Stacks Feature: This is #1

This is No. 1 Smiley. The Fatboy Slim/Chemical X No. 1 Smiley was the 1st original piece of music ever to be minted on Stacks and secured by Bitcoin.

Innovation is a theme of this blog. It is, after all being composed, published, and read via the vision and innovation of the Sigle founders. Stacks is a first of its kind blockchain that unites the functionality of smart contracts and the security of Bitcoin, and it goes without saying that Bitcoin is one of the most massive technological innovations in our lifetime thus far. With that said it gives me the greatest pleasure to introduce you to the very first NFT project on Stacks:

This is #1

There is early, and then there is EARLY. If you are reading this article on the day of publication, you are early to Stacks. If you published the first NFT contract ever to Stacks, you are the founders of This is #1:

Jim.btc and Dashal.btc .

Jim.btc and Dashal.btc are music industry professionals who discovered Bitcoin early. In fact they were the first people to bring a Bitcoin ATM to Great Britain (being first movers is apparently a habit with these two). They are creatives by nature who have worked alongside absolute legends in the music industry. They saw the problems inherit with the centralized nature of the music business: gatekeepers, inadequate compensation for the artist, and various other filters and hinderances that should not exist but do.

Being Bitcoiners at heart they immediately understood Stacks, and the opportunity that NFTs can provide to artist. Not only would Stacks be the vehicle by which artist could own their art, and their royalties enforced by smart contracts, but the artist could be a vehicle by which nocoiners could be exposed to Bitcoin.

Seeing as though there were no NFTs on Stacks at this point, Jim.btc, Dashal.btc ,and a lone Stacks core developer Michael Cohen partnered with Fatboy Slim , Orbital, Chemical X, Cara Delevingne, and Dave Stewart (giga legend co-founder of the Eurythmics) to make history with the launch of the 5 piece Genesis Collection.

This is number 1, the very first NFT to be minted on Stacks

Shortly thereafter This is #1 launched the 27 piece Singularity NFT collection as part of a giveaway promotion for The Edge of NFT podcast. Then came the Number 1 Smiley , a free drop for anyone with a Stacks wallet. They followed up with the first generative art NFT on Stacks: The Hash One Collection.

This 21kb piece of history is one of 91 that were minted to test the network and early marketplace functionality. Check out the This is number 1 website for the rest of the story

From there the team helped launch the beloved Crash Punks NFTs. The story of This is #1 is the origin story of NFTs on Stacks. The history of this project and their work on Stacks in its infancy is worthy of its own book. However, this is for another time, let us get back to the present.

Delivering Art, Not Hype.

This is #1 has tasked itself with bringing artist to the Stacks ecosystem, and in turn introducing the Stacks community to art. Providing a platform for the innovative and boundary pushing artist of renown as well as providing a platform for the obscure to catch their break.

The team doesn't have time for hype, they stay busy focusing on delivering. With that in mind it doesn't surprise me that I hadn't heard of This is #1 until fairly recently. I have only been in the Stacks ecosystem since March 2022, too late to catch their original mints, and too early for their reemergence via Gamma. I was fortunate enough to be able to mint a piece from The Smiley Collection, a Chemical X limited run that is a part of a coming project. I was also able to grab a DYLE ONE from OG Stacks artist dyle . These projects mint out fast. The initiated already know that This is #1 does not do fluff and filler, they bring the community a curated art collection, and those in the know love it.

This is one of my DYLE ONE pieces from the OG himself

The This is #1 Website and Discord are where you want to go to find out when the collections are dropping. I encourage you to check them both out (the Discord is a great community full of Stacks artist, familiar faces, and friends). On October 17 5pm EST Chemical X will be releasing a 9 piece mint for his Brand X Collection, and on October 27 5pm EST Pinkyvision will be releasing the 400 piece mint for the Game On Collection. The website and Discord are indispensable for staying on top of these releases as the team isn't about promotion, just their mission.

Inspiration

That is the most fitting word to use to describe how I felt while speaking with Dashal.btc and Jim.btc. These gentlemen understand Bitcoin, and are literal groundbreakers in our ecosystem. Stacks is primarily comprised of Bitcoiners, and this holds true for the community as well as all the developers and creators within the ecosystem. Inevitably it is always a great experience to be able to speak with others who you can relate to on that level. It transcends all of the artificial divisions that we are incessantly reminded of by the gatekeepers of the fiat system that remains determined to keep us under their thumb.

In this way I believe that another use case of Bitcoin is simply that of a vehicle to remind us all of our shared humanity. Art does that, as creativity and art appreciation are both found among the hallmarks of humanity. It was inevitable that the two would be united, and This is #1 is the team that first made it happen.

Thank you for reading as always, and I hope you enjoyed the piece. A like, follow, and retweet goes far. Give me a follow on Sigle on your way out, the team is releasing the newsletter functionality soon, you won't want to miss it.

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