Torsten Sauer

🚀 Alba is launching! gm generative artists and collectors. Next week, Alba opens up for anyone to release their code-based generative art on Ethereum mainnet! The Artist Dashboard is already open to start setting up — just connect your wallet to get started. This summer, we had an incredible beta period ☀️. Over about 6 weeks, we launched 21 projects from artists all over the world. From well-known names, first-time artists and everyone in between. We saw over 1500 people mint beautiful artworks, generating over ~$400,000 in volume. A truly incredible start for the platform. Thank you all. After that period, we took some time to apply some learnings from the beta. It would not have been sustainable to open the platform up without making some changes. In the past few months, we've focused heavily on enhancing the artist experience, and we can’t wait to hear what you think about it. Alba’s mission has always been about providing the best possible experience for artists and collectors, and we’d like to share our plans for how we’re going to continue to do that. Above all, our focus is on sustainability and longevity. Alba is run by a very small team, and the beta period showed us that we have a good shot at making a truly sustainable platform. We have quietly watched multiple other platforms raise millions of dollars from the community or from VCs, try and pump it into growth, and end up needing to lay-off staff or shutting down entirely, leaving artists with massive uncertainty about what will happen to their work, and leaving collectors feeling rugged once again. Alba is completely self-funded and has no requirement to generate growth or profits. We’re not anti-VC and we’re not saying we’ll never raise money, but at our core we believe in building something sustainable which artists can trust will be here for the long-term. With your help, we think we can make that a reality. On to the fun stuff! Let us share some of the improvements that we’ve made. We totally revamped our contracts, and they’re now ready to help Alba grow into new experiences. As always, contracts are completely owned by the artists, but now they also support: ✨ Enhanced artist control - ability to modify sale settings after deployment, reduce unsold supply, and release unused reserves. 👵 Preservation features - we can record metadata about browsers, licences, and other information which will help ensure your collection can be enjoyed forever. 📉 Exponential auctions (and we simplified things by removing unused sale mechanics). ⏱️ New models like time-limited (open) editions and short form (artist-curated pieces). Our Artist Dashboard and project publishing flow now also has the ability to run checks to ensure your work is fully compatible with the platform. We’ve addressed numerous UX issues brought up in the beta, and we’ve added pre-built starter templates for working with the most popular libraries and languages. We’re just getting started here, so expect a lot more improvements soon. If you’re an artist, we’d love to see you start setting up your projects to get them ready to launch! Thank you to everyone who has helped us get to this point, and we’re truly looking forward to seeing the amazing art that you all create.