NFT-Based Protocol BlockArt Raises $1 Million Seed Round Led by CoinFund

BlockArt’s uniquely constructed protocol will enable a new means of creating digital art

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BlockArt, a protocol powering the creator economy while leveraging NFTs and on-chain data on Ethereum, announced it has raised $1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by pioneer blockchain-focused investment firm, CoinFund, with additional participation from Focus Labs, Metacartel Ventures, Divergence Ventures and other major ecosystem contributors.

Founded in 2019, as an artistic exploration of ethereum data visualization, BlockArt grew into an on-chain protocol enabling anyone to mint generative art as NFTs by collaboratively visualizing and remixing Ethereum data. Going forward BlockArt will essentially function as a foundation layer for applications to be built on top of it — the first fully operational application that has been built is EthBlock.art, a web3 platform that supports a multi-level collaborative conversation between creative coders, visual artists, and collectors. EthBlock.art provides anyone with the opportunity to own a piece of Ethereum history -- coders create different means of converting transaction data from Ethereum blocks into code NFTs called BlockStyles, creators then use the BlockStyle of their choice to curate blocks and tweak the parameters provided to produce a BlockArt NFT to then be minted.

“I believe just like how anyone can pick up a brush, canvas, and some paint, that the same can be done in the digital world with code, data and NFTs,” said Adrian le Bas, Founder at BlockArt. “Going forward, BlockArt will aim to lower the barrier to entry for self-motivators interested in developing their own style and expressing their innate artistic side while exploring a new purely verifiable data driven form of art — deterministic art.”

“BlockArt will effectively create a new wave of participants entering the ever-evolving NFT space,” said CoinFund Founder and CEO, Jake Brukhman. “BlockArt has uniquely positioned themselves as a combination NFT protocol, marketplace and blockchain-based analytics platform, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to support the innovative team as they continue to grow the decentralized, digital art movement.”

BlockArt and EthBlock.art will continue to evolve in the coming months with the launch of a new version of the protocol and more permissionless tools, giving coders, artists and organizations a chance to creatively curate on-chain data as NFTs. There will be new experiences for BlockArt and BlockStyle NFT creators and collectors, in addition to furthering the development of BlockArt’s protocol to make it a place where coders, data scientists, and artists can come together to collaborate in building a future for creatives online.

“BlockArt creates an entirely novel artistic universe: algorithm-driven expressions of beauty and meaning, based on a globally shared and permanent ledger that we believe will be the substrate of the future Internet,” said Calvin Liu, Partner at Divergence Ventures. “It’s a unique project at a special point in time. We’re excited to support Adrian and the BlockArt team on their journey to empower creative coders, artists, and collectors, and to grow this fascinating new category of art.”

The BlockArt team is also broadening their support of the ecosystem through creative coding, Ethereum and web3 workshops and hackathons and onboarding more creative talent to the space as web3 contributors.

About BlockArt

BlockArt builds open source software and bootstraps a protocol and ecosystem empowering creators with NFT tooling and infrastructure at the intersection of creative coding tech, generative art and blockchain data. Enabling creatives to explore deterministic art as a new medium of self-expression, experimenting with ownership of the means of producing art while encouraging new insights into blockchain data.

About CoinFund

CoinFund is a blockchain-focused investment firm founded in 2015 with the goal of shaping the global transition to digital assets and decentralized finance. The firm invests in venture and liquid opportunities within the blockchain sector with a focus on digital assets, decentralization technologies and key enabling infrastructure. The CoinFund team has studied and supported the development of the blockchain space from the inception of the first decentralized networks and brings together more than 30 years of experience in investing, engineering, law and decentralized protocols. For more information, please visit www.coinfund.io.