PRGuitarman's Nyan Dot Cat
Check out the Nyan Dot Cat collection
Chris Torres' Nyan Dot Cat campaign concludes this week. The campaign featured a series of redemptions released over the past year, can be found here. It was initially published on an external contract. To participate in the game, collectors were airdropped new tokens.
We spoke with Chris, the artist behind the original creator of Nyan Cat to discuss building iconic work that spans generations of internet culture, his sales bot that is not a bot, and what it’s like designing a new page with Claude.
PRGuitarman's Nyan Dot Cat
Manifold: How did Nyan Dot Cat come about?
Chris: Nyan Dot Cat was actually a whole other project for a minute but then the idea to decompress the artwork into the smallest form felt like a great experiment. This sparked the idea to eventually turn it into the burn game we know now.
The rules have been pretty simple. If you have two Nyan Dot Cats you can use the Manifold Trading Station to turn them in and receive a new rare pick of your choice. Two for one means the collection gets smaller over time with every trade and it gives full control to the community on the final supply.
Manifold: Why did you decide to do the contract migration? This was one of the larger migrations we've seen. What elements were important for you?
Chris: The original contract launched on a platform that wasn't built for what I wanted to do next. The platform also didn't really support or market the collection, so I moved everything to Manifold so I could actually build things how I wanted.
The migration took days, moving 57,000 Nyan Dot Cats across over 8,000 wallets, and every single one landed exactly where it was supposed to.
Manifold: Nyan Cat is one of the most recognizable pieces in internet culture. How do you pay homage and create something new at the same time?
Chris: I've been drawing Nyan Cat characters for 15 years now, and they kind of all have their own lives online with people who just enjoy them. It's always wild seeing Nyan Cat pop up everywhere.
Timelapse of the Aurora Nyan Dot Cat
Manifold: Why did you decide on doing the burns?
Chris: The burn system has worked really well with Nyan Balloon, and I felt Nyan Dot Cat deserved the same treatment, especially after 57,000 mints in such a short time. This time I wanted to give people plenty of time to choose their favorites, so the burn has actually been going on for a whole year now. It ends January 31st, and after that no new rarer Nyan Cats can be obtained via trading
Manifold: How do you find inspiration for each of the cats? What is your creative process in creating distinct cats?
Chris: Most of my inspirations come from life experiences. I also love cats so they're always welcomed to be part of the canvas. My rules are always to go pixel perfect with a clean loop so it can fly forever.
I love making stuff that looks simple at the surface, but actually has a bunch of layers and animation running under the hood.
Manifold: What makes your collectors want to collect in full?
Chris: I think people would want a complete Nyan Cat set not only because it scratches that collectors itch, but because the collections are meant to feel like limited edition prints with their own personality and a little internet history magic.
In the past, a few Web3 games have also supported the collections via token linking, so you would want to spawn in and play as the same exact Nyan Cat you own. I feel this tech is the future of gaming, and I hope it gets expanded on with more ways to provide utility in the future.
For now, I like to think of them as shiny little good luck trinkets you can collect and "wear" online. I believe in the five years since the collections have launched there have been a few collectors who have already bagged full sets and vaulted them, so the true available supply for my collections has gotten scarcer over time.
Manifold: Was there anything that surprised you about this drop?
Chris: Honestly, I was surprised on smoothly everything worked, especially the migration. Burn games are still a new experience for people and it's really fun being at the start of it all in Web3 history
Manifold: Can you talk a little about the @nyancatsales account?
Chris: I started the @NyanCatSales account a few years ago back when Twitter's API was easier to use, and it was the perfect way to share real time updates on Nyan Cat sales. Once the API rules changed, it basically became a manual job and for over two years I've been posting all of the details by hand. It's pretty funny because people assume it's a bot account, but it's literally just me.
The account just turned 4 years old this month, and it's something I see myself doing as long as possible, at least until a proper bot comes along to take the reigns again.
Manifold: I love the new page. How did this come about?
Chris: I am obsessed with the new Nyan Cat Collection page, it actually just went live this week and it's held up very solid. The main goal was to have it all as a one stop spot location to find new Nyan Cats to collect. Site building is not something I normally have skills in doing, so using Claude was a game-changer and it ended up looking great. It honestly feels like a new web renaissance, because if I can build a page like that then anybody can.
Check out the page!
Manifold: What’s next?
Chris: There’s always something being worked on in the pipeline so you’ll just have to see