Second Life
Long before NFTs appeared on blockchains, Second Life demonstrated that purely digital objects could have scarcity, ownership and real-world economic value. Its centrally controlled virtual economy provided an important pre-blockchain precursor to digital ownership.
3 January Bitcoin launch
Bitcoin's genesis block was mined on 3 January 2009, establishing the blockchain that later became the foundation for many early experiments in digital scarcity, tokenisation and blockchain-based ownership.
17 April Namecoin creation
Namecoin launched in April 2011 as a Bitcoin-derived blockchain focused on decentralised naming. Its on-chain name records created one of the earliest systems for representing unique digital property outside a conventional central database.
21 April Namecoin .bit domains
Namecoin enabled users to register unique .bit names directly on the blockchain. These persistent, transferable name records are among the earliest examples of unique digital assets recorded on a blockchain.
10 May Namecoin - Punycode domains and name identities
Namecoin users began registering names using Punycode, allowing Unicode characters to be represented within blockchain names. These registrations expanded the system from simple domains toward richer identity and data experiments.
11 May Namecoin - ASCII art
An early Namecoin experiment using blockchain name records to represent ASCII artwork. It illustrates how users were testing whether a naming blockchain could also preserve scarce, verifiable digital works.
27 March Bitcoin - Colored Coins
Yoni Assia proposed Colored Coins in March 2012, describing a method for marking specific bitcoins so they could represent other assets such as shares, commodities, property, subscriptions or collectibles.
31 May Namecoin - Name identities expansion
Namecoin's use broadened beyond simple domain registration into digital identity and arbitrary key/value records. This evolution provided an important conceptual bridge to later blockchain identity systems and avatar experiments.
15 February Namecoin - Damselfly
Created by Karel Bilek in February 2013, Damselfly encoded an image in base64 across 5,470 Namecoin names. It is widely cited as one of the earliest fully on-chain images and an important precursor to blockchain-native digital art.
15 February Namecoin - The Raven
Registered on Namecoin in February 2013 alongside other early experiments, The Raven is an early example of users treating blockchain name records as a medium for visual and cultural content rather than merely as domains.
June Namecoin - NameID and early art-like registrations
NameID was an early Namecoin identity service that let users sign in to websites with a name registered on the blockchain. It sits within the history of Namecoin's move from simple domain registration toward portable digital identity.
12 October Namecoin - Decoded Binaries
An October 2013 Namecoin registration continuing the experimental use of blockchain name records for binary and image data. It belongs to the small group of early experiments that pushed Namecoin beyond conventional naming.
2 January Counterparty - Launch of Counterparty
Counterparty launched as a protocol for creating and trading custom assets on Bitcoin, combining token issuance with a decentralised exchange and enabling users to experiment with scarce and indivisible digital assets.
13 January Counterparty - TEST
Minted by Bitcointalk user 'jimhsu', TEST was one of the earliest user-created Counterparty assets and was created to test the platform's decentralised exchange. An image was attached later.
14 January Counterparty - LEET
LEET was an early Counterparty asset demonstrating that tokens could be divisible into smaller units. It is useful evidence of the platform's ability to represent different kinds of digital scarcity and ownership.
19 January Counterparty - SATOSHIDICE
One of the earliest Counterparty assets, minted within days of launch and sharing its name with the pioneering Bitcoin gambling site SatoshiDice. It illustrates how early Counterparty token culture closely followed the wider Bitcoin ecosystem.
March Namecoin - OneName
OneName was an early decentralised identity system using Namecoin records to associate names with profile information, including social-media data and images. It helped extend blockchain naming toward portable digital identity.
March Namecoin - QR Codes
An early Namecoin experiment registering QR-code data as unique blockchain names, illustrating how users were testing whether the naming system could represent many kinds of digital information.
10 March Namecoin - Blockheads
Blockheads were early blockchain-linked avatar and profile-picture objects associated with Namecoin identities. They predated the later PFP boom and show that users were experimenting with scarce digital avatars years before CryptoPunks.
10 March Namecoin - ComicCons
ComicCons were an early Namecoin identity and avatar experiment, reportedly using FaceYourManga-style character construction. The surviving examples are notable as individually identifiable digital objects from the pre-NFT era.
8 April Counterparty - UNIT
UNIT was an early Counterparty asset whose supply was locked, demonstrating how a token could establish a permanent maximum supply. It became an important early example of intentionally scarce Counterparty issuance.
2 May Namecoin - Monegraphs
Monegraph, co-created by Kevin McCoy and Anil Dash, explored blockchain registration of ownership and provenance for digital art. It provided the broader project context surrounding the creation and demonstration of Quantum in May 2014.
2 May* Namecoin - Quantum
Created by Kevin McCoy, Quantum was a generative, pulsing video artwork registered as a blockchain token on Namecoin. It is widely regarded as the first intentional tokenised blockchain artwork.
* Some sources state 3 or 4 May 2014
4 June Counterparty - Tatiana Coin
Tatiana Coin was an early Counterparty token associated with musician Tatiana Moroz. It demonstrated how blockchain tokens could connect creators, media and communities rather than representing only abstract financial assets.
12 June Counterparty - OLGA
Created by JP Janssen as a dedication to his partner, OLGA carried the phrase 'Моя Вечная One & Only' and was issued as a single token whose supply was then locked, making it an early and well-documented Counterparty 1/1.
13 June Counterparty - SEBUH
SEBUH was an early Counterparty asset that embedded an image URL in its on-chain description, demonstrating how a token could point from a blockchain record to visual content.
13 June Namecoin - Pixel Flower
A June 2014 Namecoin registration depicting a pixel-art flower, part of the continuing experiments with simple visual data and blockchain name records.
15 June Namecoin - Namecoin Files
A Namecoin experiment exploring the network's naming system as a way to reference or preserve files and data, showing how early users pushed the platform beyond conventional domains and identities.
22 June Counterparty - JPJA
Created by JP Janssen, JPJA was an early scarce Counterparty asset with a fixed supply of 100 indivisible tokens. It demonstrated how token issuance could represent a limited series rather than a conventional currency.
10 July Namecoin - Gospels
A July 2014 Namecoin asset showing the broad range of subjects early users represented as blockchain records, from personal and cultural material to religious themes.
27 July Namecoin - Twitter Eggs
About 277 coloured Twitter egg avatars were registered as unique Namecoin assets during the period when Twitter used its default egg profile image. They are among the earliest blockchain-based profile-picture-style collectibles.
13 August Dogeparty Creation
Dogeparty launched as a Dogecoin-based counterpart to Counterparty, allowing users to create custom tokens on Dogecoin and producing a burst of early collectible and experimental assets within days.
13 August Dogeparty - DOGECAR
DOGECAR was one of the earliest Dogeparty assets created soon after launch. Alongside other first-week tokens, it documents the rapid experimentation that followed the introduction of token issuance on Dogecoin.
14 August Dogeparty - GOLDENSHIBE
GOLDENSHIBE was an early Dogeparty token created within days of launch, reflecting the strong Shiba Inu meme culture inherited from Dogecoin and the playful experimentation of the new token platform.
15 August Dogeparty - BITBEG
BITBEG was an early Dogeparty token from the platform's first week, documenting how quickly users began creating experimental assets on the new Dogecoin-based token system.
19 August Dogeparty - JOLLYROGER
JOLLYROGER is widely cited as the first Dogeparty asset carrying an image: a PNG pirate flag associated with the token shortly after its August 2014 creation. It is an important early example of blockchain-linked visual collectibles.
19 August Dogeparty - MILKYWAY
Created by Daniel Spiller around the same time as JOLLYROGER, MILKYWAY represented the Milky Way and reflected Spiller's interest in SETI. It belongs to Dogeparty's first wave of visual and cultural experiments.
14 September Counterparty - NILI Coins
Artist Nili Lerner created conceptual 'artcoins' that used blockchain tokens to represent proportional ownership of artwork. The project expanded the idea of tokenised art from owning a digital image to representing fractional interests.
5 November Counterparty - UMBRELLA
LiteBit issued 600 Counterparty tokens representing vouchers for physical Bitcoin-themed umbrellas. The project combined blockchain tokens with physical goods and crowdfunding, an early example of linking on-chain assets to real-world objects.
21 November Counterparty/Dogeparty - MYSOUL
Rhea Myers tokenised the concept of her own 'soul' across Counterparty and Dogeparty. Rather than simply representing a picture, the work questioned whether blockchain ownership could represent identity, concepts and personal value.
January Bitcoin - Ascribe
Ascribe provided a system for registering provenance, ownership and licensing information for digital artworks using blockchain technology. It was an important bridge between established digital art practices and emerging blockchain ownership systems.
1 March Counterparty - Stephan Vogler art series
Stephan Vogler's early Counterparty works treated the blockchain itself as a medium for art rather than merely a payment or token layer. Works including Nothing, Numbers, Squares, Nibbles and Faces belong to the formative period of crypto art.
11 March Counterparty - FDCARD and Spells of Genesis
FDCARD was the first blockchain card created for Spells of Genesis. The project grew into an early blockchain game in which tokenised cards could have in-game utility, helping connect digital collecting with gameplay.
17 March Counterparty - XCPinata
XCPinata was an early Counterparty project from the same experimental period as Spells of Genesis and other pioneering tokenised collectibles, showing the growing range of community projects on the platform.
30 July Ethereum - Mainnet launch
Ethereum's mainnet launched on 30 July 2015, introducing a general-purpose smart-contract platform on which richer forms of programmable digital ownership and collectibles could be built.
4 August Counterparty - SALVATION
SALVATION was an early Counterparty asset whose token mechanics experimented with permanently restricting or removing practical ownership while preserving the asset record, illustrating early exploration of scarcity and token permanence.
7 August Ethereum - Terra Nullius
Terra Nullius was deployed on Ethereum on 7 August 2015. It is widely recognised in NFT historical research, and has been described as the first Ethereum NFT. Users could claim unique messages on-chain.
8 August Ethereum - Linagee Name Registrar
Linagee Name Registrar was an extremely early Ethereum naming contract, deployed in August 2015. It anticipated later blockchain naming systems by allowing names to be registered and associated with blockchain records.
September Bitcoin - Onename on Namecoin becomes Blockstack on Bitcoin
Onename evolved toward a Bitcoin-anchored architecture that became Blockstack, moving beyond Namecoin's naming layer toward a broader decentralised identity and naming system secured through Bitcoin.
10 October Counterparty - A18340712565681460000
A numeric Counterparty asset was created and locked without ever issuing a circulating supply. Its on-chain metadata is historically notable as a possible early explicit use of the term 'NFT'.
30 September Ethereum - Etheria v0.6
Deployed as an early Etheria experiment, v0.6 contained an unfinished 33 × 33 map and a broken tile-transfer mechanism. Its remaining elevations and tile initialisation were completed on 4 October 2026, eleven years after deployment.
19 October Ethereum - Etheria v0.9
Cyrus Adkisson deployed Etheria v0.9 on 19 October 2015, an early Ethereum virtual world in which blockchain users could own land tiles. It is one of the most important early examples of programmable blockchain-based virtual property.
22 October Ethereum - Etheria v1.0
Etheria v1.0, released on 22 October 2015, was the first official release of the early Ethereum virtual world. It continued the experiment in persistent, transferable ownership of land within a blockchain-based environment.
29 October Ethereum - Etheria v1.1
Etheria v1.1, released on 29 October 2015, refined the virtual-land system. Its contracts are among the earliest Ethereum NFT-style systems with transferable ownership of individual land tiles.
1 November Ethereum - Etheria v1.2
Etheria v1.2 was the final 2015 release and was presented at Ethereum's first Devcon. It continued the experiment in blockchain-native virtual land and became one of the best-preserved examples of Ethereum's pre-ERC-721 NFT history.
29 November Ethereum - EtherID
EtherID was an early Ethereum naming experiment, part of the first wave of attempts to turn blockchain addresses and names into persistent digital property before the later emergence of ENS.
6 January Counterparty - MTM (Mind To Matter) series
Adam B. Levine's MTM series used Counterparty tokens to grant different forms of access to music, including songs, albums and participation. It is an early example of blockchain tokens representing rights and access rather than only collectible images.
6 May Counterparty - SaruTobi
Christian Moss's SaruTobi became an early example of interoperable blockchain game assets when Spells of Genesis cards could be used within the game. This demonstrated that a token could retain utility across independent applications.
20 July Ethereum Classic Fork
Following the DAO exploit and Ethereum's controversial chain rollback, part of the community continued the original chain as Ethereum Classic from July 2016. The split created two independent histories from the same pre-fork blockchain.
29 July Ethereum - Beercoin
Created by Nick Johnson, later the founder of ENS, Beercoin was a just-for-fun Ethereum contract for issuing non-binding beer IOUs. By the end of 2017 only 94 beers were owed in total, leaving a small set of early on-chain records that predate the ERC-721 standard.
9 August Counterparty - Force of Will
Force of Will experimented with connecting its established physical trading-card ecosystem to blockchain tokens through Counterparty. The project illustrates an early attempt to bridge physical collectibles, digital tokens and future game utility.
9 September Counterparty - Rare Pepes
Rare Pepes turned the Pepe meme into a community-curated crypto-art ecosystem. Artists submitted cards, community experts helped determine rarity, and collectors traded the resulting Counterparty assets in an active peer-to-peer market.
16 September Ethereum - Etherization
Etherization was an early Ethereum game experiment in which players could acquire towns of different rarity. It demonstrated that Ethereum was already being explored for persistent, scarce game-world assets before CryptoKitties.
19 September Ethereum - Devcon2 Token
Deployed during Devcon2, this early Ethereum token allowed attendees to claim a token associated with their presence at the conference. It is a useful precursor to later proof-of-attendance and event-based blockchain credentials.
October Counterparty - Age of Chains
Age of Chains was an early blockchain trading-card game using Counterparty assets. It demonstrated that tokenised cards could support a genuine collectible game economy rather than existing only as standalone crypto-art.
17 November Ethereum - PixelMap
PixelMap, created by Ken Erwin, let users purchase individual 16×16 pixel tiles and attach images and URLs to them, with ownership controlled by an Ethereum smart contract. It extended the digital-land concept into an on-chain public canvas.
December Counterparty - BitGirls
BitGirls, associated with a Japanese television project, used Counterparty assets for voting and audience participation. Its 2016 release shows how blockchain tokens were being used for interactive media and community engagement as well as collecting.
February Counterparty - DieCast Club Collection
EverdreamSoft partnered with the DieCast collecting community to connect physical miniature-car collecting with blockchain-based digital collectibles, distributed partly through the Takara geocaching ecosystem.
March Emercoin - Wine Collection
Emercoin Wine explored associating blockchain records and tokens with real-world wine and collectible assets. It extended early experiments such as UMBRELLA into provenance and ownership of physical goods.
April Counterparty - MemoryChain
MemoryChain was a Japanese community art project that commemorated people, events and milestones in blockchain history through tokenised artwork and community participation.
8 April Ethereum - MyBlockchainCorner
MyBlockchainCorner was an early Ethereum experiment in purchasable, customisable blockchain space, part of the 2017 wave of projects testing digital land, grids and small pieces of on-chain real estate.
14 April Ethereum - Peperium
Peperium was an early Ethereum meme marketplace and trading-card experiment using IPFS and its own RARE token. The project later stopped after its early series, leaving a small surviving set of documented collectibles.
1 May Counterparty - Age of Rust
Age of Rust was an early blockchain-enabled science-fiction game in which blockchain assets could unlock functionality. It helped demonstrate that token ownership could have a direct role inside a game rather than simply representing artwork.
4 May Ethereum - ENS domains
The Ethereum Name Service brought human-readable blockchain names to Ethereum, allowing names such as alice.eth to represent addresses and other records. ENS became a major example of blockchain naming as transferable digital property.
9 May Ethereum - Curio Cards
Curio Cards launched a collection of 30 numbered digital artworks created by seven artists. Its limited editions, blockchain ownership and early use of decentralised storage helped establish the format later associated with Ethereum crypto-art collections.
June Counterparty - Oasis Mining
Oasis Mining was a Japanese blockchain-card project connected to the broader MemoryChain and Counterparty ecosystem, contributing to the early history of community-created Bitcoin collectibles and crypto-art.
9 June Ethereum - CryptoPunks v1
The original CryptoPunks V1 contract was deployed on 9 June 2017 and created 10,000 punk claims. A flaw in its marketplace contract led Larva Labs to deploy the better-known V2 contract later that month, making V1 an important part of CryptoPunks provenance.
23 June Ethereum - CryptoPunks v2
Larva Labs deployed the corrected CryptoPunks contract on 23 June 2017. The collection contains 10,000 uniquely generated 24×24 pixel characters and became one of the defining early Ethereum PFP projects.
10 August Ethereum - MoonCatRescue
MoonCatRescue let users rescue pixel cats from a smart contract. The final collection contains 25,440 MoonCats; only a small number were rescued in 2017, with most discovered during the project's 2021 rediscovery.
27 August Ethereum - Thousand Ether Homepage
Thousand Ether Homepage adapted the Million Dollar Homepage idea into Ethereum, selling small advertising spaces on a one-million-pixel canvas. The project recorded blockchain-controlled ownership of individual advertising areas.
30 August Ethereum - Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility
Mitchell F. Chan's Digital Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility explored ownership through destruction: collectors burned tokens to participate in a conceptual artwork that questioned the relationship between a physical artwork, its token and ownership.
October Ethereum - Lunar Token
Lunar Token offered 400 plots on a digital map of the Moon, turning the 2017 'to the moon' meme into an experiment in blockchain-based virtual land ownership before ERC-721 became the dominant NFT standard.
31 October Ethereum - DADA Creeps & Weirdos
DADA's Creeps & Weirdos collection officially launched on 31 October 2017. It comprised 108 unique artworks by 30 artists and 16,600 ERC-20 digital editions; its 5 October contract introduced automated royalties coded into the smart contract.
November Ethereum - Number Board
Number Board extended the on-chain ownership-of-a-space idea seen in projects such as PixelMap and Thousand Ether Homepage to numbered positions, allowing users to associate information with a blockchain-owned number.
November Counterparty - Skara: The Blade Remains
Skara issued twelve blockchain game-card assets with 1,000 editions each. EverdreamSoft later burned most of the supply, leaving 22 of each card and creating a historically unusual example of deliberate on-chain scarcity reduction.
12 November Ethereum - CryptoCats
CryptoCats was created during a blockchain hackathon and initially released 12 cats before expanding to 625. Its 2017 deployment predates CryptoKitties and makes it an important early example of collectible creature NFTs.
23 November Ethereum - Verdandi Artefacts
Verdandi tokenised 13 artworks in late 2017, deploying a separate Ethereum smart contract for each piece. The collection began with “Aspen V” on 23 November, followed by the other 12 works on 15 December, which completed the series.
24 November Ethereum - WeiCards
WeiCards was an Ethereum-based advertising and identity experiment consisting of numbered cards that could carry titles, URLs and images. Ownership and changes to the cards were recorded by the smart contract.
28 November Ethereum - CryptoKitties
CryptoKitties let users buy, sell and breed blockchain cats and became one of the first blockchain collectibles to reach a mass audience. Its popularity caused a major surge in Ethereum transaction activity and contributed to network congestion.
16 December Ethereum - Ethermon
Launched as Etheremon in December 2017, the project was an early Ethereum blockchain game built around interactive collectible creatures that could be captured, trained and battled, extending NFTs into persistent game mechanics.
19 December Ethereum - CryptoCats Reborn
CryptoCats Reborn was a December 2017 follow-up to the original CryptoCats project, illustrating how quickly early Ethereum collectible projects were iterated, relaunched and technically refined during the first NFT boom.
25 December Ethereum - Genesis Rock
Genesis Rock was a minimal Ethereum collectible from the same late-2017 period as Ether Rocks, illustrating the emerging idea that a blockchain token itself could be the collectible even when the associated artwork or utility was extremely simple.
26 December Ethereum - Ether Rocks
Ether Rocks was a collection of 100 simple rock tokens with little utility beyond ownership and trading. Its simplicity became part of the project's historical importance as an early experiment in treating blockchain scarcity itself as a collectible.
29 December Ethereum - CryptoBots
CryptoBots was an early Ethereum blockchain game in which users could own and battle robot collectibles. Released in December 2017, it was part of the first wave of NFT games built before the ERC-721 standard became widespread.
30 December Ethereum - Realms of Ether
Realms of Ether was an early Ethereum strategy game in which players could own and use blockchain assets such as fortresses and resources. It belongs to the first wave of persistent blockchain game-world experiments.
Ethereum and beyond
From 2018 onward, blockchain games, digital art, virtual worlds, collectibles and NFT marketplaces expanded rapidly. ERC-721 and later standards helped formalise non-fungible tokens, while projects such as Axie Infinity, Autoglyphs and NBA Top Shot extended the field.