Collecting the artist: XCOPY

XCOPY is the category defining digital artist that helped shape the crypto art movement with his instantly recognizable style and early blockchain experimentation. Just as CryptoPunks are to collectibles, XCOPY is to crypto art.

His story is one about the rise of internet subcultures into the mainstream. From his beginnings in building an audience on Tumblr to achieving record sales in the digital art world, XCOPY’s journey mirrors how niche online communities have graduated from obscure corners of the internet to powerful forces in the world. His art is the byproduct of the internet, where creativity thrives from the freedom to explore niche passions and find your audience.

The pseudonymous artist was an early adopter of NFTs, one of the first to mint digital art on the blockchain and a voracious experimenter on new platforms. He is also perhaps the most notable digital artist to place CC0 rights on all of his artwork, a statement on the nature of digital art and ownership. Much like the avant-garde movements that came before him, XCOPY pushes boundaries, which forces us to confront questions about ownership, value, and permanence in the digital age.

In this editorial, we’ll cover a bit about the artist’s background, a deep dive into appreciating the artist and his works, and share how we’ve curated a collection of his 1/1 works at Curated.

XCOPY’s journey as an artist began in 2010, not in a gallery or museum, but on Tumblr — a blog posting platform that became a haven for unfiltered creativity and subculture. As George Tsiolis comments in this well written deep dive on XCOPY, the first set of works on Tumblr had many elements we’ve come to love about his art — glitchy, pixelated, and energetic, but some aspects that are no longer present, most notably the “femme female archetype”.

Over the following decade, XCOPY posted art consistently on Tumblr, missing only a single month. During that time, his style took shape: jagged, glitchy GIFs with vibrant neon colors teeming with digital life. His art embraced the internet’s chaos, capturing the essence of its culture. Recurring themes of death, dystopia, and decay emerged, offering a stark counterpoint to the often-polished aesthetics of traditional art. His works highlighted the darker aspects of the internet, reflecting the existential anxieties of an always connected digital world.

When blockchain technology emerged as a medium for art, XCOPY was among the first to embrace it. His initial exploration began on Ascribe, a now-defunct Bitcoin Layer 2 digital art platform. Some of the most notable pieces from this era are “Jesus Mob”, a 1/100 edition, and “The Departed”, the first 1/1 minted onto the blockchain by XCOPY.

In a detailed post from April 2018, artist and collector Joern Bielewski, known online as “Shortcut”, shared the experience of collecting an edition of “Jesus Mob”, the only edition of the 1/100 to be minted before Ascribe shut down. XCOPY decided against reminting “Jesus Mob” on Ethereum, instead replacing the piece with “Loading New Conflict…Redux 6” on SuperRare, a work now in the Curated collection.

In 2018, XCOPY became just the second artist to mint on SuperRare, with a collection of twelve works now referred to by collectors as the X12. He would continue to mint on nearly every digital art minting platform from the 2018-2022 era and continues to do so today.

Since that time period, XCOPY has become one of the highest selling and most notable digital artists in the world:

To appreciate XCOPY is to step into a vibrant, glitchy world that breaks norms and reflects the spirit of our digital age. His work isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s a critique, a statement, and a celebration of authenticity born from the internet.

XCOPY’s art is instantly recognizable. His use of digital glitches, chaotic animations, and neon palettes creates a sense of disorientation; all choices that mirror the frenetic energy of the internet.

His works have recurring themes of death and decay, not necessarily as a morbid fascination, but as a device to view modern absurdities. For XCOPY, death is a punchline and a warning. It reminds us of the frivolity of our everyday anxieties. He doesn’t shy away from life’s end, but uses it to challenge the systems that control human existence. “The Doomed”, one of his first works on KnownOrigin, features a skull with the tag line “Tech Wont Save Us” — a reminder that death always wins. “Max Pain”, his record breaking open edition on Nifty Gateway that sold over 5,700 editions, features his signature skull character in pain from losing money from financial market speculation. The absurdity of a dead figure agonizing over monetary loss underscores how obsessively we cling to material concerns even in the face of inevitable mortality.

XCOPY’s work and style can be placed within the context of the larger lineage of art movements and artists: the distorted human forms of Francis Bacon, the raw energy and use of symbols of Basquiat, and the foundations of the glitch and net art movement by pioneers such as Kim Asendorf and Rosa Menkman who elevated the imperfections and artifacts of digital media to an art form. We can view XCOPY as an artist who builds upon those movements with the added lens of internet and cryptonative subcultures.

In doing so, XCOPY has come to define the cryptoart aesthetic and inspire many other artists in the cryptoart movement, perhaps most notably AlphaCentauriKid.

Few artists are as experimental on the blockchain as XCOPY. Over the years, he has minted works on nearly every major platform, including Ascribe, PixelChain, KnownOrigin, Nifty Gateway, Digital Objects, SuperRare, and, most recently, Art Blocks. His constant exploration of new technologies shows his commitment to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, both creatively and technically.

XCOPY doesn’t just experiment with platforms—he experiments with how digital art is shared and valued. He’s experimented with layered NFTs on Async art, he’s released widely accessible open editions like “Max Pain” and “Mutatio”, and he’s placed all of his art under CC0 license. XCOPY constantly challenges our expectations of digital art. The artist’s ability to balance exclusivity with accessibility while staying authentic is one of his defining traits. His success has helped legitimize NFTs as a medium for serious artistic exploration.

XCOPY’s work resonates deeply with the crypto community by capturing its contradictions, chaos, and aspirations. Themes of financial speculation, societal decay, and materialistic anxieties are central to his pieces, all of which reflects the culture’s speculative nature. Works like “Right-Click and Save As Guy” are as much a critique of traditional art world skepticism as they are a celebration of the NFT movement’s disruptive potential. Other works, such as “The Death of Cash” in the Curated collection, capture the fighting spirit of the cryptocurrency movement.

The artist himself embodies the cypherpunk ideals that birthed the blockchain. He’s pseudonymous, he stores his crypto through self-custody (”’Not your keys, not your crypto’ was drilled into me early on in my crypto journey.”), and takes full control of his own story instead of relying on external platforms. Nowhere is that more evident than his website xcopy.art, which features the full onchain history of artworks on EVM blockchains.

XCOPY’s art celebrates the energy of crypto culture. His glitchy, unpolished style and dark humor encapsulate the anarchic ethos of the community. The artist’s work serves as both a critique and an anthem for the space, providing a shared visual language for its pioneers and enthusiasts.

XCOPY is the embodiment of the rise of internet subcultures. As outlined in David Chapman’s “Geeks, MOPs, and Sociopaths in Subculture Evolution”, XCOPY played the role of the “Geek” in crypto art, an early visionary whose works resonated with the niche, idealistic community of digital art enthusiasts.

As digital art gained visibility and financial value, those outside the original subculture came, drawn to the novelty and financial opportunity of NFTs. Even while XCOPY’s art started broking sales records, he carefully navigated the tension between authenticity and welcoming a broader audience.

One can interpret XCOPY’s decision to ultimately release works under the CC0 license in 2022 as intentional resistance against the “Socialpath” stage — the stage where opportunists commodify and exploit the subculture, often leading to its demise. The same can be said about his continued experimentation with lower cost collections, including “Mutatio” (a collection by Vortex, his collaboration with 3D artist NeonGlitch86) collection on Base that minted 1M+ pieces at $2 each and his recent release on Art Blocks of 500 generative works called “ICXN”.

Appreciating XCOPY goes beyond the visual. It’s about understanding his role as a pioneer, a cultural critic, and a subcultural icon. His art is a vibrant, glitching mirror held up to the digital age, asking us to confront its beauty, absurdity, and contradictions. Through his consistent uncompromising art practice, he’s defining the movement of cryptonative art.

At Curated, we’ve long been captivated by XCOPY. Provenance matters, and XCOPY’s verifiable history of being one of the very first digital artists to put their artwork on the blockchain is a testament to his authenticity.

Our curation focuses on early works that capture unique provenance as well as visually striking character pieces.

XCOPY collectors appreciate his onchain provenance, and highly value some of his earliest minted works. The very first ones were minted on the now defunct Ascribe blockchain, with a few of those moving over to Ethereum on SuperRare (e.g. “The Departed”). His 2018 works are the most sought after, including the X12 — the first 12 pieces XCOPY minted on SuperRare — and early prominent character pieces.

At Curated, we’ve collected two early 1/1s with unique provenance, both tied to his early minting on Ascribe.

XCOPY’s work covers a wide range across glitch and net art. While some of his works are more abstract (e.g. “Loading New Conflict” series), some of his most memorable pieces are the character pieces. We’ve collected a number of strong XCOPY character pieces — some standouts include:

XCOPY’s art represents the chaotic beauty of the internet, the frenetic energy of subcultures, and the disruptive potential of digital ownership. His journey from Tumblr to blockchain and beyond mirrors the evolution of art itself—from physical to digital, from centralized to decentralized.

To collect XCOPY is to participate in a cultural moment that bridges the internet’s chaotic origins with its decentralized future. His works stand as a testament to the authenticity and creativity that defines cryptonative art and the enduring power of subcultures to reshape the mainstream.

Thank you to JediWolf, Benji, Giuliano de' Medici, and Cozomo de' Medici for reading early drafts and contributing to our thinking.