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How to Gamify Your Art by Burning NFTs

Art collecting has officially been gamified.

Building on the possibilities of (timed) open editions, burning NFTs for new artwork such as what Jack Butcher is doing with Checks, is starting to take over Web3.

This week, we dive further into this phenomenon by explaining what it means to burn a NFT in the first place, before sharing some innovative examples to inspire your own creative endeavors.

What is Burning a NFT?

Burning a NFT is equivalent to “destroying” it. Since the blockchain is immutable (i.e. cannot be changed), the only way to delete a NFT is to effectively remove it from circulation and render them unusable in the future.

To burn a NFT, all one has to do is to send it to an un-spendable address. Since the transaction is irreversible, and no one has access to the burn address, the NFT is essentially unusable and “destroyed”. For a detailed tutorial on how to burn a NFT, click here.

Exceptions do apply for ERC-1155 tokens, which allow for multiple copies of the same token. In this case, the supply of ERC-1155 tokens can be reduced without them needing to be sent to a burn address, making them more akin to a “true burn”.

Why Burn a NFT?

Burning NFTs is often used for the purpose of “value management”. Reducing the supply of a token introduces additional scarcity to a collection and could potentially cause the price of the NFT to rise.

More recently, the introduction of creator-friendly tools such as Manifold’s Burn-Redeem App has made it easy for artists to gamify their collectors’ experience. Likewise, collectors are able to interact further with the artist — and do so by deciding between holding on to the original NFT, or burning it for a different NFT or artwork altogether.

NFTs and the Origins of Gamifying Art Collecting

The rise of NFTs and the concept of burning them have inspired artists to incorporate game design and mechanics into their art. As collectors go from passive onlooker to active participant, they too become a part of the creative process, all while contributing additional commentary to the artist’s work.

This opens a world of opportunity for artists to connect with their audience on a deeper level. After all, why settle for static art when NFTs as a technology allows the art creation (and collection) experience to be dynamic, immersive, and unexpected?

Contemporary artist Damien Hirst was one of the first to gamify his work through Web3. For his NFT project The Currency, Hirst posed a daring question to his collectors, asking them to choose between owning the physical artwork or the NFT connected to it. At the end of one year, collectors had to opt for burning either the NFT or the physical painting… literally.

Hirst ended up setting fire to 4,851 physical art pieces, while his collectors chose to burn the remaining 5,149 NFTs in his 10,000-piece collection. The entire experiment also ended up being a commentary over whether NFTs were here to stay alongside the traditional art world.

Examples of Burn Mechanisms

Over the past few months, we have seen creative burning mechanisms that have inspired creators and collectors alike to engage more directly with art.

Here are a few of them:

#1: Jack Butcher’s Checks and the use of the semi-perfect number:

Checks was a timed open edition of 80 blue checks, which took inspiration from Elon Musk introducing verified checks to Twitter users for $8/month. Just over 16,000 NFTs were sold at $8 each within a 24 hour window at the start of the year.

Since then, Butcher and his team have devised a burn mechanism based on the number 80, which is known as a semi-perfect number since some of its factors (40, 20, 10, 5, 4, 1) add up to 80.

Butcher’s burn mechanism involves destroying a certain number of Check NFTs to receive smaller editions in descending order. For example: if you have two 80-check NFTs and you “burn” them both, you will receive one 40 Check NFT. If you want to receive a 20-check NFT, you would need to burn two 40-check NFTs, and so on.

80 > 40 > 20 > 10 > 5 > 4 > 1.

The first burn (80 > 40) occurred two days ago, so it remains to be seen if any collector will end up with the final NFT of just one single check.

#2: Nyan Balloon, Proceed w Caution and the color exchange:

Chris Torres, the individual behind the internet sensation Nyan Cat - recently remastered his original work in a timed open edition called Nyan Balloon, which minted 21,000 NFTs in just seven hours.

Chris proceeded to introduce the Nyan Balloon Sky Map. Collectors had 24 hours to exchange their original red balloon for a different color balloon of their choice. There was even a mystery balloon on the final day, which required not 1, but 3 red balloons to be burned. The community’s final decision, as well as Chris’ entire thought process can be found here.

Similarly, Lucréce gave collectors of his collection Proceed W/ Caution 7 days to decide which color they would like to burn their original blue piece for.

Lucrece’s games don’t stop here, and he has already revealed and teased subsequent phases for all Proceed w/ Caution collectors.

Burn tokens as a currency of exchange:

Other artists have adopted a more straightforward approach, with burn tokens simply acting as a “currency of exchange” for new pieces of art.

Grey, the artist and co-founder of Truth and Goblintown, offered his collectors a range of different artwork, each of which would “cost” a varying number of burn tokens. To learn more about Grey’s process and learnings, check out his reflections here.

Tiffatronn, our spotlighted artist from last week, has a far simpler mechanism, where collectors can opt to exchange 2 of her Forward Without Fear pieces exchanged for new editions, not all of which have been released. Read her full thoughts on Twitter here.

These examples show that burning mechanisms can be as simple or as complicated as you want. Regardless of what you opt for, make sure you do what feels right to you, and put in the effort to communicate the rules to your collectors clearly and repeatedly.

Closing Thoughts

The community's response to burning has been nothing short of remarkable. On one hands, artists are pushing the limits of their creativity by experimenting with different rules. On the other hand, collectors get to have their say in determining the scarcity and value within a collection.

What do you think of burning NFTs? Let us know.

In the News

Industry News

• NFTs have made it over to the Bitcoin blockchain, via what is called the Ordinals protocol released by software engineer Casey Rodarmor. While still an extremely technical process, close to 50,000 Ordinals have been minted onto Bitcoin. Learn more about some of the notable art collectibles currently on Bitcoin here.

• Centre Pompidou, home to France’s National Museum of Modern Art, announced plans for a new exhibition examining the relationship between art and the blockchain that will feature NFTs from CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs, among works by 12 other digital artists. Learn more about how NFTs are officially breaking into the Parisian art world.

• Not to be outdone, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has accepted a donation of 12 digital artworks from renowned NFT collector Cozomo de Medici, including pieces by Yam Karkai, Claire Silver, Justin Aversano, and more. Learn more here.

Tools and Resources

• Spatial, a platform for creating sharable virtual 3D experiences, is making its Creator Toolkit (powered by Unity) available to all! This means any creator can bring their vision to life through stunning 3D environments and experiences, such as games, virtual galleries, and more. Learn more here.

• Use words and images to generate new videos out of existing ones with Gen-1 - Runway’s latest AI model that applies any style specified by a text prompt or reference image.

• Want inspiration on where you should start targeting your next Web3 collector? Check out this article that outlines a list of countries that are most interested in the metaverse.

Notable Creators

• AI artist Refik Anadol had his work featured as backdrops across the Grammys stage. Part of his ongoing series “Machine Hallucinations—Space and Nature,” which draws on a massive dataset of more than 300 million publicly available nature images, the spotlight on Anadol’s work shows us once again that AI art is here to stay. (If you missed our issue on AI art, you can catch up on it here).

• Follow along as Rihanna becomes another artist to experiment with fan royalty sharing through the power of NFTs.

Artist Grants and Opportunities

• Have you applied for your HUG Artist Profile? Get your customizable, sharable profile to house all of your social links and collections, all while receiving meaningful reviews from adoring collectors.

• Apply to Theater Mitu’s Hybrid Arts Lab for NY based trans, non-binary, and women artists working at the intersection of performance and technology. Fellows receive $5,000 stipend, rehearsal space, and mentorship. Applications are due February 19th.

• The Field offers unrestricted cash awards of $5,000 to artists who have children. Apply here by February 24th.

• Post your best work to Creatively every week, let the community vote, and stand a chance to win a $5,000 cash grant each month.

This Week’s Art Drops

• Custom Portraits by Ntxoo (Commission, from 0.08 ETH) - follow Ntxoo on Twitter: Ntxoo is now offering custom portraits, be it of a special person or your furry friend, through HUG! Huggers can redeem a 0.01 ETH discount through HUG Points.

• Algorithmic Amour by Kezia Barnett (Timed Open Edition, 0.014 ETH) - follow Kezia on Twitter: AI artist Kezia introduces her first timed open edition that encourages us to celebrate love within ourselves before sharing it with the world.

• Pocket World: Telephone by Yucai (Timed Open Edition, 0.066 ETH) - follow Yucai on Twitter: Dropping on February 16th, this animated piece by Yucai depicts a candy-colored miniature world concealed in a telephone, and has heart-shaped motifs as a nod to Valentine’s Day.

• Love Recovery by ELIZMIL (Timed Open Edition, 0.014 ETH) - follow ELIZMIL on Twitter: While Eliz typically drops 1/1s of her Candy Moon characters, she is releasing her very first timed open edition just in time for Valentine’s Day.

• Annemated Valentine’s by Anne Zanne Silver ( Limited Collection, 0.1 ETH) - follow Anne Zanne on Twitter: 14 unique, animated boxes of chocolate to coincide with Valentine’s Day.

• The Discoverer of Suiseki by Propech (1/1, 0.25 ETH) - follow Propech on Twitter: The very first piece in Propech’s Suiseki collection, this marks the start of a journey through the stories of balance.

• Unbound by Jimena Buena Vida (Limited Edition of 111, 0.022 ETH) - follow Jimena on Twitter: A piece that explores the philosophical concepts of Stoicism, encapsulating the essence of personal freedom, archetypes, and self-reflection through the stream of consciousness.

• The Repository of Truths by Maciek Wolański (Timed Open Edition, 0.033 ETH) - follow Maciek on Twitter: Part of Maciek’s Prisoners of Dreams series, this piece is inspired by how we are influenced by light and truth.

• Pulse Beat by Georgina Hooper (1/1, 0.038 ETH) - follow Georgina on Twitter: Traditional Chinese painter Georgina introduces a series of paintings that represents the pulse of the undefinable spirit of life.

Creator Spotlight: Vanora Vaz

Vanora Vaz aka VanGoDoodle is an illustrator, musician, and former architect from Mumbai, India. Vanora’s work is focused on raising mental health awareness through magical, purple art. Through her work, she aims to start powerful conversations and facilitate change one illustration at a time.

Vanora is also the artist behind Therapets, a collection of 2,222 unique generative NFTs which marry emotive art with thought-provoking lore and mental-health advocacy.

Learn more about Vanora via her HUG Artist Profile, or follow her directly on Twitter and Instagram.