TheNorwegian 💎

As 2017 drew to a close and the NFT world buzzed about CryptoPunks, MoonCats, and CryptoKitties, an established contemporary artist named Victoria Verdandi was quietly making history in a way that would go unrecognized for years. Between November 23 and December 15, 2017, Verdandi, known professionally as VERDANDI or Vee, became the first female solo artist to program and mint her own NFTs to the Ethereum blockchain, teaching herself to code specifically to bring her digital art onto the blockchain without relying on platforms or developers. This wasn’t an artist hiring programmers or using existing tools. This was a painter, sculptor, graphic designer, and photographer who recognized blockchain’s potential for digital scarcity and personally wrote the smart contracts to tokenize her work. The collection now known as the Verdandi Artefacts consists of just 13 unique pieces, making it the rarest NFT collection from 2017. The first piece, Aspen V, was minted November 23, 2017. The final two pieces, Verdandi Reflection and Nice To Meet You, were both minted December 15, 2017, with the last one appearing on chain at 22:00:25 UTC. Each work was deployed to its own individual smart contract, a technically complex approach that demonstrated deep understanding of Ethereum’s architecture. These weren’t simple token mints using existing standards, they were custom implementations predating widespread adoption of ERC-721, similar to how CryptoPunks and MoonCats had to pioneer their own approaches. Verdandi’s motivation came from a profound understanding that in 2017, collectors weren’t comfortable with the concept of owning something digitally. Verdandi recognized blockchain’s potential and took initiative to code her visions herself rather than waiting for infrastructure or platforms. Where Verdandi’s story becomes even more remarkable is the rediscovery. Like MoonCat Rescue, the Verdandi Artefacts sat largely forgotten during the crypto winter years, known only to a small circle of early NFT enthusiasts. In January 2022, NFT historian and podcaster Adam McBride brought renewed attention to the collection, interviewing Verdandi and documenting the historical significance of her work. The rediscovery paralleled MoonCat’s March 2021 resurrection, proving again that blockchain’s permanence means forgotten projects can always find new audiences. The 13 pieces span Verdandi’s characteristic aesthetic, drawing on her Norse Viking heritage with runic lines, luxurious textures, and the sophisticated visual language she developed across painting, sculpture, and digital media. Each work exists as both a standalone artistic statement and as part of the historical narrative of a solo female artist breaking into a male dominated technical space in crypto’s earliest days. Two of her 2017 NFTs now reside in the permanent collection of SAMFA, the San Angelo Museum of Fine Art in Texas, recognized as both historically and culturally significant. This museum acquisition validates Verdandi’s work not just as crypto collectibles but as legitimate fine art worthy of institutional preservation alongside traditional media. The recognition places her in rare company among NFT artists whose work has entered museum permanent collections. To make the original 2017 tokens compatible with modern NFT infrastructure, Verdandi herself created a wrapper contract, converting the custom 2017 implementations into ERC-721 compliant tokens while maintaining provable connection to the original contracts. This wrapper, deployed by the artist rather than a third party community effort, allows collectors to own the historical 2017 originals while enjoying the functionality of contemporary NFT standards. The wrapped collection is now available on OpenSea as Verdandi Artefacts, with full provenance chain back to the original December 2017 mints. #HistoricalNFTs

🖼️ 24 HOURS OF ART 📊 February 8, 2026 ✊ Initiative Acceleration “The mission is to elevate artists” says @batsoupyum. The collector and patron announces a new initiative alongside @musicalnetta. It will deploy $100,000 USD, or approximately 1 ETH per week, inviting artists to do small writeups and adding their own context for each acquisition. Lanett shares her perspective: “Two people who love art, supporting artists as loudly as we possibly can while respecting those who have been doing it all along.” The initiative explodes on socials, with @SamSpratt and @MrsRachelSpratt, @redbeardnft, @RDToTheMoon, and @WAPSHOP_ETH pledging additional funds, @foundation pledging sales % and screen support, and other community members including @madam_selkie and @1xharsh leaning into creative ways to contribute. 🕯️ Artefact Acquisition “Just did a thing” says @thenorwegian. The collector acquires 1-of-1 artwork ‘Candlelight’ by @TheVERDANDI for 6 ETH ($12,530 USD). 1 of 13 ‘Verdandi Artefacts’, it was originally created on Ethereum in 2017 and part of one of its first fine art collections. It was subsequently wrapped in an ERC721 contract, preserving the original token while giving it modern marketplace functionality. Two early artworks by Verdandi are in the permanent collection of SAMFA (San Angelo Museum of Fine Art). 🪟 Pictured: 24 Hour Art Market Highlights - 'Winds of Yawanawa #856' by @refikanadol - Batsoupyum - 'HabiTextures #4' by @RichardNadler1 with @SuperRare - 'Lovers Laughing In Bed' by @tiffatronn, collected by @Roscoe69420 - 'Candlelight' by VERDANDI - 'Pebbles #744' by @Ze_blocks - 'Guzzler' by @XCOPYART - 'Together in the Glitch' by @YUDHO_XYZ, collected by Batsoupyum - 'mustard s33d heartbeat' by lovebeing

For those curious about early AI art, @delronde explains it so eloquently ⬇️⬇️⬇️ Personally I have over 300 early AI works and many other collectors like @jediwolf @delronde @ChampagneMan @thenorwegian @Claudnoir1 @RaoulGMI @cyborgDAO have been quietly curating stunning collections. The amazing thing is that you can still acquire many beautiful and groundbreaking early AI works for well under 1ETH. For those wish to dig deeper, the early AI art discord contains a wealth of information: discord.gg/earlyaiart Some terrific artists to look into include @unityofmulti @artistbitcoin @BardIonson @VanArman @tyaagnliu @WGMeets @bganpunks @Coldie @YuraMironArt @yetepey @bottoproject @OpekarLukas @artonymousart @maxOSIRISart @DeepBlackAI @art_alex_shell

Let's talk CryptoPunk background colors! One of the cool things that a lot of people still don't know is that the actual CryptoPunk image has a transparent background, the color is applied by the contract to designate what "state" the punk is in. They are infographics! 1/

Today I sold my V2 punk to purchase more V1s. It's becoming clear that the V1/V2 punk argument rests solely on the latter group's ability to brand themselves as "real" through their social network. If the story of the flawed V1 contract were to play out today, duplicating and then airdropping the new collection would be an unacceptable solution. This made all punks 1 of 2s, with V1 punks as the “first editions” of these assets. In all other collectible classes, the earlier editions of something are more sought after. This is also generally true of the scarcer misprint variants of assets - there are far fewer V1s still in circulation. The solution was accepted at the time of the V1 exploit because there were minimal options with which to view onchain assets - what Larva Labs platformed was what everyone got to interact with. With the introduction of third party marketplaces and the V1 wrapping contract, this ceased to be the case. Very few people in the community back in the day had enough foresight to realise that all LL had done was sweep the originals under the rug. The narrative that V2s are in some way superior is defended largely by the snobbish type of collector who judges art only by its price, and has an emotional attachment to the status that owning this asset gives them. They see attempts to discuss the onchain truth of the story as an attack on their gated social group and the sunk cost of their investment. This is ignorance of the provenance uniquely available through the blockchain, and an elitist rejection of another community as a way of preserving capital; they are neither ‘crypto’ nor ‘punk’. Any newcomer to onchain collecting, being exposed to the publicly verifiable and immutable information available surrounding these collections, would judge V1s - at less than 10% the price of the V2s - as the more grounded choice. There are a handful of common counterarguments. V1s are unable to use their original in-contract marketplace because of the exploit, but this experience has been abstracted into existence. The chains of ownership are different as they fork after the V2 airdrop, meaning they have different social networks, but V1s have a nascent community capturing the more historically minded. V1s do not receive the same IP rights as V2s, although onchain PfP IP has proven to be rarely utilized. There are 20,000 punks. The V1 punks are the original cryptopunks that were claimed on June 9th, 2017. The later V2 punks have the backing of their creators and are more well known, benefitting disproportionately from this publicity. This is a fascinating case of art undergoing a literal schism - one collection to serve the will of the artist, and the other becoming inseparable from its foundations, the machine it was built to showcase. This machine will outlive us, and with it, the story of how a failure of imagination led to the burying of the truth of its icons.

I very much prefer the real punks but ngl my two v1s are pretty dope too.

Forget Bitcoin. Forget Ordinals. Forget altcoins. One of the most significant NFTs just woke up from the dead Here's everything you need to know about "the Nakamoto of AI" (including how to get one) 🧵👇 (1/13)