12 Oct 2023/41 min/Astram (Collector’s Corner)
MLow X Astram (Collector’s Corner)
A collector-media operator explains how he reads the October 2023 bear market, why AI art is Costco art, and how taste itself is an investment signal.
Astram runs Collector's Corner, a media company that grew from a podcast into a newsletter, live shows, Twitter Spaces and a private paid Discord for collectors who want a more critical, investment-aware view of crypto art. He has followed crypto since late 2016, which makes him and MLow, as they joke, the old guys in the space. The conversation is a collector to collector exchange recorded over Google Meet and never published.
The spine of it is his bear market thesis: prices nobody thought possible, blue chip generative collections (Fidenzas, Ringers, Chromie Squiggles, Gazers, Memories of Qilin) sitting cheap, and newer artists undervalued only because they released after the bull run liquidity left. He walks through his own collection, from William Mapan's Anticyclone to Roope Rainisto's Life in West America, and lands his sharpest idea on AI: commercial text-to-image tools make Costco level art, good quality at a low price, while value accrues to artists who build custom models and push past the commercial tools.
The back half turns reflective: why he chose a pseudonym after a stay in a Nepalese village called Astam, where he sits on the spectrum between fully doxxed and Punk6529, and his cleanest investing heuristic, that if you genuinely love a work in a market of ten people, a market ten times bigger will contain ten times as many people who love it too.
What this episode teaches
- The Costco test for AI art
Astram argues commercial text-to-image tools like Midjourney produce seven to eight out of ten quality at four to five out of ten price, Costco art. Value in art accrues at the 9.5 to 10 level, which still requires custom models, custom data and hundreds of hours, the way Roope Rainisto made Life in West America.
- Taste is the investment signal
His core heuristic: if you really, really like something in a tiny market, some share of every new entrant will like it too. Genuine personal response, scaled by market growth, beats trying to predict trends.
- Separate the collecting brain from the investing brain
Below a small dollar threshold Astram buys with no thesis at all, minting fifteen of an fxhash project at ten tezos each just because he liked it. Only above that line does he ask whether the money needs to retain value.
- Late releasers are mispriced, not worse
Artists who missed having a marquee collection during the bull run are cheaper through no fault of their own. Astram hunts there: names he gave include Cory Haber, Tyler Boswell on fxhash at roughly 500 tezos, and Olga Fradina.
- On chain status needs to be legible
He wants all his art at the on chain level of permanence but says the industry fails to label what is actually on chain versus IPFS, and likewise whether a generative mint is pre-curated or random. Collectors cannot demand what they cannot see.
- Pseudonymity is a spectrum, reputation is not
He describes levels from fully doxxed to Punk6529, placing himself in between, findable if you try. Whatever level you pick, he argues you need permanence and a track record; being a different person every day destroys the reputation that lets people trust you.
- Anyone can become art media now
Because digital art can be displayed, pointed to and shared without gallery space, the roles of curator and storyteller are open. Astram built a media business on exactly that, and notes he and MLow are both proof.
The conversation, topic by topic
What Collector's Corner is
Astram describes a media company and community: a podcast that branched into a newsletter, shows and Twitter Spaces, plus a private Discord, about eighteen months old at recording, for collectors who want to stay on trends and take a more critical view, including those treating art as an investment. He has followed crypto since late 2016.
Reading the October 2023 bear market
He calls it a great time to collect anything: he spent most of his liquidity on art before the bear worsened, but sees blue chips (Fidenzas, Ringers, Chromie Squiggles, Gazers, Memories of Qilin) at prices people did not think possible, citing a nice Fontana picked up for two ether. Generative 1/1s, he hears, are very cheap and felt to be undervalued.
Newer artists without a bull run marquee
His value pocket: artists who released after liquidity left. He names Cory Haber, whose new release plots with oil paint instead of pen and ink, Tyler Boswell on fxhash at around 500 tezos (a little under 400 dollars), Olga Fradina, an artist he calls roughly Anna Beller, and a Feral File exhibition opening that day.
What he bought during the bull
William Mapan's Anticyclone pulled him into generative art, plus Mapan's Dragons on fxhash, a collection he calls roughly Factora, a Kim Asendorf Monogrid, Memories of Qilin, friendship bracelets, Ori by James Merrill, and Roope Rainisto's Life in West America. He likes one of X sets with a shared throughline, and mentions Refik Anadol's Winds of Yawanawa revealing at the time.
Physical display and the Sotheby's Grails auction
MLow praises how Sotheby's displayed Ringers and Fidenzas with a physical element; Astram agrees that printing and displaying tokenized art reminds people it is still art, not just crypto, and both note collectors, curators and media roles are being rethought in the open.
AI art and the Costco analogy
Astram separates commodity text-to-image output (seven to eight out of ten quality at bargain price) from the 9.5 to 10 tier where value accrues. Rainisto spent hundreds of hours on custom models, his own photography and heavy post-processing. He floats blockchain proof of process, citing Matt Kane's talk of sharing creation process as part of the work, so artists can prove AI was or was not used.
On chain versus IPFS
On chain art is really cool and underappreciated, he says, the highest level of permanence and where he wants all his art, though he still collects work he loves that is not there. He predicts a stressful recovery event around IPFS files someday, notes Ordinals' file size advantages for inscribing on a Satoshi (MLow's point), and wants clear labeling of on chain status and of curated versus random generative mints.
Why he is called Astram
The name comes from Astam, a village in the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal where he stayed just before Covid, got stranded three weeks, and woke up in the middle of clouds. He picked a pseudonym mostly to understand why everyone in Web3 had one.
Wish list artists
Outside his collection Astram wants a Dmitri Cherniak Light Years (his favorite Cherniak collection despite Ringers' fame), a Grant Yun 1/1, an Alpha Centauri Kid skull piece (MLow supplies The Great Color Study), and a Fidenza. MLow counters that his next buys will come from artists he has interviewed: Grant Yun, Jake Fried, David Henry Nobody Jr, Max Osiris, Sara Baumann, sarah script and Amber Vittoria.
Pseudonymity and reputation
Astram, born in India and soft doxxed (findable on LinkedIn), compares his setup to a security camera nobody checks. He would write about healthcare, his professional field, only pseudonymously to avoid establishment blowback, but insists a persistent track record is what lets people connect with and trust you. A tangent covers India renaming itself Bharat and whether Punk6529 is Indian.
His collection as one story
Asked to string his pieces into a single tale, he calls it an exploration of aesthetic: from left brain long form code based work, to motion, to the AI photography fusion of Life in West America, now edging into conceptual work through Terraforms. He describes speed running decades of visual exposure, having come to art through Web3 rather than the traditional world.
Theses on where art goes next
His investing thesis is artists pushing the medium: an AR installation by an artist he calls roughly Monster Mike with figures dancing on real walls, Kim Asendorf's pixel sorting, an audiovisual generative artist he names roughly as Beretta, Natural Static by Jonathan Chomko, and Terraforms' use of the blockchain itself, which he says most people rightfully do not yet understand.
In their words
“I think you go to Costco, you're gonna get something that's seven to eight out of ten quality at four to five out of ten price. Really the value will accrue at the 9.5 to 10.”
Astram“You can have your cake and eat it too. You can find exciting new art, you can be the first one to discover it, or if you really want to make money, you can do that too.”
Astram“If you really, really like it, there's probably some other people who really, really like it. And if the market grows, there's gonna be more people who really, really like it.”
Astram“The next few pieces I'm buying are probably going to be from artists that I've interviewed, just because their stories have really resonated with me.”
MLowCite this conversation
Astram (Collector’s Corner) in conversation with MLow, "MLow X Astram (Collector’s Corner)," The MLow Show, unaired recording, 12 Oct 2023. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2023-10-12-mlow-x-astram-collector-s-corner.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.