Paint from a public ledger. Palettes are events of its history. Brush strokes that stagger and mass according to over a decade of value computation. Opulent open metrics. An on-chain Bitcoin ordinals project.
Released: Mar 19, 2023 (submillion ordinals)
Backstory | Features | FAQs | Terms, caveats, license, etc.
Interact with "Metrix" on Generative and The Function.
Inscribed on Bitcoin using data from the Bitcoin blockchain itself.
A playful, interactive project on the intrinsic aesthetics of data, expressed through blockchain and its metrics.
“Metrix” visually encodes a numeric history revealed on Bitcoin's public blockchain. The palettes capture various events of its history. Bitcoin's metrics yield diverse patterns like looking into a kaleidoscope. Metrics become colorful assays of a new financial system.
I am a cryptothematic visualist, and use data as a raw material. I work under the constraint that variation on visuals should derive from data, and avoid departing from this constraint: axes, colors, orientations, and scales — should as much as possible map in some way to specific elements of data.
“Metrix” draws from raw Coin Metrics (CM) API data, and is constructed dynamically in the browser using on-chain Bitcoin inscriptions. The pieces have some default data baked into their inscription. This makes them completely free of any external dependencies. But pieces can be modified interactively with keystrokes. For example, owners can pull in more data from the CM Community API by pressing “c” and adapting it with other keystrokes.
This numeric history of Bitcoin yields the rich variety we see in “Metrix.” Data on its own, with little aesthetic intervention besides some of the notes I share below.
On-chain construction. “Metrix” pieces are entirely constructed in the browser from on-chain inscribed on Bitcoin.
From raw chain data. Built from Coin Metrics data by drawing simple strokes across a canvas. Widths and color values are derived from relative average monthly values on these 9 metrics: active addresses, block size in bytes, total fees, hash rate, issuance, supply, transaction count, price and adjusted transfer value. See Coin Metrics network data for detail about these metrics. A specific example of building these brush strokes is shown in FAQs below. Metadata is subtly labeled at the bottom of each visual using the “i” keystroke (ordered by stroke/color for each, from back to front).
Interactive. Owners receive a base piece with metrics and palette, but interacting with the piece using keystrokes allows owners to explore variants, modifying the visual mapping superimposed on Bitcoin's metric history. A variety of options are coded into “Metrix”, including:
Visual chain. “Metrix” pieces have other aspects inspired by Bitcoin. The base piece is built by an initial “nonce,” which can be iterated to produce a visual chain. Using keystroke “n,” owners can iterate through visuals, and can have them cycle as a gallery with keystroke “g.” Each owner's visual chain is unique, and is deterministically projected from the initial nonce — not unlike block headers that overlap by iterated hash functions.
Owners can think of their inscriptions as a little node that they are setting up to their liking. They can set parameters about colors and opacity and so on, and then let the visual chain run with the gallery keystroke. Palettes from history.
Palettes are from various ideas surrounding Bitcoin, including palette extraction from famous images in Bitcoin's history, such as Laszlo's pizzas, Satoshi's first logo, the first wizard, Pepe #1 on Counterparty and more. Palettes were adapted from statistically extracting color concentration on many of these images (illustrated below).
Scalable vector graphics. At ~23KB in size, they inscribe efficiently as SVGs, constructed via raw JS without any external dependencies. But they can be scaled to any 16:9 displays without loss of quality (specified dimensions: 1,280 x 720).
Limited issuance. There will be fewer than 42 hand-selected inscriptions that mix palettes and metrics.
1. Plan for the proceeds from this distribution? Proceeds will be shared with a 501(c)(3) charity (minus gas). Metrix inscriptions will be released on Generative (generative.xyz) in March, 2023 with early announcements made for prior supporters and collectors.
2. Aren't you an Ethereum person? I've appreciated and worked with data from many projects, especially both Bitcoin and Ethereum, including a series on the history of Bitcoin.
3. What browser is best? This interface is written in plain HTML and JS (no external libraries), and was tested thoroughly in Chrome and Safari. There could always be issues we missed, but we recommend Chrome as the best browsing and interactive experience.
4. How did you build these? Here are more details about how Metrix inscriptions are created (there are a few little details left out, e.g., choosing background color, etc.). The process is initiated by a “nonce,” and it guides the following stochasticity:
Step 1. Choose initial direction of time, first metric and use that metric to set brush widths (here: PriceUSD)
Step 2. Sample color from one palette using another CM metric (here, IssTotNtv with “miami” palette). Note: when rendering under experimental feature "c" (raw, recent Coin Metrics data) both width and color use the first sampled metric. This simplifies interpretation of the brush strokes ("every other metric" listed with "i" is represented with width/color from the same variation).
Step 3. Randomly choose time orientation on two sides of axis; e.g., reverse one side of axis (transformation preserves ordinality of time)
Step 4. Apply any time dilation/contraction (maintains ordinality, just a bit of nonlinearity on x- and y-axis); here, t^k and k = 2, meaning that time is slightly dilating (spaces start closer together). This is a minor change, but it helps the crossovers look a little more ribbon-like.
Step 5. Do Steps 1-4 a number of times with other pairs of metrics. Here, SplyCur (width) and BlkSizeMeanByte (color, with same palette).
"Metrix" is an experimental creative project, use at your own risk. Each inscription is provided as-is and as-available without any and all warranty. By using the asset you accept sole responsibility for any and all transactions involving “Metrix.” Like any project of this nature, there may be unforeseen errors or issues that are discovered during the course of deployment and use. These are important caveats, but I hope you like it.
I have chosen the CBE-COMMERCIAL license from a16zcrypto.com. Under this license, I reserve the creative rights to these computational data pieces, but owners are welcome to copy, display and distribute the visuals as they see fit, including to adapt them for commercial purposes of any kind. This license holds for the entire visual chain and all its modifications. Owners should feel free to share and use as widely as they like.
