AVAX Coins — A Brief History
Over the past couple of months, NFTs on Avalanche have seen explosive growth. It seems like every week there are new NFT projects. But even before classics like CryptoSeals, a small but passionate Avalanche community from 4chan’s /biz/ were trading NFTs on Avalanche’s x-chain.
One artist, in particular, stood out; affectionately dubbed “Coinbro” by posters, he was the artist behind the now-iconic Avalanche-themed collectible coins on the x-chain. Although eventually banned by the janitors of /biz/, he has now resurfaced after many months of hard work to release a new and improved AVAX coin collection.
In this article, I will cover the story behind AVAX coins and Coinbro. I hope that my article can provide the necessary context to understand the significance and storied origin of AVAX coins.
From Custom Signatures to /biz/ Martyr
Coinbro first began making digital art for users on forums like Gametrailers.com, creating custom signatures as well as entering several photoshop contests. After discovering NFTs last winter, Coinbro began brainstorming several NFT ideas, including collectibles and coins. However, being an NFT artist on Ethereum was prohibitively expensive. Back then, “to mint a single NFT I would have to pay around $15–20 in gas fees, and I’d have to pay that same amount every time I wanted to send one to someone.”
Dissuaded by the high gas prices of Ethereum, Coinbro decided to get involved in creating NTFs on Avalanche’s x-chain. Initially discovering the Avalanche community on /biz/ in march, Coinbro soon thereafter started making prototype coins asking for feedback from the /biz/ community.
“In early March I started making some Avalanche themed coins and posted a few asking what people thought. People really liked the idea, so I worked on some more designs to build up a collection. Once I had a handful of designs ready, I went to the AVAX Wallet to mint them.” -Coinbro
However, there was a problem. Because the x-chain was not a smart contract chain, trustless distribution via a mint function was impossible. To overcome this technical roadblock, /biz/ posters ingeniously handled minting and distribution via a rudimentary lottery system. It worked like this:
- The NFT artist would first create a post to announce the giveaway with their wallet address to identity them.
- Anons would then respond to the post with their x-chain address
- If their reply’s post number ended with two of the same number, (dubs), or three of the same number (trips), the artist would then send them an NFT to the x-chain address listed in the post.
Coinbro in the wild
Utilizing this lottery system based on post number, Coinbro began giving away his AVAX coins. AVAX coins quickly became one of the most coveted NFTs among the avalanche community on /biz/. I remember waiting for Coinbro to post, hoping to roll dubs or even trips to get one. There was something heartwarming and pure about the giveaways done during that time. The community organically arose out of a shared passion for the project and technology. In total, Coinbro gave away a few thousand AVAX coins, making over 700 transactions.
However, it was not meant to last. After some time, the moderators/janitors of the /biz/ board, probably because they never got any good rolls, decided to ban our beloved Coinbro from the board. Forced to move to Twitter under the handle @avaxcoins, Coinbro met up with other NFT artists and began doing work for other projects such as Husky. It was during this time that Coinbro got in touch with meta, the founder of Avaware over Telegram. Meta immediately took to the designs and decided to help build out a website for distribution of a full collection despite Avaware itself being brand new. Meta recalls that,
“I [initially] met Coinbro on telegram, he sent me an assortment of coin styles, all stamped with the Avaware logo. They were so detailed you’d think you could pick them off the screen! anyway, we ended up chatting and i mentioned i could help him get a website up and running” -meta
The C-Chain Collection
Coinbro first began by remaking the coin cases, improving the resolution and quality of textures of the cases,
“I spent about a week compiling dozens of images for coin grading cases that I could work with. Once I had these images, I found pieces from them that I could use to make a great looking template, combining and modifying elements to get a case that had the right proportions to fit each coin and the information/watermark. I tried some different textures for the information card on the case and experimented with different text effects so it would look like each coin’s information was printed on a piece of paper. “
Next came the coin designs themselves. As Coinbro explains, “any time I had an idea for a coin design or name for a coin I would write it down… my idea for the Koi coin came from watching a video one night about Koi farms and competitions.” For the Jubilee coin, Coinbro took inspiration from the Rolex Submariner, making an “AVAX equivalent to a Jubilee dial.”
“Koi” and “Jubilee” AVAX Coins
Months later, the c-chain collection has been released and it’s apparent that Coinbro has been hard at work over the past couple months. There is an abundance of variety and a dizzying attention to detail in the coins. My personal favorites include coins like “Atlantis” and “Iridescent.” The design of “Atlantis” reminds me of the stargates from the Stargate series and “Iridescent” just looks really cool.
“Atlantis” and “Iridescent” two of my personal favorites
Reflecting on his journey as a NFT artist Coinbro writes,
“It’s been a crazy year to go from learning what NFTs are to having a dedicated website for AVAX Coins, with so many things having to line up perfectly to get here. The positive reactions I got on /biz/ from my initial designs motivated me to create the original collection. Getting banned by the [janitors of /biz/] led me to become a part of the AVAX Twitter community, and messaging meta who was nice enough to offer the expertise of the Avaware team led to avaxcoins.com.“
AVAX coins can be minted and traded at avaxcoins.com
