Oct 29th 2024

little story on gas & L1s ​

the first ever collection i created was "one day i'll be a punk". i was so in love with the cryptopunks, and thought it would be fun to manifest owning one (i proudly do now...).

it was a free collectible, randomly distributed to 10.000 claimers. when i launched it i thought i might get a few dozen VV community members to claim them. the thing is, back in the summer of 2021, gas cost on Ethereum was getting "crazy". on the day of the launch, minting one token was around 100$ in gas. a "free" mint... so my expectations weren't high.

but within 10 hours, all 10k were gone and at the end of the day i was up second place on Etherscan's gas guzzlers leaderboard.

whattt?!... "that's 1 million USD for nothing".

well, one could certainly see it like that...

or one could say "people contributed 1 million $ to decentralize a global network of nodes" (after all that's were the gas went). imho, that is a much more accurate description of what that means. gas is good. gas is an expression of the worth of the underlying asset (here, computation). the ethereum network is beautiful and it can only exist through our contributions to it (note back then, before the london 1559 upgrade, all gas fees went to miners).

or one could say "people spent 1 million $ on securing an idea on a global ledger". this is also an interesting statement. obviously that meme spoke to enough people for it to catch on, distributing itself via the underlying network effects (like "gas guzzling contracts").

or one could say "this is art that people valued at 1 million USD". the fact that i didn't see a penny of that doesn't retract from that simple truth. and for some reason, in a weird way, this fact makes it easier for people to see it as art, or fair, or good.

all these three frames both valid, and insanely cool. you can't but be in awe at this technology, the workings of which ensure your creations are alive, accessible, timeless, and completely independent of any singular entity. a direct connection between you, and the people interacting with your creations.