Chain Runners NFT collection has taken the world by storm. The collection contains 10,000 pixelated renegade runner NFTs. The NFTs are generated and stored on the Ethereum blockchain. These can be bought on the OpenSea NFT marketplace.
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have changed the way humans perceive and interact with art. In turn, the art world has also embraced it. Therefore, we have seen multiple traditional art auction houses wanting a piece of NFT art. For instance, Christie’s, Sotheby’s & Phillips all embraced and auctioned NFT art pieces. The action caught the attention of the general public when Beeple sold his piece “Everydays: the First 5000 Days” for a whopping $69 million. Other famous pieces include “Bored Ape Yacht Club”, “CryptoPunks”, “Bored Ape Chemistry Club”, “Mutant Ape Yacht Club” and “DeadFellaz”. But, right now there is another player in town who has taken the world by storm. The player is “Chain Runners”. Let’s dive into it right away!
What is Chain Runners?
The Chain Runners is an artistic collection of exactly 10,000 32×32 pixelated renegades runners as NFTs. Each runner NFT is randomly generated and stored on the Ethereum blockchain. Therefore, The collection is alive on the Ethereum blockchain. Each runner features 13 layers and 8 colours per layer. Furthermore, these layers are combined together to create these art pieces. This process is called Alpha blending.
The image data and attribute meta data are stored on-chain. However, the NFT traits can be selected at the time of minting. The team that built The Chain Runners has origins in web/software development for Blitmap (@BrainDraind). Blitmap was a community created sci-fantasy universe with a collection of 100 NFTs.
The collection has a supply of 10,000 NFTs which have all been minted at the cost of 0.05 ETH per NFT. You can still buy them at OpenSea. There are currently 3043 owners of the collection. The total sales volume for the collection has reached $1 million. The average price of one NFT was about $4.5k. Runner #9527 was the most expensive NFT piece among the collection sold for $588.1k. The NFT collection also has a great backstory including a Mega City and a group of renegades called The Runners. These Runners are fighting back against authority. Read the entire story here. The backstory makes the collection even more fun.
So, what was the reaction to it?
Soon after the launch of The Chain Runners, everybody in tech wanted a piece of the NFT. People expected it to solidify its name with the likes of Bored Ape Yacht Club and the CryptoPunks. Quite a few big tech names brought the collection. Starting from Product Hunt CEO, Josh Buckley who brought 135 Runners, Away founder Jen Rubio, Dylan Field from Figma etc. The collection has managed to push the idea of NFTs in a new direction with being entirely on-chain and decentralized. With the entire code being open source, the developers offer the NFTs through a permissive license. This has made for an exciting experience for the tech community.