Hey baddies! It's been a minute. Welcome back to The Blockchain Art Directory! We have missed you so much, and we're delighted to return with this cracking new website. 

It's been a few years, so allow us reacquaint ourselves!

This website is The Blockchain Art Directory 2.0: a revision of the original website, 

 built by our founder Judith Seipold in 2018. We were pivotal in leading conversations with artists, collectors and journalists about the blockchain and its emerging use cases.

The Blockchain Art Directory took a break in 2020 due to a few factors: our hectic life schedules and belief that our former site was outdated. We needed to revamp the project with new tools, contributed to by a host of rotating Web3 curators, artists, collectors and journalists. This vision was going to take some time to construct, and crowd-funding to boot.

At a glance, BAD 2.0 looks busy. That's because our blockchain art community is a fast-moving space! We decided on this layout so that you may get a preview of our large content by dragging acrosss articles, profiles or database entries. On refresh this layout changes, so you will always see something new whenever you visit.

If you are looking for an specific entry in the Directory, access to an interview or piece of news, no problem. We store these in our 

 is where profiles of blockchain artists, companies and projects are stored. 

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Find the toolbar at the top of the homepage and select 'Directory'.

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The Blockchain Art Directory was conceived by our founder, Judith Seipold, and art advisor Fanny Lakoubay in 2020. Being friends united by JPEGs and a sophisticated new technology, Judith and Fanny attended (and even helped to establish) iconic NFT events such as Rare Art Fest and CADAF, sharing the same ambition for decentralising the Web3 community further. The Blockchain Art Directory was an idea that conceived from this friendship.

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You are as much involved in the project as we are, so 

Welcome back to the Blockchain Art Directory - the OG service providing you will all the updates of the arty party on the blockchainzzz!☻

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Along with details of its price, editions and the chosen platform, independent curator, collector and host 

 was invited to talk with guest speakers 

 (Whitworth Director), to discuss what they aimed to achieve with this artwork on the blockchain.

‘The Ancient of Days’ NFT will be publicly available from 

12pm BST, Wednesday 28th July on the Hicetnunc platform

 (roughly £2000 each), including 20% creator royalties written into the NFT’s smart contract. Following the auction, the project surrounding The Ancient of Days NFT will be realised as 

a major exhibition at the Whitworth Gallery in 2023

William Blake’s minted artwork also forms part of the gallery’s ‘

’, which aims to track the sales activity of the NFT and its editions to measure impact for future blockchain operations within museums and collections.

’ was first created in 1794, and has since been reproduced in multiple versions and impressions in both public and private collections. The Whitworth Gallery’s copy of the artwork was finished in 1827, shortly before Blake’s death, 

and is believed to have been hand-coloured on his deathbed

The Whitworth is the first UK museum to make its collection publicly available on the 

. Research and exhibition development is the incentive to the minting of ‘The Ancient of Days’, with Whitworth curator Poppy Bowers suggesting that allowing William Blake’s artwork to be collected in Tezos can ‘reclaim economics as a social, as well as a financial, set of relations’ in exhibitions.

This article examines the significance of William Blake’s artwork as an NFT, shedding light to both newcomers and crypto-veterans alike on the partnership between Vastari and the Whitworth Gallery. I have been fortunate enough to discuss the project in further detail with Exhibitions Curator Poppy Bowers, to help understand the scope and reasoning behind what has forged this unique project into what it is today.

Recap — Non Fungible-Tokens, Platforms, Blockchains and Tezos

Upon listening to the Vastari Labs and Whitworth Gallery’s webinar, it was clear that — like with many other crypto-related discussions — demystification of blockchain terminology was vital in understanding the NFT and how it is being curated. Jason Bailey — often regarded as the ‘godfather of NFTs’ — politely requested that audiences ‘keep an open mind’ to cryptoart, acknowledging that confusion of industry-related terms may breed scepticism. In support of Jason’s request, below are some commonly asked questions and answers:

 (a ‘Non Fungible-Token’) is a unique identifier to a digital asset that lists a variety of details on the blockchain, such as its quantity, successive owners, previous transactions and timestamps. An NFT points to the digital asset attached to it and is saved in a decentralised storage system known as IPFS.

 (‘Inter-Planetary File Storage’) is a storage system by which files are stored in a decentralised format. When an NFT is created for the first time, its transaction details are separated and saved on multiple servers across the world simultanteously. This process of IPFS allows the NFT to exist on what is known as the 


The blockchain is a decentralised ledger which contains information about account transactions and stores them in a series of cryptographic blocks. Transactions are recorded as ‘hash’ (an algorithm that acertains details with a timestamp), with each block containing information about its former to create a chain. This chain is held across mutliple computers around the world in a 

 (‘Peer-to-Peer) network, making access to account details contained within blocks near impossible to intercept, exploit or hack.

How do NFTs function on the blockchain, where can I see them?


NFTs can be used for many things, and several use cases have already been established. The most popular use case is in collectible art, with series such as CryptoPunks, NBA Tops Shots and CryptoKitties highlighting scarcity as a valuable asset. Other cases include using NFTs as tokens and receipts (such as Gitcoin Grants’ POAP — ‘Proof of Authentification Protocol’- and ETHLocal Citadel Stamps), that take advantage of the blockchain’s identification standards to tokenise products or document attendance of physical events.

Aren’t blockchains detrimental to the environment?


Not all blockchains are detrimental from an ecological perspective, however this depends on the blockchain used and its respective protocols. For example, the Tezos blockchain (used in minting ‘The Ancient of Days’) works using the 

 protocol (‘Proof of Stake’) instead of 

 (‘Proof of Work’ — found on Ethereum), and batches transactions for validation instead of isolating them. 

 validates transactions based on computing power, whereas 

 only validates transactions through randomly allocated validators staking cryptocurrency within in the P2P network. PoS uses significantly less gas than PoW, and is currently the most ecologically friendly solution using this technology.


The blockchain can also be used to allocate governance and facilitate decision-making within digital organisations, known as DAOs (‘Decentralised Autonomous Organisations’). DAOs allow groups to structure and govern their activities with governance tokens. The blockchain can also be used to trade cryptocurrencies on decentralised exchanges and within Liquidity Pools and Mining Farms.


The Tezos blockchain was created in 2018 as a decentralised, Proof of Stake ledger. Like many other blockchains, Tezos allows for P2P transactions within its protocols and is primarily used for creating smart contracts (its developers supposedly alluding ‘Tezos’ as a Latin word for ‘contract’). Tezos’ cryptocurrency can be used to trade with other crypto tokens, and is identified as $XTZ on exchanges and in wallets.


Hicetnunc is a decentralised, open-source NFT platform that runs on the Tezos blockchain and accepts Tezos cryptocurrency ($XTZ) as payment. A fledgling platform by comparison to its counterparts (Rarible, Opensea, KnownOrigin, MakersPlace et al.), Hicetnunc was created to encourage free experimentation from artists that migrated from Ethereum’s network, which (at present) suffers from high gas fees and may place pressure on artists to deliver perfect works.

Interview with Poppy Bowers, Exhibitions Curator at Whitworth

I am delighted to be joined by the Whitworth gallery’s Exhibitions Curator, 

, who is involved in the curation of ‘The Ancient of Days’ NFT project organised by Vastari and the Whitworth. Poppy has been involved as the Exhibitions Curator of the Whitworth since 2016, upon returning from London to work in Manchester, and now leads front and back-end curatorial operations at the gallery.

This interview was a pleasure to conduct, as Poppy gives tremendous insight into the project, its partners and impacts to the gallery’s prospective NFT activities beyond ‘

’. Thank you very much for your time, Poppy. We all look forward to seeing ‘The Ancient of Days’ launch on Hicetnunc, noon BST this Wednesday!

I believe that what Vastari and the Whitworth Gallery have set out to achieve with ‘The Ancient of Days’ auction is in itself an exhibition, connecting the artwork’s history as a reproduction with the blockchain, its technology and owners of the NFT as a continuation of its life. If ‘Economics of the Blockbuster’ is to succeed, changes in operations within UK galleries and museums may follow. Institutions could begin to store entire collections on the blockchain to track provenance, facilitate and document sales, and take advantage of the Metaverse’s infrastructural conditions to display artefacts in new and productive ways. The diachronic engagement of the blockchain in auction houses present since 2018 could point to constellational praxes on the blockchain from independent curators in the future.

This is a very good position to be in. Institutional critique has always been mandatory for museums to create exhibitions that are performative, self-reflexive and engaging with their audiences. Seth Siegelaub once defined the limitations of museums — with their authority to ‘distance’ art from public audiences — as a product of ‘historicisation’ (‘killing’ art’s relevance by removing it from daily life). Vastari and the Whitworth Gallery are willing to educate, critique and fundraise auctions and exhibitions that encourage new exchanges and relationships with audiences in entirely public spaces — on the blockchain, and within their major exhibition taking place in 2023. I commend their efforts, and wish them well.

‘The Ancient of Days’ sale begins at 

 (roughly £2000 — including 20% creator royalties written into the NFT’s smart contract). In case you require support to create a crypto wallet and buy Tezos cryptocurrency before the event, 

. Setting up should not take longer than an hour, at most.

City Lab — Art in culture, health, housing and commerce

https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/research/centres-and-institutes/institute-of-art-and-technology/expertise/city-lab

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-blake

https://whitworth.vastari.com/theancientofdaysnft

https://www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/visit/thenewgallery/aboutus/

The Story Behind the Whitworth’s Ancient of Days NFT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3jRqLCEGQo

Earlier last week, a webinar delivered by Vastari Connects and the Whitworth Gallery announced the Whitworth to be the UK’s first museum to mint (and make publicly collectible) a collection artwork as an NFT — ‘The Ancient of Days’ (1827), by William Blake.

‘The Ancient of Days’ — The UK’s First Museum NFT

The physical version (edition of 150.000) is connected to its digital NFT equivalent, and each stamp comes with a wallet address which contains the NFT. As for the digital stamps, which can be bought via the OnChain Shop: According to the data available via the shop and the 

, digital stamps are limited to about 500. Once only 100 are left, they increase in price. By the time of writing this note, there are only 56 pieces available, and the price of the next stamp is set to 187.38 EUR. As both, physical and digital stamps are (connected to) NFTs, they are unique, can be collected, traded, and their provenance can be tracked.

Austrian Post launched "Crypto Stamps", which are available as physical stamps in Austrian Post's online shop, or as digital stamps through their OnChain-Shop.

Austrian Post's "Crypto Stamps"

Blockchain and pixel artist Ness Nissla pointed us to this conference about blockchain and art, which will take place at the Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA on May 2-3, 2020. Proposals for delivering a talk or workshop can be submitted by March 14, 2020. Details about the conference and the submission procedure can be accessed via this page at MIT.

Media Arts and Design | Blockchain Conference 2020

"The goal is the successful decryption of all puzzles and clues to obtain the MASTERKEY, which unlocks a wallet with crypto currencies and NFTs. In this so-called VAULT there is also a 'Golden Ticket' which entitles the Masterkey holder to receive a physical box containing stickers, prints, a T-shirt and other things. To obtain the Masterkey you need the 12 keys, which represent the 12 words of the seed." PUZZLEDROPS will be released on SuperRare. More info is available on CENT, a detailed description about The Maze can be found on Hive. Have a look!

Today, artist PR1MAL CYPHER is launching ENTER THE MAZE, an interactive art project on the SuperRare platform.

ENTER THE MAZE - Interactive Puzzle

Opening the fortune cookie unlocks a poem at the moment of opening, generated by an author that is part artificial intelligence, part anonymous artist, known to us as 'Mr. Fox'." You can claim up to two cookies via the snark.art website. And in case you decide to open your cookie, the poem is displayed on the according 

Another cool idea from our friends at Snark.art: The project 'Burn before reading' "begins with the offering of 10,000 blockchain-based 'fortune cookies'.

AI generated NFT fortune cookies: Snark.art

 launched a project to support "different causes aimed at sustainable development and the protection of our ecosystems." By buying 

, people can support projects which "directly create positive impact around the world in adherence to the United Nations' sustainable development goals". The dApp can be accessed 

People from Krypto Studios launched a project to support "different causes aimed at sustainable development and the protection of our ecosystems."

DRIFTERS charity project

, which went live some days ago on the VR platform 

. The auction started on May 17, 2019, and is dedicated to support the charity organization 

. As of today, many pieces are still available to bid on.

XERO GALLERY charity auction

BAD 2.0 would not have been possible without the tremendous support from the directory contributors and our Gitcoin patrons. If you’d like to add, edit or change anything, please email us at bchainartdir@protonmail.com. We are grateful to the Web3 community, who continues to support BAD.

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