CardanoBits.. The 8 Bit Wonder
Written by: MoodyM {@blockburnouts}{@Moodyx_M}
Background Story
Back in April 2021, NFTs were just becoming the sector of crypto we know today, and Cardano, still in its infancy.. was struggling through the servers on google docs for its first 8 bit pixel NFT collection on the chain.. CardanoBits.
CardanoBits nowadays, is often a collection who’s conversation has been lost by the sheer volume of innovators and creators the space has offered us the past 12 months. We are exposed to a space, like cities such as Manhattan(NY), that seems to never sleep. With the conversation of a marketplace for the 1st collection on Cardano, SpaceBudz, many forget the collection that spawned the infamous rare trait of wings (shoutout fett), CardanoBits. A 10k collection, brought to life on April 3rd-April 9th, consisting of roughly 85 different traits, (plus community driven attributes such as “double eyes”/misprints such as “bloody”), while showing a unique type of innovation including female attributes into the collection for the first time for Cardano NFTs.. and needless to say, they [CBits] took the community by storm.
Post Mint Wild Wild West..
Concluding the mint (which was done via google docs over the course of several days, mint price tiered by the thousand, going from 12–102 ADA as the collection started to sell out), without a proper marketplace yet to trade CNFT’s, many rushed to discord to barter their new pixelated jpegs. This is where collectors developed strong positions in the project they believed in, and others resorted to marketing through discord channels to sell their newly minted CNFT. {there is no market data for what was traded via discord, but some recollect the ATH sale of 23k ADA to be done via trading on discord… not bad for a chain without a marketplace and still in it’s infancy when it came to NFTs. I was also able to grab a quote from our meme specialist.. Poppy about these interesting times..
Old Poppy Sampson (CBIT holder): “I remember, those first few days of confusion, both during mint and post mint, where everyone seemed to flock to discord to dump their cbits.. then a beautiful stallion named Allesandro “Berry” [SpaceBudz Founder] came to save the day both during and after the mint fiasco with meta data errors.. A time where no one knew the future of CNFTs, many members tried to sell but a few select collectors knew, somehow through all the chaos, that we were part of something special.”
CNFT.io Births The New Bull Run
Here we fast forward to my first experience with Cardanobits.. August ’21 is when I personally was first introduced to the project. As I entered the server, I was immediately greeted with a lively and genuinely helpful community. Ones who even personally reached out to me to explain things such as the trait breakdown, how to rarity snipe, where to go to pickup any I liked and even showed off some of their collections. With CNFT.io now live, it gave a much easier barrier to entry for new people in the space. As a community, we watched CBits, which were previously being traded between a 15–25 ADA floor, start to skyrocket. The entire space saw its first 1M ADA be traded with the likes of SpaceBudz running our front lines, helping Cbits and others make a name for themselves to those even outside the CNFT community. The new volume, given by the launch of CNFT.io in my opinion was VITAL, and at a time where now we tend to criticize the team, it’s important to recognize the sheer impact the marketplace had on collections such as CardanoBits.
Where are they now?
Many look for utility first when it comes to the NFTs they buy, where unique collectors simply want to admire art or hear the story behind what they’re buying. While the story may seem simple from the outside looking in, for those present at the time it couldn’t have been farther from the truth. With the community strong as ever, and those who saw a way to improve the space, CardanoBits launched their community DAO, (the first of its kind on ADA), implementing a royalty % on each NFT traded on the marketplace, with proceeds going directly back to the community and its holders. They also were able to launch a SPO stake pool, ticker CBITS, generating some of the proceeds to the community wallet as well, rewarding decentralization on the blockchain, and the original holders of the project once again.. Fettucine, a holder/minter himself, even created ‘Winged Warriors”, a club solely for winged trait CBit holders to join and talk all things CNFTs. We are fast approaching the 1 year birthday for Cbits.. and it poses the question.. “After such an eventful first year.. how do we top this??”. To holders of CardanoBits, MoodyM would like to personally congratulate the team, the mods.. and the community for 1 hell of a year.. cheers to hopefully many more.
Closing thoughts?
For me personally, it’s nice to think of a much simpler time, where we [the CNFT Community] were not bombarded with countless mints, where we could barter safely via discord, and where we had to wait 24 hours while begging the seller to send [LOL]. CardanoBits are most definitely part of the face of that specific era, and are continuing to try to adapt with the new waves the community likes to introduce these new projects to. For those in NFTs on any chain, this is the time to educate ourselves on projects we believe can stand the test of time, and those who already have a story behind them. Being early, there is no better time to be building, but always remember to cherish the community of early supporters we have now, for that time will pass as we fade into more and more adoption. Come to think of it.. maybe it really was just about the friends you made along the way.. huh?
