AB5D

VonMises

The blockchain historian.

A Bitcoin buyer in 2011 and an early CryptoPunks collector, VonMises minted his first Art Blocks work in the platform's first week to support its founder. He served on the early curation board, and still holds Genesis #183, that first mint.

Collector
VonMises · @VonMises14 · vonmises.eth
Role
Early member of the Art Blocks curation board
Holdings
397 AB[500] works · 151 series · 3 wallets
abTDH
50,680,302 · · method
397
AB[500] works
151
Series
103
Curated series
50,680,302
abTDH

Entry into blockchain and crypto art

"It was in April of 2011, I was reading up on one of the financial market blogs and saw a story that caught my attention." Within a week he had bought Bitcoin.1 His name comes from the economist Ludwig von Mises, and his background is traditional finance.2

His first NFT was a Gods Unchained card in October 2019, "just a training ground for when I discovered CryptoPunks." He bought sixty Punks in the first month.2 In the Punks Discord he met Snowfro: "Around September or October of 2020, Snowfro began talking about his new generative art platform, Art Blocks... I knew I had to be involved when Art Blocks launched to show my support for Snowfro."1

VonMises across the AB[500]

Art Blocks holdings

His first Art Blocks mint was DCA's Genesis #183,1 and it is still in his wallets, with the earliest works dating from 27 November 2020. He sat on the early curation board,3 and has described his test plainly: "Often my criteria would be something like, would I be willing to hang this piece on my wall?"1 He was early to Chromie Squiggles too, minting hundreds of them.2,4

The three wallets linked to his profile hold 397 AB[500] works across 151 series, 103 of them Curated. Depth runs through the first months: 31 Cryptoblots, 18 Dynamic Slices, 9 Singularity, 9 Chromie Squiggles, 8 Ignition, 7 Genesis, 7 Ringers and 7 Gazers, with Fidenza #142, #198, #592 and #917, five Meridian, Incomplete Control #6, The Eternal Pump #3 and Spectron #1. "For me having one of something is pretty much the same as having none," he has said.1

Associated holdings

He still held seventeen CryptoPunks in 2024, alongside works by XCOPY, Beeple, Tyler Hobbs and DEAFBEEF; he sold Autoglyph #392 for 375 ether in 2021.2 He has bought an early Manfred Mohr and visited Mohr's studio.1 His summary of the project: "I'm really trying to assemble a collection of early, historically significant and culturally relevant art and collectibles from this golden era of digital assets."1 Or, more briefly: "I'm a blockchain historian in a sense."2

Notes

  1. Kate Vass, "The Interview I Art Collector VonMises," Kate Vass Galerie, 30 December 2024. katevassgalerie.com ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
  2. Greg Oakford, "VonMises," Cointelegraph Magazine, 19 September 2024. cointelegraph.com ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
  3. Delphi Digital, "NFT Culture Series Ep. 4: VonMises on Collection Strategies, Art Blocks Curation, and Future of Generative Art," 2021. delphidigital.io ↩
  4. SquiggleDAO Podcast, S1E1, "VonMises The Minter of 100's of Squiggles," 8 September 2023. buzzsprout.com ↩