It’s been an unforgettable experience. But the time has come to close the lid on KnownOrigin as an active platform, and look back on it as a lasting piece of crypto-art history.
All NFTs minted from any of the KODA contracts are safe and will live on.
We can’t thank you all enough for trusting us over the years to be the place where so many crypto-artists started their journeys and continued to call home.
KnownOrigin was born out of a simple question: "Can we use the power of blockchain to mint digitally public artwork that evolves proof of ownership, provenance, and authenticity?"
The experiment began from a pop-up in a basement in Manchester, with 10 artists creating 25 physical artworks.
QR codes and a very basic wallet app enabled attendees to buy the digital artwork on the spot, claiming the NFT and the physical piece simultaneously.
Following the success of the launch, work began on turning KO into a digital-first art marketplace, to prove that it could work at scale.
Back in 2018, the number of people buying crypto-art could fit on a school bus. It's fair to say we were early to the party.
Early adopting artists were minting work and struggling to find people who wanted to buy crypto-art. One early XCOPY edition took months to sell out, at the price of $5. It was the calm before the storm.
Fast forward to 2021, and “NFT” was named Collins’ word of the year. We had a huge influx of activity on KnownOrigin. Creators were starting to monetise their craft to a global audience of collectors, who were rapidly building their collections.
Those same pieces that were struggling to sell were being regarded as early relics of crypto-art history. NFTs were the talk of the town. Sales boomed.
That summer was a whirlwind for KnownOrigin. We had more eyes than ever on our platform.
Adoption of NFTs continued through 2022, and we lead the way as one of the most innovative marketplaces out there.
Features such as early access sales, embedded NFTs and creator contracts all enabled the KO community to keep experimenting and pushing the boundaries.
A new wave of emerging artists took the mantel from the OGs, as collectors continued to search for the next big thing to emerge from KnownOrigin.
By 2023, things were changing. Innovation in Web3 was becoming bigger than we ever anticipated. After careful consideration, we decided to pivot to allow our team to pioneer bringing Web3 to the masses. This meant it became more and more difficult to sustain the marketplace.
We made the difficult decision to shut down KnownOrigin. This brings us to where we are now, closing off six incredible years of onchain digital art history.
All of the KnownOrigin inventory can be viewed on these marketplaces below, and the four KODA contracts can be viewed on etherscan.
Please read the the questions and answers carefully before reaching out, but if you do need to contact us the email below is monitored however responses may take 5 business days.
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