Cryptopunks are different. They weren't trying to be art. They were trying to be us.

The art world has always been about exclusion. Velvet ropes. Gallery gatekeepers. "You wouldn't understand." The same 100 collectors trading the same 20 artists back and forth while telling everyone else they don't have taste. Software was supposed to fix this. And it is.

Cryptopunks are bit like pop art. Not Warhol's "pop art for rich people" but actual pop. They echo back to comic books, baseball cards, that poster you had on your dorm room wall. 10,000 of them. Not 1 of 1. Not exclusive. Abundant.

When I see a punk, I think "early." I think "believed." I think "one of us." That zombie punk? That's not a flex. It's a flag and a marker. It says: I was here when everyone thought we were insane.

The real innovation wasn't the art or the smart contract. It was the mindset shift: Digital art doesn't need to be scarce to be valuable. It needs to be MEANINGFUL. It needs to create COMMUNITY. It needs to be ACCESSIBLE enough that culture can form around it.

That's why cryptopunks are meaningful. They're teaching the traditional art world something it can't understand. In the age of the Internet, you can't start a movement from inside galleries. You can't build a cultural movement with 12 collectors. You change culture by giving 10,000 away.

Punks are optimistic and inclusive. They're not trying to be profound or difficult. They're not winking at you with art historical references you're supposed to get. They're just... there. Being themselves. Inviting you to be yourself too.

They remind me of the early internet. Personal websites coded by hand. Forum signatures that took forever to load. When we were all just figuring it out together. Before everything got professionalized and optimized into oblivion. Before the algorithms decided what we should see. They preserve a time when we were free to be ourselves on the Internet and in our communities.

The internet is ours to build. Everyone can be a collector. So, here's to JPEGs that anyone can right-click save.