Paper trail: the physical editions of the AB[500]

Most of the AB[500] exists only as code and a token. A smaller part of it has left the screen: as giclée prints on German etching paper, as pen plots, as glass, as blackened copper, as laser-cut wood, as a shrink-wrapped box with a floppy disk inside.

We looked for every official physical counterpart across the first five hundred Art Blocks projects. About forty projects have one, now or in the past. Around a dozen still let a holder order one today. The rest are closed programs, one-off gallery editions and objects given to early minters. They matter anyway, because a token that already has its print, or came with its object, carries that history when it changes hands.

Two of the four AB5D grails sit on either side of that line. Fidenza and Incomplete Control are both still printable. Ringers and The Eternal Pump were printed for holders in 2021 by a service that no longer exists.¹ The full register is at the end.

Still open

The programs that still take orders share a rule: one print per token, proven by the wallet that holds it. Most of them let the right pass to the next owner, so the question for a buyer is not whether a project has prints, but whether this particular token has already used its one.

Tyler Hobbs runs the model most of the others follow. A Fidenza print is a giclée on Hahnemühle Museum Etching in four sizes, from 20 x 24 to 40 x 48 inches, at US$500 to US$1,000. Each Fidenza can be printed once, and the artist publishes the list of those that have been: 357 of the 999 by September 2026.³ Incomplete Control comes in a single size, 40 x 50 inches, for US$1,000, but unlike Fidenza a token can be printed more than once. Each print is numbered, and a new owner can order another.⁴

Emily Xie’s Memories of Qilin prints are hand-signed and editioned on German Etching with deckled edges, now 18 x 25.2 inches (the 2022-23 prints were 20 x 28). A signed print is US$750, framed US$1,250. The right closes when the owner either sells the token or buys the print.⁵

Matt DesLauriers offers both of his AB[500] projects. Subscapes prints are 18 x 18 inches at US$205; Meridian runs from XS to L, 28 x 50 to 84 x 150 cm, at US$130 to US$600. Ownership is proven by wallet signature and passes to a new owner.⁶ Meridian is also the only AB[500] project with a book of every output, published by Vetro Editions in 2022 and reprinted in 2023.⁷

The most generous program belongs to Thomas Lin Pedersen. Every Screens token is entitled to one signed A2 print, free, shipped anywhere. By September 2026, 179 of the 1,000 had been claimed.⁸

Five more artists run holder programs of their own. Anna Carreras prints Trossets on Hahnemühle Agave, signed and numbered with a certificate.⁹ itsgalo sells RASTER as 17 x 22 inch giclées through a wallet-connected shop.¹⁰ Cole Sternberg offers owners of the spring begins with the first rainstorm a signed 28 x 24 inch print for US$500.¹¹ Emi Kusano’s Melancholic Magical Maiden prints are A3 dual-layer acrylic in an aluminium frame, about 2.5 kg.¹² Joshua Bagley prints Dreams at 24 x 24 inches for US$1,000, one per NFT; nine exist so far.¹³

The first wave, 2021-22

The earliest programs were informal: an email address, a PayPal link, a signed wallet message, a list of tokens already printed kept by hand. The Art Blocks community wiki collected twelve of them in a single page. It went offline, but an archived copy from August 2022 survives.²

The largest of these operations was ARTXCODE, which printed hand-signed 20 x 20 inch giclées on German Etching for several artists, one per token, with the print meant to travel with the NFT. About 62 Ringers were claimed by November 2021, along with The Eternal Pump #14, #15, #18 and #41, and eleven Apparitions.¹ Michael Connolly’s Elementals launched with ARTXCODE prints,¹⁵ and an ARTXCODE page for Stefano Contiero suggests Frammenti did too, though it was never archived.

Kjetil Golid made unique signed Archetype prints with Kate Vass Galerie in the spring of 2021.¹⁷ The wiki lists the rest: Michael Connolly’s Divisions at US$150, NumbersInMotion’s Watercolor Dreams and Generative Artworks’ Enchiridion at US$200, Steve Pikelny’s CryptoGodKing and I Saw It in a Dream in three sizes, William Tan’s Scribbled Boundaries for 0.1 ETH, phenomena’s APEX on thick recycled paper, and Matto’s Ensō and FOCUS at 300 DAI.²

Two programs went further than paper. Kai printed Pixel Glass onto glass for anyone who held both a Pixel Glass and a 27-Bit Digital token. Matto, alongside the Ensō prints, made one hundred real water paintings, filmed them as they evaporated, and airdropped the films to holders: a physical work designed to disappear.¹⁸

Objects, not prints

Some of the most interesting physicals are not prints of the token at all. They are companion objects, made once and given to the earliest collectors, or sold as editions of their own.

Tabor Robak gave the first fifty Colorspace minters a boxed software edition in the style of a 1990s PC game: shrink wrap, a holographic seal, a floppy disk carrying the token’s source code, a manual, a signed poster.¹⁹ Sterling Crispin gave minters of the first 25 Neophyte MMXXII tokens a printed-circuit-board artwork.²⁰ Cole Sternberg’s first 48 minters received the spring begins Genesis Edition: a print mounted on maple, a rock the artist collected, and a signed compendium.¹¹

Aranda\Lasch cast Primitives in blackened copper for Verse at Untitled Art, Miami Beach, in December 2023.²¹ Golan Levin’s Cytographia #0 exists as a pen plot on Canson card, sold with its NFT through Gazelli Art House; every Cytographia token can export SVG files for a holder to plot at home.²² JMY made two editions of 26 laser-engraved wooden pieces for Mycelia and gave them away, five to the first collectors and the rest at events, including Art Blocks Marfa Weekend in 2023.²³

Ben Kovach built 100 PRINT around the physical from the start. Collectors minted at Bright Moments in New York in May 2022 and chose their framed 24 x 36 inch giclée in person, with a certificate signed by artist and collector.²⁴ Chromie Squiggle has had two official physical moments: holder-verified video prints with Infinite Objects in 2022, and a signed silkscreen of #8107 with Avant Arte in 2023.²⁵ Dmitri Cherniak’s Ringers #962 became a seven-layer embossed silkscreen for LACMA.¹⁶

Two projects were physical from the other direction. BarabásiLab printed every minted Invasion Percolation output and 3D-printed the rare ones for exhibitions in 2022.²⁶ Kalis describes Imperfections as a series of paper works and a collection of NFTs at once.²⁷ And Maya Man’s FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT became a book of all 700 outputs, with riso prints, from Heavy Manners Library in 2024.²⁸

What doesn’t count

Several projects come close without an official physical. Autology, Running Moon and Divenire give holders high-resolution files to print themselves.³⁰ Cosmic Reef, Cargo, Vortex and Still Moving have been exhibited, but only on screens. Human Unreadable is performed live rather than printed. Zeblocks prints Unigrids onto apparel,³¹ which is merchandise rather than an edition. Redbubble and similar shops sell unlicensed posters of several AB[500] projects; they have no standing.

For a collector, the practical rule is simple. Before buying a token from a project on the open list, check whether its print has already been claimed. Before buying one from the 2021-22 programs, ask whether the print exists and whether it comes with the token.

How many have been claimed

Only three of the open programs publish a count. As of 24 September 2026:

Incomplete Control, Memories of Qilin, Subscapes, Meridian, Trossets, RASTER, the spring begins with the first rainstorm and Melancholic Magical Maiden do not publish counts. For the closed programs and early-mint objects, the last known figures are:

The register

Every official physical we found, by status. Checked 24 September 2026. About 150 projects were searched individually; smaller programs among the remaining factory projects may be missing, and corrections are welcome.

Sources