Hashmasks, one of the most talked about projects in the NFT industry, is a collection of “live” digital art created by over 70 artists around the world. This collection, consisting of 16 uncopyable digital portraits, was created by Suum Cuique Labs, based in Switzerland.
What are Hashmasks?
Hashmasks are living digital art collections that have been created by over 70 artists from around the world. There are a total of 16.384 unique digital portraits as of now. Each of these artworks is uniquely designed to be part digital art and part digital collectible. All of them are designed to have five basic characteristics: eye color, mask, skin color, character, and an item. While all cards have these characteristics, they all have varying degrees of rarity, which makes them truly unique.
Interestingly, Hashmasks are unlike any other digital collectibles such as CryptoPunks, where their creators already program the rarity of the traits. Instead, Hashmasks provides its users with features that can guarantee scarcity and further vary the degree of scarcity. An example of this feature provides users with basic guidance on how the token works. Hashmasks also have several undeclared features, which are not included in the five core features. And above all – users have the opportunity to give each Hashmask its rarest feature – a name.
Hashmask holders accumulate the project’s native token, Name Changing Token (NCT), daily. The NCT token supports the entire Hashmasks ecosystem. By spending about 1830 Tokens NCT, Hashmask holders may be eligible to choose a name for their portraits on the network Ethereum. The project was founded by Suum Cuique Labs, from Zug, Switzerland. The project is currently the number one collectible decentralized application (dApp) according to Dappradar. The project raised around $10 million four days after its release, selling over 15.000 Hashmasks.
Origin and history behind Hashmasks
The creators behind Hashmasks are unknown and have not given their names publicly, which is ironic for a feature whose uniqueness has improved the cause of unique custom names. The 2 creators behind Hashmask before release were in a dilemma to make this asset as limited or with unlimited copies, where to bring more rarity and scarcity to the asset, the total number of Hashmasks was limited to 16384.
Several artists have been tried, including the artist on Fiver, who charges just $5 for artwork to help make Hashmasks parts like eyes, face, and color. With careful screening of the artist and his art, a group of 70 artists was used to craft the Hashmask components. After receiving different components of the paintings, the creators of the Hashmasks duo compiled the data, they created an entire masterpiece using an algorithm. About 20% of Hashmasks were handmade as well.
Explicit rarity and implicit rarity
Explicit rarity: their website describes explicit rarity as “To provide general guidance on the hierarchy of collectible digital artwork, creators provide a set of explicit characteristics with varying degrees of rarity, for example men are much more common than robots. Unlike other collectibles, there is a second layer of scarcity imposed on the explicit traits through the implicit traits and the naming market.”
Implied Rarity: Just like any art, Hashmasks are not simple to understand. They are cryptic and can mean anything from the consumer’s point of view. It is free for interpretation and therefore can mean absolutely anything your heart desires. These traits or attributes are not explicitly accounted for. Some of these implied traits can be the background of art, shirts, hairstyles and colors, etc.
While both traits are essential for describing art and extracting meaning from it, the main attribute that is often in focus is the mask. The mask describes the general nature of all art and that is why it should have more value. Another attribute like the character will also have more meaning as the number of characters in the Hashmasks will describe the rarity of it.
Example of implied rarity
At the highest level, there are 14 different types of masks. 12,5% of all characters wear an animal mask and only 5,9% wear a pixel mask. At first glance, pixel masks may seem more unique, but upon closer inspection, you realize that there are only 13 Hashmasks that feature a unicorn mask, which is much more unique than the rarest of all pixel masks. . Other examples of implied traits with varying degrees of rarity are backgrounds, shirts, hairstyles and colors, and more.
What are the rarest features of HashMask?
The two categories where we can discover the rarest pieces of art in the collection can be found under “Character” and “Mask”. On the contrary, the most common mask is an animal mask with a representation of 12,5% and a pixel mask is rarer at 5,9%. However, they are still common compared to masks that only have a dozen or a hundred iterations, or less than 1%<. If the feature is rarer, NFT will trade above the minimum collection price. This is evident in other collections like CryptoPunks, where regular bodies sell for much less compared to the rarer “Alien” and “Zombie” bodies. For Hashmasks, male and female characters are the most common, but Golden Robot, Puppet Robot, and Mythical are the rarest.
What Makes Hashmask NFTs Valuable?
- can use to name their Hashmask portraits on the Ethereum network.
- Fashion – Each Hashmask is produced by more than one artist. This collaborative approach to making digital art with many different artists allows for more inclusion. If you’re on the cryptographic side of Twitter, you’d recognize the hype surrounding the project – and it’s the same on other crypto platforms like Discord. Hidden features on each network and having buyers naming the tokens add to the excitement.
- Uniqueness – All Hashmasks NFTs are unique. Enabling community-built growth allowed for different attributes such as varying masks, eye color, and backgrounds. As each is created by a combination of various artists, the means of fair distribution are also unique. At the time of launch, users did not know which NFT Hashmasks they would be assigned until two weeks had passed.
What are NCTs?
NCTs stands for Name Change Tokens that are required for the owner to change the name of artwork that the consumer owns. This helps to blur the line between the artists and the consumer, as the consumer is also adding their personal touch by renaming the asset.
A total of 1830 NCTs must be burned to rename the art. The only way for consumers to get more NCTs is to hold their digital assets in exchange for 10 NCTs a day. These NCTs can also be transferred from one wallet to another wallet. These NCTs will stop being deposited at the end of this decade, that is, until January 26, 2031 and then the supply of NCTs will only decrease. One day all NCTs will be completed but some last 1830 owned by an owner which will increase the rarity of the Hashmask asset and therefore the asset will be even more valued.
NCT Token
The NCT Token is the official HashMasks currency launched by Suum Cuique Labs in Switzerland. The utility of NCT is to allow holders to change the name of their NFT on the blockchain by burning NCT tokens. The NCT token is currently trading at $0,025 with a market cap of $150.000. There are 57 million tokens in circulation and holding one NFT from the collection accrues 10 NCT per day, or $0,25 per day in NCT tokens. Holders can name their NFT HashMasks, but they must own NCT tokens and record them. The requirement to change a name is 1.830 NCT or $5 at the current market price.
Bottom Line
NCT is an integral part of the project hashmasks, as it allows users to not only own their only living digital art collectible, but also change the name of that work to whatever they want. This is where the element of rarity comes in. There are only so many unique names that can be assigned, which means there will always be a limited number of each piece. This provides a sense of community and ownership unmatched on other digital/cryptographic art platforms.
