7 Aug 2024/21 min/Trevor Jones
MLow X Trevor Jones Interview
Painter Trevor Jones walks through Crypto Angels, his bronze, ordinals and video game universe, and the 2018 gamble that made him a crypto art pioneer.
Trevor Jones, Canadian born and based in Edinburgh for about 25 years, graduated from art school in 2008 and got into crypto in 2017. His origin story is the show's cleanest case of betting before a market existed: at the end of 2017 he searched for any artist or gallery combining crypto and art, found nothing, and still invested roughly a year of work and his own money into a crypto themed physical exhibition, hiring the gallery himself with no evidence anyone in Edinburgh would buy. Posting works in progress on Twitter drew collectors from around the world who paid in Bitcoin and Ethereum months before the October 2018 show closed, and he sold all but one of roughly 12 to 14 paintings. The Bitcoin Angel painting from that period became the February 2021 Nifty Gateway open edition that placed 4,158 editions and built his collector community overnight.
The current project, Crypto Angels, is the most elaborate physical digital construction he has attempted: 21 bronze cast archangel sculptures with handmade oak display boxes from a cabinet maker outside Amsterdam, sold through the Brooklyn auction house Tribal; 3D avatar identities built with Nick at Apollo Entertainment; and an army of 7,777 pixel art ordinals commanded by the archangels, pixel art chosen because ordinals inscription costs scale with file size. Tribal's custody mechanism supplies the episode's sharpest idea: take physical delivery of a sculpture and the tethered NFT locks and cannot be sold until the bronze returns to storage, unlike NFC chip approaches where physical and digital can drift apart. He is frank that bronze logistics (humidity, air freight, customs, insurance) nearly broke him, saying if he had known the challenges he might never have started.
From there the conversation widens: web3 art trends move a hundred times faster than the ten year cycles of traditional movements, and he likens crypto art to the didactic visual language early religions built, with artists a century from now building on it. He credits castle parties and IRL time as how he decides whom to trust and work with at 54, recounts collaborations with Alotta Money, Pak, Ice Cube and Good Charlotte, describes ETH Boy's roughly 200 ETH secondary sale to the fund 1Confirmation, and details his AI assisted painting process and the Dante's Pixel Inferno retro game built with his longtime developer David Oxley. His closing advice runs on hard experience: be unique, take risks, and persevere, because he was 48 before his art gave him any financial stability.
What this episode teaches
- Publish the process and the market appears
In 2018, before any NFT marketplace mattered, Jones sold most of his crypto themed show by posting works in progress on Twitter; buyers worldwide prepaid in Bitcoin or Ethereum and waited months for shipping. He found the market by publishing, not by waiting for infrastructure.
- Bet a year before the market exists
He invested about a year of unpaid work and hired a gallery for a crypto art exhibition with no evidence a market existed, and none in Edinburgh. The show sold all but one painting, and he calls the willingness to take that risk, year after year, the reason he is where he is.
- Lock the token to the object
Tribal's mechanism answers the physical digital tethering problem: the NFT is the certificate of authenticity, and taking physical delivery locks the token from sale until the sculpture returns to bonded storage. Unlike NFC chips, physical and digital fundamentally cannot be split.
- The chain shapes the art
He chose pixel art for the 7,777 Crypto Angels ordinals because inscription costs on Bitcoin scale with file size. The medium decision was economic, a concrete case of infrastructure dictating aesthetics.
- Budget physical logistics as their own project
Bronze weight, oak boxes sensitive to humidity, ruled out sea freight, expensive air freight, customs, duties, insurance and delays: he says if he had known the challenges he might not have started, and plans time off from physicals.
- One work can build a whole community
The 4,158 edition Bitcoin Angel open edition immediately assembled a collector base, and many collectors tell him it was their first NFT. A single accessible work turned a painting into a community and a brand.
- Trust is built in person
Online friendships only harden into working trust after real life time: dinners, whole events, seeing people sober and drunk. He now limits collaborations to people he has met IRL, which is why he runs castle parties.
- Be unique, then persevere
Chasing the flavor of the month earns little money and no joy; find what excites you and build a community around it. He was 48 before art gave him financial stability, and warns that even good years can be followed by three bad ones, so keep the day job if the family needs it, as Mondrian painted flowers to pay bills.
The conversation, topic by topic
From Edinburgh art school to crypto
Jones is Canadian, in Scotland about 25 years, with a 2008 art degree from Edinburgh, mostly a full time artist while taking jobs to pay for the expensive habit of painting. He entered crypto in 2017, made crypto themed paintings with augmented reality, and was in NFTs by 2019.
The 2018 gamble
Finding no other artists or galleries exploring crypto art at the end of 2017, he spent about a year of work and money on a crypto themed physical exhibition, hiring the gallery himself. Works in progress posted to Twitter sold before the show opened, paid in Bitcoin and Ethereum by collectors who waited until the October close for shipping; he sold all but one of 12 to 14 paintings and says it completely blew his mind that this audience existed.
Physical and digital as complements
He tells MLow digital art will never supersede or obsolete traditional art; each has its place, and the junction is what excites him, citing the Bitcoin Angel bronze as high culture and fine art meeting digital collectibles. What crypto adds for traditional artists is community and brand, blurring the lines between creator and audience, with collectors invited to help design future Crypto Angels elements.
The Bitcoin Angel community
The original painting began at the end of 2017; the February 2021 Nifty Gateway open edition placed 4,158 editions and immediately built a collector community. Many collectors call it their first NFT, and he says he brought them, for better or worse, on the crypto adventure. The new ordinals drop is designed to give back to those holders while expanding into the ordinals community.
Crypto Angels architecture
The project spans 21 bronze cast archangel sculptures (designs started about two and a half years earlier), oak display boxes handmade near Amsterdam, 3D avatar identities for each archangel built with Nick at Apollo Entertainment, and 7,777 pixel art ordinals as an army commanded by the archangels. Each archangel draws on scriptural research fitted to his own universe, with a symbolic color and one of 21 constellations chosen from the 88, linking every army member to its archangel through shield and background.
Bronze logistics
Shipping heavy bronze and humidity sensitive oak boxes from Scotland and the Netherlands to Tribal in Brooklyn ruled out slow sea freight, forcing costly air freight plus customs, duties, weight restrictions, specialist handling, insurance and delays. He admits that had he known the challenges he might never have started, and the digital component alone has taken about eight months with more to go.
The Tribal lock and unlock mechanism
Answering MLow's question about certificates of authenticity, Jones explains that an archangel owner who takes physical delivery has the tethered NFT locked from sale; to trade it they must return the sculpture to Tribal's storage. He contrasts this with Transient Labs NFC chip approaches, where physical and digital can still be sold apart, and notes he also minted the avatar stills and sculpture GLB file as an ERC-7160 package.
Trends at a hundred times speed
Traditional movements lasted a decade or more; in web3 what is hot changes every six months. He believes significant artists like XCOPY and Hackatao will remain important, and likens crypto art to early religious art: a new visual language for a new religion, didactic, symbol driven and community building, which artists over the next hundred years will build on as Bitcoin becomes a store of wealth or world currency.
Castle parties and IRL trust
Community building began as brand building after the Bitcoin Angel changed his life, but at 54 he says spending real time with people he likes is what his life is about now. Meeting someone through an entire event is the only way he learns whether he can trust them completely, and he now works mainly with people met in real life.
Collaborations and the ETH Boy sale
Working with Alotta Money was pure laughter and energy; Pak was strategic, minimal, academic and stressful, and he learned enormously from both. His synesthesia exhibitions of 2009 and 2010 prepared him for Ice Cube, where the work drew directly on lyrics as cultural commentary. ETH Boy, bought by Australian collector Max Stealth in 2020 for roughly 260 ETH, sold on secondary for about 200 ETH to Nick and Mike of the fund 1Confirmation, with Max Stealth keeping Jones informed throughout.
AI as painter's tool
Using AI since the Ice Cube collaboration in early 2021, he treats it as a creativity enhancer: where sketchbooks then Photoshop once handled composition, AI now generates variations fast, feeds his steampunk series drawing on Michelangelo's Last Judgment, and proposes color relationships he would never have chosen. He predicts nearly all traditional artists will use AI, taught in art colleges, with a permanent resistant faction, and welcomes AI assisted collaboration between artists.
Dante's Pixel Inferno
The Crypto Angels game, built with David Oxley, his tech collaborator of some 14 years, sends pixel angels through nine AI generated levels of Fiat hell toward final bosses. Twenty one crypto angel video game players drop on Base on the 24th at seven dollars each, played for high scores, prizes and bragging rights, extending the community layer of the project.
Advice: risk, uniqueness, perseverance
His closing counsel: do not follow the pack or chase trends, find your USP and build community around it. He reached financial stability at 48 after years of risk taking in conservative Edinburgh distanced him from galleries, and warns that great years can precede lean ones, so care for family first, as Mondrian painted flowers for bills while experimenting toward abstraction. Life as an artist is about being surprised, experimenting, and not getting precious.
In their words
“It completely blew my mind that there were people in the world interested in art and tech collaboration inspired by cryptocurrency.”
Trevor Jones“If I had known there'd be so many challenges, I don't know if I would have started in the first place.”
Trevor Jones“We are in essence creating a new visual language, in a way, for a new religion.”
Trevor Jones“Life is about being surprised. It's about challenging yourself. It's about seeing what happens.”
Trevor Jones“I was 48 years old when I first had any financial stability from my art.”
Trevor JonesCite this conversation
Trevor Jones in conversation with MLow, "MLow X Trevor Jones Interview," The MLow Show, 7 Aug 2024. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2024-08-07-mlow-x-trevor-jones-interview.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.