GM, GM, GM!!!

Or maybe we’ll save the use of exclamation points until after you’ve had your pumpkin spice latte… Go ahead, we’re not judging, we’re just extremely excited to throw the curtains back and introduce a number of new tools for artists on Async.

This is the part in the movie when Q lends James Bond an ejector seat equipped Aston Martin, or when Galadriel gifts each member of the Fellowship with something unique.

While you may not be facing off against an evil force bent on world domination, you now have more power in your hands. Today, we’re thrilled to launch the Async Blueprints Contract 2.0 with some killer new features:

• Artist-Deployed Contract Option
• Time-Limited Mints
• Free Mints
• Hassle-Free Royalties

We based these major upgrades to the Blueprints contract off of community feedback, and have two incredible projects to show off these features for the first time ever: “Pann Blueprints,” an expansion of the Async Music Classic collaboration of 43 artists, and “Surf Spots” by renowned graphic artist John Van Hamersveld. (Beatles fans, read on!) 

Artist-Deployed Contract Option

Up until now, projects were set to default deployment by Async’s contract and would often be hard to distinguish on aggregator platforms.

Now, artists can deploy their own contracts that are uniquely and easily indexed by platforms like Foundation and OpenSea. This allows for greater visibility and provenance for artists, and also a cleaner buying experience for collectors.

Some Things to Note:

• Artists will have to pay a deployment fee
• Artists cannot deploy to an existing Manifold contract…yet.

Click on this article to learn more about Artist-Deployed Contracts.

Time-Limited Mints

Encourage collectors to strike while the iron is hot with Time-Limited Mints. Rather than leave your collection open indefinitely, create a deadline for minting where all remaining, unsold Editions will be burned afterward. 

The current time-limit options are: 

• 1 week
• 2 weeks
• 4 weeks

Please note that once closed, the Blueprint will be unable to mint any more Editions. This is a huge decision with permanent consequences so we do encourage artists to read this article, weigh options and attend our workshops to learn how to effectively utilize this feature. 

For artists who’d like to retroactively close the sale of an existing/live Blueprint, please complete this form. 

Free Mints

Free mints came into focus a little over a month ago when the Async team used them during our intra-team, #AsyncFaceOff competition. Interested collectors and, yes, eventually a legion of bots, were able to mint NFTs for free. 

Especially in the bear market, these sales mechanisms can be powerful tools for growing and rewarding collector bases. For some suggestions on when and how to utilize time-limited and free mints, which can be used in conjunction with each other, see this article.

Hassle-Free Royalties

Before, royalty payments were a nightmare, especially if you had several addresses receiving secondary payouts. Now, thanks to 0xSplits, you can claim your secondary royalties at your convenience and easily split these royalties among several addresses, all through our creation platform.

For more information on how to split and claim royalties, check out this help article.

Launch Partners

We’re thrilled to highlight two trailblazing projects and their respective creators who have harnessed these Blueprints Contract 2.0 capabilities:

1. “Pann” - A collaboration of 43 artists led by Pradeep Kumar

Launch Date: Wednesday, Oct 26th at 9am PT

End Date: 4 Weeks from launch

Features Used: Artist-Deployed Contract & Time-Limited Mints

பண் (translated directly as “Pann,” but described by the creator as meaning “flow”) is a unique, ethereal, traditional-meets-contemporary piece, and India’s first programmable NFT and a celebration of Tamil culture.

With nine layers, and over 19,000 possible combinations, “Pann” is truly a landmark work - the fruit of a collaboration of 43 musicians and visual artists led by Pradeep Kumar.

After launching the Async Music Classic piece last year, they chose not to auction off the Layers and, instead, curated the variations for one year. Next week, they are unleashing the many new variations and launching the Pann Blueprints. Three lucky collectors who pull the Legendary Editions will receive one of the Layers from the original work, and the first Editions of an upcoming book on the project. 

Today, Pradeep’s launch features an artist-deployed contract and time-limited editions, and will only be open for one month. 

2. “Surf Spots” - John Van Hamersveld

Launch Date: Wednesday, Oct 19th at 9am PT

John Van Hamersveld is a renowned graphic artist and illustrator, best known for his work on famous album covers for The Beatles and the iconic movie poster for The Endless Summer. 

In late 2021, John van Hamersveld and Coldie partnered on “The Unfolding Dream” which was auctioned off by Bonhams (Async covered this collaboration here in a previous blog post).

This Wednesday, John’s brand new Blueprints collection “Surf Spots” is bringing endless summer vibes to California dreamers everywhere. With his characteristic pops of color, the collection launches here on Async with an artist-deployed contract.

Final Thoughts

Perhaps, upon hearing about these new updates, you flash back to a ticket you created or a message you dropped in the #suggestions thread that asked for one of the aforementioned features. More often than not, you probably had an Async team member tell you they’d “look into it.” 

If that’s you, we’d like to say, “Thank you.” Thank you for bearing with us as we worked behind-the-scenes to make those suggestions a reality. 

Or perhaps, upon hearing about these new updates, you think of something else that would make a difference in your experience as a creator and/or collector. 

If that’s you, we’d like to say, “Tell us about it!” Hop into the Discord and dream with us. Who knows? Maybe one day you’ll see that very feature highlighted in a future blog post. 

For creators looking to test some of these new tools out, get started here. 

Browse other incredible art and music projects on the Async Market here. 

To keep up-to-date on new features and projects like this, follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Join our Discord or sign up for our email newsletter to be the first to know about new art and music drops!