21 Aug 2024/48 min/Richard Skeet
Interview with Richard Skeet, Managing Partner of @HivemindCap 🖼️
Hivemind Capital's Richard Skeet explains how an institutional fund defines blue chip crypto art, why it deliberately went second, and how it anchors collections with one of ones nobody can replicate.
Richard Skeet, managing partner at Hivemind Capital since Q3 2022, is a former credit investor whose original calling was development; he still writes Solidity and moonlights as a full stack web3 dev. His framing for the Digital Culture Fund sets the episode's terms: they curate blue chip art through the medium of NFTs, and NFT is just a medium, though he immediately concedes that undersells it, since the medium adds authenticity, provenance, digital fidelity and an enhanced design space. The fund is candidly capitalist, but it is not whipping around monkey pictures; the portfolio runs from on chain Art Blocks algorithms (which delight the ex-coder in him) to Winds of Yawanawa and XCOPY.
Pressed by MLow on how anyone calls art blue chip in a space this young, Skeet lays out the fund's whole apparatus. Digital art divides into chapters (generative, AI, digital culture, glitch), and the test for blue chip is time and cultural persistence: Fidenzas discussed on Twitter daily for years, XCOPY and Punks woven into the tapestry of digital culture, works that passed through evening sales at Sotheby's and Christie's and that other artists cite as inspiration. He invokes the Lindy effect, admits he could be wrong, and explains that going second, after pioneers like Starry Night and VVD whom he sincerely thanks, bought Hivemind better prices and freedom from deciding in the heat of a mania. The sharpest lesson from earlier collectors: venture style diversification resolves poorly in art, because tastes are made through time; concentrate on what persisted and size emerging bets small.
The mechanics follow: a curation thesis argued out up front, a research curator with a Courtauld master's and Sotheby's Contemporary experience, an internal grading system, and a target of roughly eight core collections, each anchored by line of sight to a one of one precedent or successor piece, like holding Return Zero, the algorithm that led to Fidenza, alongside a mono white Fidenza, making the collection impossible to replicate. MLow holds his own throughout: he volunteers his thesis that AI works timestamp their model, so pieces from less used models will grow rarer than consensus model output, critiques generative wallpaper while praising Art Blocks, and presses the point that direct artist access is the structural difference from galleries. Skeet closes with the long view: a 50 million dollar target more than half raised, a five to eight year horizon, art lending to make unproductive assets productive, and the zero to one moment when we stop saying digital art and just say art.
What this episode teaches
- NFT is just a medium
Skeet's framing separates the token from the content: the fund is in it for the art, and the medium's actual contributions are authenticity, provenance, digital fidelity and an enhanced design space. Leading with the art defuses the monkey picture stigma when talking to institutions.
- Blue chip means cultural persistence
His working definition for a young category: sustained daily discourse over years, passage through evening sales at Sotheby's and Christie's, and, most tellingly, other artists citing the work as inspiration. Peer reverence is the signal that survives price, and Lindy does the rest.
- Going second is a strategy
Entering after the pioneering funds bought Hivemind better prices and removed the pressure of bidding in the heat of the moment, while the public writings and private lessons of earlier collectors were free to study. He thanks Starry Night and VVD by name for blazing the trail.
- Diversification resolves poorly in art
Treating an art portfolio like venture, betting an artist might explode, offers little confidence because tastes are made through time and will not resolve within a fund's life. Concentrate capital in what has already persisted; hold emerging pieces only at small size.
- Do the argument up front
The curation thesis was iterated for months through internal debate, with a research curator from the traditional art world (Courtauld master's, Sotheby's Contemporary) supplying qualitative judgment and an internal grading system setting allocation, so purchases are not relitigated piece by piece.
- Anchor collections with unreplicable one of ones
For each chapter the fund wants line of sight to a precedent or successor one of one: holding Return Zero, the algorithm that inspired Fidenza, next to its Fidenzas means no one can copy the collection. Sum the parts eight or ten times and the scarcity of the whole becomes obvious.
- Living with the art onboards people
Prints and token frames in the office change how visitors see the work; the conversion happens when a skeptic realizes it is just artists making art. He wants people at dinner to see a Fidenza on a wall and ask where it came from, and recommends the book Your Brain on Art on why that emotional experience matters.
- Openness compounds value here
Credit investing is sharp elbowed secrecy; in digital art Hivemind wants to tell everyone what it owns, because exposure helps the artists, the space and the investors at once. The one exception: keep quiet about a target until the anchor one of ones are secured.
- Productive assets raise every ceiling
Private banks already lend against traditional art portfolios; digital art has NFT-fi but banks cannot touch it. Skeet sees room for OTC bilateral lending against large collections, unlocking liquidity, proving floors are real, and expanding the space, which raises the ceiling on everything.
The conversation, topic by topic
A credit investor who codes
Skeet joined Hivemind in Q3 2022 after a long career as a credit investor, but development was his original calling: he still writes Solidity and moonlights as a full stack web3 dev. MLow matches him hat for hat, business and impact investing degrees plus an art practice, and Skeet answers that the world is too small and life too short not to keep interesting things in it.
The fund's posture
The Digital Culture Fund curates blue chip art through the medium of NFTs; the medium adds authenticity, provenance, digital fidelity and an enhanced design space. They are capitalists serving investors, but the point is the portfolio: on chain Art Blocks algorithms embedded in Ethereum, animated works like Winds of Yawanawa, and XCOPY pieces showing what the design space allows.
MLow's model rarity thesis
Invited by Skeet to say where his artist mind goes, MLow describes the blockchain as canvas and his practice as AI generative one of ones and one of X collections where every piece is unique, affordable only because of AI. His collecting thesis: AI art timestamps which model was used, so works from less used models will end up rarer than consensus model output. Skeet calls it a genuine revelation enabled by the space, adding that everyone loves owning something unique.
Wallpaper and detail
MLow, who loves Art Blocks, offers a hedged critique: across the fifty plus curated and playground collections some works could hang in a hotel as wallpaper and blend in perfectly, where AI pieces tend to carry more detail. The point is offered as contrast, not mockery, and feeds the discussion of what curation must filter.
Custody the hard way
Discussing barriers to entry, from seed phrases on fridges to Nifty Gateway's credit card onramp, Skeet describes Hivemind's institutional discipline: multisig, multiple sets of eyes, painfully whitelisted transfers, thousands of transactions moved without incident. Doing it the hard way is the product: an institutional bridge for capital that cannot afford to get custody wrong once.
Direct access to living artists
MLow recalls his unlock: buying a secondary piece around 2019 or 2020 and being followed by the living artist immediately, versus the layers of separation in galleries and museums. Skeet agrees: collect Refik Anadol at scale and you will talk to Refik or his team, and he vouches for Anadol as a lovely, enthusiastic person. Both note the space's collaborative openness against TradFi secrecy.
Defining blue chip
Accepting MLow's challenge on the term, Skeet divides digital art into chapters (generative, AI, digital culture, glitch) and applies the test of time: Fidenzas discussed daily for years, XCOPY and Punks established in the culture, works with evening sale provenance that other artists look up to. He invokes the Lindy effect, as with Bitcoin, and concedes he could be wrong about Fidenza in five years, but is pretty confident he is not.
Going second and the diversity trap
He credits the high profile collectors who went first, naming Starry Night and VVD, for shaping the market Hivemind now enters at better prices and without heat of the moment buying. The core lesson taken from predecessors: diversity sounds good but is hard to resolve, because tastes are made through time, so the fund concentrates in persistence and keeps emerging exposure small to protect investors.
Eight collections with line of sight
The fund aims at roughly eight core collections, each chosen to exemplify a chapter and each ideally anchored by a one of one precedent or successor: alongside its Fidenzas, including a mono white, Hivemind holds Return Zero, the algorithm that inspired Fidenza, and was selected as the private collector for a related Tyler Hobbs piece connected to a LACMA collaboration. Anchored that way, the collection cannot be replicated, and power laws send value to the most desirable pieces.
Symbiosis with artists
Relationships run both ways: artists see who is buying, and the fund offers connections to new geographies, future collectors and even its own LPs. Hivemind also asks artists what inspired them, which exhibition or design book hooked them, so it can acquire ancillary supporting pieces that deepen the collection's story and value.
The long view and the display problem
The horizon is five to eight years, and his confident call is long term: the zero to one moment comes when we stop saying digital art and just say art, as tech generated wealth flows into culture. He cites the UBS art report showing high net worth collectors already hold about 15 percent digital art, in line with photography, and names display as the choke point, answered with office prints of Fidenzas and Ringers, token frames, and the emotional case made in the book Your Brain on Art.
Institutions, regulation and lending
Hivemind sits under UK regulation with Deloitte as auditors, courting the hard stuff deliberately so institutions see a safe pair of hands. For family offices that own contemporary but no digital art, it is a yet problem of access and custody. His structural idea: private banks lend against traditional art but cannot touch NFTs, so OTC bilateral lending against large digital collections could make unproductive assets productive, prove floors, and expand the whole space.
Ancillary collections and goals
Wearing an OSF red T-shirt, he explains ancillary holdings that support the core: OSF as a glitch artist in the XCOPY lineage, XCOPY one of ones with real provenance, and Grifters, still desirable to a web3 subculture through thick and thin. The fund targets 50 million dollars and is over halfway. Long term he wants the market ten times bigger, more funds, collectors and artists, supported by Hivemind's venture investment in TRLab, with returns driven by provable scarcity and the uneven, power law distribution of future value.
In their words
“The world is too small and too short the time on it to not have interesting things in our lives.”
Richard Skeet“NFT is just a medium. We're here and in it for the content.”
Richard Skeet“Tastes are made through time.”
Richard Skeet“We get the zero to one moment when we stop talking about digital art. We just talk about art, and it's just another medium.”
Richard Skeet“By expanding the space you raise the ceiling on all items, and that's how everyone can build.”
Richard SkeetCite this conversation
Richard Skeet in conversation with MLow, "Interview with Richard Skeet, Managing Partner of @HivemindCap 🖼️," The MLow Show, 21 Aug 2024. https://show.mlow.xyz/e/2024-08-21-interview-with-richard-skeet-managing-partner-of-hivemindcap.html. Quoted from a machine transcript.
Quotations come from machine transcripts. Check wording against the audio before republishing.