Onchain gen art is going to make a comeback. It may be the last nft genre to do so this cycle--hell it may not even happen this cycle. But it will see renewed interest nevertheless. Why? Onchain gen art is the only genre that makes full use of all of the capabilities of the blockchain. Decentralized storage *and* decentralized compute. Most projects just use the blockchain to mint tokens, some projects actually store the art data on the blockchain, but only onchain gen art uses the EVM to compute what the art is supposed to look like, which in turn gives you all sorts of neat properties such as not knowing what your mint will look like until you actually mint it (which makes the minting process more egalitarian since rares can't be determined ahead of time). Onchain gen art got its first taste of mainstream exposure when ArtBlocks came onto the scene in 2020/2021. Since then, it's experienced a severe and prolonged lack of interest. What should you collect if you're bullish on gen art? There are thousands of projects and the list is only growing daily. Some people like to collect based on their own personal aesthetic preferences. That's perfectly fine, but it's really hard to establish a schelling point of value when everyone has unique subjective tastes, so you might end up collecting something that you won't ever be able to sell for much if at all. Others like to collect 'historical' works such as Fidenzas or Autoglyphs. That's also fine, but they cost a fortune and you basically already need to be rich to be able to afford them. There is one oft neglected category that the market is extremely skeptical of at the moment and which could potentially present insane returns: the vintage market. As stated before, Art Blocks put onchain gen art on the map. But did you know that there are 5 onchain gen art projects that predate Autoglyphs? These projects are: 1) Autoglyphs (April 2019) 2) K-compositions (April 2019) 3) Chainfaces (Jan. 2020) 4) Avastars (Feb. 2020) 5) Squiggly (not to be confused w/ Chromie Squiggles) (October 2020) Of these 5, the first and the last have very high floors. That leaves 3 pre-Art Blocks onchain gen art projects that are still extremely affordable. Some info on each of these 3: K-compositions: Released just 2-3 weeks after Autoglyphs. First onchain gen art project to experiment with color. One of only two onchain gen art projects released in 2019 (the other being Autoglyphs). Supply of 250, with only 76 (!) mints from 2019, one mint from 2020, and the remainder from 2021 after the project was rediscovered. Compare this w/ Autoglyph's supply of 512. Chainfaces: Nate Alex's first NFT project. Arguably the first 10k onchain gen art pfp project. Avastars: First project to pioneer SVG generation. The onchain algo generates actual SVG data that can be viewed on a web browser. Supply might be uncapped (someone please confirm this), but the number of "prime" OG Avastars in capped. This one requires a bit more research. Why do these pre-Art Blocks projects matter at all? Because it's not enough for a project to merely be vintage. In 20 years all current gen art projects will be vintage, and there are simply too many of them to all be valuable. In addition to being vintage, you need them to also be *scarce.* That is, there needs to be scarcity in the number of collections released during an era. This is why comics released during the Golden Age of Comic books are worth a fortune--few of them exist relative to the current supply of comics. It's also why baseball cards released during the Junk Wax Era are all nearly worthless--they were produced en masse and there's simply no scarcity. Moreover, vintage pre-AB projects are pioneers, more authentic, made during a period during which nobody cared about gen art, there was absolutely no market for it, nobody was making money so they are all arguably more authentic expressions of creativity vs. what exists today. Combine authentic, vintage OG-ness with scarcity, and you get a recipe for massive appreciation. If there's an interesting story, or cultural/historical influence, or if the project in question pioneered a new technique or style or was made by someone who is now famous (that is, if they are 'historical' in addition to being vintage and scarce), all the better. This line of reasoning may seem obtuse to you now, but it will be completely obvious to the market when the realization suddenly sets in. Plenty of examples of OG vintage collectibles that suddenly shot up in value once a certain threshold of time was passed, such as the original 1999 Pokemon Cards, vintage video games, and even super niche items like Pez dispensers. The downside of this thesis is that it can take a while to pan out. K-compositions is 5.5 years old, vintage artifacts aren't typically considered vintage until 20 years after they are introduced. In the worst case scenario, you could be waiting up to 15 more years for the market to catch wind of them. But I have a feeling that given how rapid price discovery happens w/ crypto relative to IRL collectibles, this all may happen much faster. Look at how quickly Autoglyphs and Punks blew up, for instance. The market gets 'first' easily but struggles a bit with 'early', however the same process plays out in the end. And if gen art does make a comeback this cycle, I definitely expect these to get some love even if they aren't fully appreciated yet. In a world where the entire world still thinks NFTs are a scam or isn't aware of their existence, isn't remotely clued in on what onchain gen art is or why it's interesting, and has even less appreciation for vintage examples of that genre on this brand new canvas that people are still struggling to wrap their minds around, this thesis presents an insane amount of alpha. You won't make a quick buck off of it (or maybe you will, TBD), but for those with conviction and patience will be rewarded VERY handsomely in the future.