via blockchain records, via blockchain transactions, and that it wasn’t just a one-off system. It was an artist conceptualizing this thing, creating a mechanism for people to do that and showing examples of that.

It was the whole package and that whole package hadn’t really been assembled until that time. So the conception of NFTs that swept the world in all the downstream Ethereum-based stuff from 2017 through the 2021 hype cycle was first in Monegraph. In that sense, it’s the first. I’m proud of that fact. I’m happy with that. It’s true that’s the correct history, I think.”

I wrote about this moment originally in 2023 for the Bright Moments Tokyo Timeline Poster, including it as one of the ten I chose to represent the entirety of generative art’s history, writing:

A growth catalyst for generative art unparalleled in its history, NFTs unlocked the pent up demand for new media art that went unsatisfied for decades due to the complexities of the art form’s ownership.