The Guild

The Guild was an independent, self funded, artist led collective founded on Ethereum in the third quarter of 2020, during the pandemic. The original group formed around large scale art collaborations and went through a change in leadership within months; it was reformed in late December 2020 under a new core team of four. The collective described itself as the first known Non Fungible Organisation, an NFO, and as the first non blockchain specific hybrid DAO. It had no venture backing and no token of its own, and said it ran on proof of work by its core team instead. Its method was simple and unusual: take dozens of artists who had often never met, hand each of them a section of a shared canvas, and assemble the results into one dynamic piece, usually minted on Async Art where individual layers could be sold and switched. Roughly 70 percent of its collaborations brought in guest artists from outside the membership, including Coldie, Robness, Matt Kane, Julia Ponsford, Sparrow and Angie Taylor. Sale proceeds were split by a published chart, with 75 percent to the artists on the piece and 10 percent to an Upliftment Initiative wallet for charitable causes. It partnered with Async Art, Charged Particles, SuperRare, the Museum of Crypto Art, Decentral Games, SportsIcon, Onessus and Wallkanda, and exhibited with CAFA Art Museum and NEAL Gallery. It ran until December 2022.

The Guild produced large multi artist collaborative artworks, mostly as dynamic Async Art masters split into sellable layers, plus nested NFTs on Charged Particles and card series on other chains. Each project assigned artists a region or a character and merged the results into one canvas, so the finished work carried dozens of individual styles at once. Named projects include Year of the 0x, Mariupol, Alicia in Technoland, Void Supernaturals, Pandora's Box and Tomorrow Never Comes. Proceeds were split by a published distribution chart weighted to the participating artists.

• Calling itself the first Non Fungible Organisation, or NFO, and the first non blockchain specific hybrid DAO
• Year of the 0x, a 38 artist Async Art master made for the Lunar Ox year
• Mariupol, a 38 artist Guernica inspired work made in three weeks to raise funds for the Voices of Children foundation
• Alicia in Technoland, its first animated NFT, made by 38 artists over six months
• Void Supernaturals, a 32 character card series with Onessus, interpreted by 13 Guild artists
• A distribution chart paying 75 percent to the artists and 10 percent to an Upliftment Initiative wallet

On the show