31 Aug 2023/16 min/Jordan Lyall
MLow X Jordan Lyall, Prohibition + Art Blocks
Jordan Lyall demos Heart + Craft live, his million supply collaboration with Snowfro, and explains how Prohibition turned Art Blocks Engine into an open platform.
Days after Heart + Craft launched, MLow gets its co-creator to walk through the whole project on a shared screen. Heart + Craft is what Lyall and Erick Snowfro Calderon call an inclusive edition: a 3D heart built from colored blocks, technically capped at a million but designed to stay mintable for a very long time, priced at 0.01 ETH (about sixteen and a half dollars at the time) so it feels like buying a board game rather than making an investment. Every NFT carries instructions for building the heart physically, and the pair deliberately baked those instructions into the blockchain so someone decades from now can still print, mix, paint and assemble one even if every company involved is gone.
The interview doubles as a maker tutorial. Lyall demos the hidden hotkeys (spacebar changes the background, M turns the heart metallic, I opens the instructions), downloads the STL file for a 3D printer, and explains the color system: 33 bright colors plus six grayscale shades, all mixable from three base paints, applied in two to four coats and glued row by row. He also unpacks the free mint list, 65,000 wallets spanning Art Blocks and Engine communities, CryptoPunk holders, PROOF pass holders and every experimental project he has touched, from the 2020 DeFi and NFT platform MEME to public domain raccoon photos and the Levels game Poppers with Bryan Brinkman, with Delegate integration so nobody has to connect cold storage.
The last stretch covers the collaboration itself and the platform underneath it. Snowfro is an investor in Lyall's company, so Lyall asked his blessing before building an open generative platform and got Art Blocks Engine as the foundation instead of a turf war. Snowfro had been making colored block art for over a decade; Lyall coded the 3D heart within days of their first conversation, then each stayed in his lane, vision and color logic from the artist, execution and productization from the builder. Prohibition itself already hosts over a hundred collections, and Lyall pitches it as the place to catch Genesis drops from newcomers, with events coming in Marfa and an LA kickoff party.
What this episode teaches
- Put the instructions on chain, not just the art
Most projects store the artwork on chain; Heart + Craft stores the means of reproduction. Lyall wanted someone decades from now to find the NFT and still be able to make the physical heart, so the build steps travel with the token rather than living on a company server.
- Price to a non crypto mental model
The target was always the twenty dollar range of an app, a board game or a craft kit, something you buy without budgeting. They set 0.01 ETH and plan to re-price against ETH volatility to hold that dollar feel, because the accessible price is the product decision.
- Ask the blessing before you compete
Because Snowfro invested in his company, Lyall approached him before launching an open generative platform. The conversation turned a potential conflict into Prohibition running on Art Blocks Engine, plus a flagship collaboration.
- Stay in your lane in a collab
Snowfro supplied artistic vision and the color logic; Lyall supplied code, execution and productization. Each lent insight across the line but mostly kept to his own side, which Lyall credits for how smooth the project was.
- Generative systems solve scale no hand can
Lyall did not believe a million hearts could be unique until Snowfro's color logic produced endlessly coordinated, seemingly intentional outputs. The rules, not the artist's hand, carry uniqueness at that supply.
- Free mints as a thank you machine
Rather than an allowlist as gatekeeping, they gave 65,000 wallets a free mint as gratitude to communities that mattered to them, and partnered with Delegate so claimers never expose a cold wallet. Generosity doubled as distribution.
- Inclusive editions invert scarcity
The point of a long open window and near unlimited supply is to widen the net and kill FOMO, proving NFTs can be an under twenty dollar experience instead of a large investment. Whoever wants one gets one.
- Open platforms are where Genesis work lives
Prohibition is permissionless and cheap to launch on, so it fills with experiments and first collections from newcomers alongside established Art Blocks and fxhash artists, a discovery surface for collectors hunting early work.
The conversation, topic by topic
What Heart + Craft is
An inclusive edition by Lyall and Snowfro on Prohibition: a 3D heart of individual blocks with rules governing color, pattern and size, technically capped at a million, kept open and cheap so it can be an accessible entry point into NFTs. Each NFT includes instructions for making the heart at home, and holders were already sharing physical builds within days of launch.
Kinship with Friendship Bracelets
MLow draws the line to Snowfro's Friendship Bracelets, and Lyall agrees: both bake making instructions into the NFT, both are about giving one to a friend, and both are steps in Snowfro's trajectory of proving NFTs can be a fun sub twenty dollar experience rather than a big investment.
The 65,000 wallet free mint
Lyall resists the words whitelist and allowlist since everyone can mint. Free claims went to holders of Art Blocks and anything launched on Art Blocks Engine (he cites Bright Moments, Pace and 9dcc era projects), CryptoPunk holders, day one PROOF Collective pass holders, MEME holders, his raccoons and Levels communities, and even his family's annual NFT Christmas cards. One free mint per wallet, with Delegate recommended so cold storage never touches the contract.
MEME and the DeFi days
In the summer of 2020, before Art Blocks, Lyall launched MEME (dontbuymeme.com) after a product career at ConsenSys: stake a fairly airdropped token, earn points, redeem points for NFTs, staking mechanics years before they were common. Artists like FEWOCiOUS and Jonathan Wolfe (names roughly transcribed) worked with the platform before their careers took off.
Raccoons and burn to evolve
In 2022 he released one hundred public domain raccoon photos as his first self written, self deployed Ethereum contract. A season two months before this interview added cartoon animals with a burn to evolve mechanic: burn two baby raccoons for a toddler, two toddlers for a teenager, and so on.
Levels and Poppers
His team also launched Levels, a platform and community, where Bryan Brinkman released Poppers, an interactive video game NFT. Cloud Popper holders got a free Heart + Craft mint, part of rewarding people who have trusted his experiments over the years.
The live demo
On prohibition.art Lyall spins the heart in 3D space and shows the Easter eggs: spacebar cycles background colors, M applies a metallic texture that plays off the spotlight, and I opens the instructions, the feature he says matters most.
How to build one at home
Four steps: print, mix, paint, assemble. The NFT links an STL file for any 3D printer (Lyall bought a good one for about 120 dollars); the palette is 33 bright colors and six grayscale shades, each named, mixable from three base paints; two to four coats, then glue row by row with a recommended adhesive. Standard filament takes paint best, and Shapeways, foam, wood or future kits work too. There is, he says, no wrong way to do it.
Pricing under twenty dollars
MLow asks how they price against crypto volatility. Lyall says the plan was always the 20 to 25 dollar retail range, they chose a round 0.01 ETH, about 16.50 at the time, and will adjust the ETH price to keep it near or under twenty dollars.
The retail box dream
The eventual goal is a boxed craft kit in a Target, craft store or museum gift shop: a family builds the heart, finds a card inside, and claims the NFT afterward. Lyall credits Snowfro's framing of digital optional, physical optional, where either half of the experience can stand alone.
How the Snowfro collab worked
Snowfro invested in Lyall's company; when Lyall pitched an open platform, Snowfro suggested Art Blocks Engine, the white labeled Art Blocks contracts and generator, as its foundation. Snowfro had played with colored block art for over a decade, Lyall coded a 3D heart within days of hearing the idea, then art direction and color logic came from Snowfro while Lyall's team handled execution. Lyall, a self described product guy, calls this the first time he became a creative coder.
Prohibition beyond Heart + Craft
The platform has been open about a month with over a hundred collections, including artists like Jimena Buena Vida and Ed Balloon alongside veterans of Art Blocks and fxhash, plus many Genesis collections from newcomers. Coming up: events at Marfa, plans around Basel, and a Heart + Craft kickoff party in LA on August 31.
In their words
“We wanted to bake it into the blockchain where, no matter how many years have passed, decades down the road, someone can come across this on the blockchain and make a heart themselves.”
Jordan Lyall“The digital piece is really the first half of this whole experience. The second half is building these things.”
Jordan Lyall“Is there a way to onboard people to NFTs by this cool box that they've been gifted?”
Jordan Lyall“I would lend insight into art and he would lend insight into code, but really, for the most part, we stayed in our lane.”
Jordan Lyall“I don't consider myself an artist. I'm more of a product guy, and a builder, and a company and community builder.”
Jordan LyallCite this conversation
Jordan Lyall in conversation with MLow, "MLow X Jordan Lyall, Prohibition + Art Blocks," The MLow Show, 31 Aug 2023. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2023-08-31-mlow-x-jordan-lyall-prohibition-art-blocks.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.