Commentators
If you wanted to understand what was happening in NFTs in 2021, there was one place you probably ended up spending a lot of time.
Twitter.
Before NFT news had become something you could find everywhere, Twitter was where artists, collectors and curious newcomers were talking about what was happening. Artists shared new work, collectors talked about what they were buying, people discovered new artists and communities seemed to appear almost overnight.
There were also a handful of people whose voices became particularly recognisable.
They were not all doing the same thing. Some were collectors, some were artists, some were commentators and some became hosts and community builders. Together, they helped create the conversation around NFTs.
Artchick
Artchick, known on Twitter as @digitalartchick, became one of the better-known voices among NFT collectors. She was particularly interested in digital art and women artists and became an early supporter of projects such as World of Women. Her account was very much part of the conversation around what was worth looking at and which artists deserved more attention.
What is interesting about Artchick is that her influence came largely from being a collector and commentator rather than from creating the artworks herself. She was one of the people helping others navigate an art world that was changing incredibly quickly.
Cozomo de’ Medici
Cozomo de’ Medici became one of the most recognisable collectors in NFT art. The pseudonymous collector developed a large collection of digital art and became particularly interested in artists working in the 1/1 space.
Cozomo's Twitter account was not simply about buying expensive NFTs. There was a lot of discussion about why particular artists and artworks were worth collecting and about the history of digital art itself.
That made the account interesting even if you weren't a collector.
Cozomo became one of the people helping to make the argument that digital art deserved to be looked at seriously as art, rather than simply as something attached to cryptocurrency. Contemporary lists of NFT Twitter voices specifically noted the account's focus on 1/1 art and collecting.
gmoney
gmoney became closely associated with CryptoPunks and the emerging culture around NFT collecting. In early 2021, he bought a CryptoPunk for 140 ETH, at the time a very significant purchase, and later sold one to Visa.
But his importance was about more than individual purchases.
He became a recognisable voice around digital identity, collecting and the idea that NFTs could become part of a person's online identity. His CryptoPunk became almost like a digital calling card.
This was something that became increasingly important as PFP projects took over Twitter.
Farokh
Farokh arrived in the NFT space from a background in luxury and social media. In 2021 he became particularly well known for hosting conversations with artists, collectors and celebrities, first through Clubhouse and then through Twitter Spaces.
His biggest contribution was perhaps creating a place for people to talk.
Twitter Spaces became an enormous part of NFT culture, with conversations sometimes running for hours and thousands of people listening in. Farokh's Rug Radio grew out of that culture and became a significant Web3 media community.
For people coming into NFTs during the boom, hearing people talk about the space could sometimes be just as important as reading about it.
Pranksy
Pranksy was one of the early anonymous collectors who became well known on NFT Twitter. The account had been active in NFTs before the 2021 explosion and built a large collection across different projects.
What made Pranksy interesting was the perspective of someone who was actually collecting while the market was developing. The account was not simply commenting from the outside.
Pranksy became associated with everything from CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot to Bored Ape Yacht Club and other projects, giving the account a view across several different stages of the NFT market.
punk6529
punk6529 became one of the more thoughtful voices around NFTs, particularly when it came to the idea of digital ownership and the cultural importance of NFTs.
Rather than focusing only on which project might become more valuable, punk6529 often talked about NFTs as a new way of thinking about digital objects, identity and culture.
The account also became involved in building a virtual museum project, reflecting the idea that NFT art might eventually need its own digital institutions rather than simply being displayed through existing art-world structures. Contemporary NFT influencer lists have consistently identified punk6529 as a significant commentator.
Matty
Matty, originally known through the account @DCLBlogger, was closely associated with Decentraland and the developing idea of virtual worlds.
His focus was slightly different from the collectors who were mainly interested in artwork. He was interested in what people could actually do inside these new digital spaces, including virtual land, events and digital experiences.
As the NFT conversation moved towards the metaverse, voices like Matty's helped connect NFTs with the much bigger idea of living and interacting online. He was identified as an Australia-based NFT commentator by Decrypt during the 2021 boom.
Kevin Rose
Kevin Rose came from the technology world rather than the traditional art world. He had been involved in internet culture for many years before NFTs arrived and became an early collector of CryptoPunks.
His interest helped connect the NFT movement with an older generation of internet builders and digital communities.
He later became particularly associated with digital art and collecting through PROOF, as well as his podcasts and conversations about crypto and digital culture.
Andrew Wang
Andrew Wang became another familiar voice during the NFT boom. His Twitter account was a mixture of NFT culture, commentary and community conversation.
What I find interesting about people like Andrew is that they represent a slightly different side of NFT Twitter. They weren't necessarily traditional art critics. They were part of the culture itself, talking about what was happening as it happened.
That was one of the unusual things about the NFT movement.
The critics, collectors, artists and audience were often all standing in the same place.
XCOPY
It is also worth mentioning XCOPY, although he was an artist rather than a commentator in the traditional sense.
His Twitter presence became an important part of the culture surrounding his work. His dark, glitchy and often unsettling digital artworks became almost inseparable from the atmosphere of early crypto art.
XCOPY's work also showed that NFT art did not have to look like traditional art transferred onto a blockchain. It could be strange, digital, internet-native and completely of its time.
Why Twitter mattered
Looking back, it is easy to underestimate how important Twitter was to the movement.
There were no established rules for how NFT art was supposed to be discussed. There weren't many museums devoted to it, and most traditional art critics were still trying to work out what NFTs actually were.
So the community largely talked to itself. Artists found collectors. Collectors found artists. People recommended projects to one another. Arguments happened in public. New ideas spread incredibly quickly.
Twitter Spaces later added another dimension, allowing thousands of people to listen to live conversations about art, collecting, technology and the future of the internet.
Some of the people involved became extremely influential. Others disappeared as the market changed. Some continued building in digital art and Web3, while others moved into completely different areas.
That is one of the reasons I think these voices are worth remembering.
They were not all right about what NFTs would become.
Nobody could have been.
They were trying to understand something while it was happening, and perhaps that is what makes the old Twitter conversations so interesting now. They are a record of what people believed before we knew how the story would unfold.
