Gamma Blog

Gamma's next chapter: Coming home to Trust Machines

Gamma Team — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 13:55:00 GMT

Today we're sharing something we're genuinely excited about. Trust Machines is going all-in on Gamma and will take full ownership of Gamma.io. Gamma.io Inc., the independent company that ran the platform, is winding down as a separate entity.

Partner Artist Spotlight: Zlaser

Gamma Team — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 03:40:28 GMT

Ordinals Spotlight: BURST — ORDINALS YEARBOOK NO. 1

Eliherf — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 23:06:06 GMT

Burst is a media artist and musician who has been minting since 2019 and inscribing since 2023, with a primary focus on Ordinals and Bitcoin. His collection, Ordinals Yearbook No. 1, is a body of 181 single-edition artworks inscribed on Bitcoin that reflects the first 18 months of his journey with the Ordinals protocol. It captures a period full of experiments, mistakes, screenshots, laughter, text prompts, print errors, conversations, overpaints, fragments, and people. For Burst, the Yearbook functions as a time capsule of those early months, highlighting key moments in both his personal evolution and the broader movement. This includes studying the cypherpunks and the cypherpunk manifesto, researching potential Satoshi Nakamoto candidates, and diving into the earliest drafts and inscriptions from Casey and the Ordinals protocol. Through remixing, reimagining, and paying homage, Burst sought to preserve this history in one cohesive collection, honoring what he calls bitcoin, the motherchain.

Looking back at those first 18 months, Burst describes the period with excitement and the feeling of “this is revolutionary!” The experience echoed his early encounters with NFTs, marked first by disbelief, then by deep study and understanding. He immersed himself in Bitcoin’s foundations by reading the whitepaper, The Bitcoin Standard, exploring forum archives, and studying Satoshi’s emails to develop a sense of the network’s historical roots. All of this unfolded alongside his life with his wife and within his community, shaping the work he produced. This is why the collection spans five categories, from Bitcoin history and Ordinals history to reflections on his personal life as a husband, friend, and human living on what he calls the beautiful and crazy planet Earth. When creating the collection, Burst never imagined that only months later it would be exhibited in a prestigious Austrian museum. Yet that is exactly what happened, with Ordinals Yearbook No. 1 shown at Francisco Carolinum.

Many of the works in the Yearbook contain fragments of mistakes, overpaints, screenshots, and conversations. Burst says these imperfections do feel different now that they are part of a permanent, collected history on Bitcoin. All of those elements were upcycled and digested into the artworks themselves, passing through him and landing in each piece. He describes it as a metabolic process. Seeing the works collected, traded, held by passionate people, and hanging in a museum like Francisco Carolinum has shifted everything. The museum walls give them institutional weight, but the blockchain gives them something deeper: permanence that outlives any exhibition, any hard drive crash, or any fading trend.

Some pieces began in his Huanchaco studio, others as AI generations, and some as found or torn fragments. Burst recalls how everything in Huanchaco was tactile and alive in the moment, from the smell of wet acrylic and spray paint mixing with salty ocean air to the scrape of correction pen over paper and the tear of old magazines and print errors. He overpainted by hand, collaged under natural light, and sometimes even stepped on works on the studio floor to distress them further. AI generations were just raw starting points, with the real work happening through physical manipulation, sweat, accidental drips, and decisions made with fingers and tools rather than prompts. For Burst, the paradox is that the blockchain does not erase this physical history, but immortalizes it. What was once vulnerable to damage or loss is now untouchable by time, decay, or geography. Digital permanence does not negate the physical, it elevates it, turning imperfect human touches into something archival and almost mythical, like ancient cave paintings digitized and etched into the most durable medium we have.

Exhibiting at Francisco Carolinum brought the Yearbook into a tangible space and reinforced Burst’s sense that what he and others are creating is historic. He has always felt that those active since the beginning and pushing boundaries are part of something that will prevail in time and space. Receiving institutional confirmation through the exhibition proved that feeling.

The Yearbook is organized into five categories: Abstract, Bitcoin and Satoshi History, HAHA Art, Ordinals and Inscription History, and HAHA History. Burst notes that collectors so far have mostly engaged with the works as single-edition pieces that resonate personally or hold value, rather than focusing on traits across categories. There is a hierarchy in the number of artworks per category, with Abstract pieces being the smallest at 14 artworks and HAHA History the largest at 64. Ultimately, he believes collectors will decide what becomes more valuable or interesting within the whole collection. Time will tell.

HAHA sats and the HAHA framework sit at the core of Burst’s practice. For him, HAHA is the code and his tag, something he will continue no matter what. He says there is so much more to do and so little time, and he will make sure that HAHA and his art land in the history books.

Each work exists as a unique sat-level inscription, immutable and traceable, and Burst says this has reshaped his sense of authorship and legacy. Collectors who acquire these inscriptions are not just buyers but custodians in a chain of stewardship. They verify sats, maintain wallets, share context, and display works in digital frames or at events. The museum’s acquisition of two pieces OTC, the donation of 21 more by Gamma, and Burst’s donation of a HAHAcard take this further, placing the works into a public institutional collection that is cataloged, conserved, and exhibited alongside analog photography and media art histories in Linz, a UNESCO City of Media Arts. This institutional layer adds interpretation, scholarship, and visibility he could never provide alone. Legacy no longer feels like something he has to single-handedly defend or promote. Instead, it becomes a collaborative, intergenerational project, with his intent encoded on-chain, collectors’ passion keeping it circulating, and the museum ensuring long-term archival care and cultural contextualization. This relieves a quiet anxiety he did not fully realize he carried, the fear that experimental Bitcoin art might vanish like many early digital experiments before it. In a deeper sense, it aligns with the ethos explored in the Yearbook itself: Bitcoin as a motherchain for decentralized, resilient record keeping and Ordinals as a protocol that turns individual expression into communal, traceable history. Knowing others steward these pieces makes legacy feel less fragile and more alive. It is not frozen in his control but propagating through wallets, museum vitrines, archives, conversations, and trades. His role shifts from sole guardian to initial architect in an ongoing chain, which feels liberating and humbling. The works are no longer just his, they belong to the movement, to collectors who believe in it, to the institution that recognized its historical weight, and ultimately to the blockchain’s eternal ledger.

The distribution of the collection reflects this ethos as well. Some works were purchased OTC, others randomly minted, and some gifted to people who accompanied Burst’s journey. He says this mirrors the essence of what he wanted the collection to be: a deeply personal diary that simultaneously became a communal, living record of Ordinals’ early days on Bitcoin. The OTC sales, especially the two pieces acquired by Francisco Carolinum and the 21 donated plus the HAHAcard, represent intentional stewardship and institutional recognition, placing works in contexts that ensure visibility, scholarship, and long-term preservation beyond volatile markets. The random mints embody the wild, permissionless spirit of early Ordinals, where anyone could inscribe or claim a sat if they were quick or lucky enough. The gifting to friends, collaborators, early supporters, and people involved in late-night discussions about Casey’s drafts or Satoshi candidates served as homage and gratitude, acknowledging that this was not a solo endeavor. For Burst, this mixed distribution across passionate collectors, institutions, anonymous minters, and close companions feels right.

In its current state, on-chain, in private collections, and partially in a museum, the Yearbook reveals how experimental digital art no longer needs permission from gatekeepers to achieve permanence and cultural weight. It earns this through the medium itself. The collection began as raw, personal experiments, AI generations, overpaints, and fragments from Huanchaco, inscribed during the chaotic infancy of Ordinals. Blockchain gave it instant immortality and verifiability, bypassing traditional validation cycles. At the same time, blockchain as a medium forces institutions to evolve their definitions of collection and conservation. Museums historically dealt in physical objects or reproducible prints, but now they are custodians of sats. Francisco Carolinum’s actions signal a broader institutional reckoning that digital art inscribed on Bitcoin is not ephemeral or secondary, but potentially the most durable form of media art yet. By holding these works alongside analog pieces, they acknowledge that blockchain provenance offers superior traceability and resistance to loss compared to many traditional archives. This challenges old hierarchies, as the physical realm no longer holds a monopoly on durability or cultural authority. For Burst, the early Ordinals moment was not a fleeting glitch, but the beginning of something enduring, hybrid, and profoundly transformative across all these realms.

When asked what else he would like to share about the collection, Burst says they have covered a lot. There may be more to explore, from techniques to anecdotes and stories behind the artworks, but he leaves that for another time and perhaps another page where people can learn more about each piece. As he says, there is so much more to do and so little time, so let’s use it carefully and never forget to HAHA.

Explore BURST on BTC

Partner Artist Spotlight: NLV

Gamma Team — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 23:28:08 GMT

Ordinals Spotlight: THE SERAPH by ROCKETGIRL

Eliherf — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:23:15 GMT

ROCKETGIRL is a UK-based artist known for fusing mythic allegory with visceral, abstract “Post-Iconic Figuration.” Her work orbits themes of resilience, femininity, and transformation, often depicting the body as a battlefield where chaos and control collide. She is known for her signature eye obscuration flashes. Her practice blends classical oil technique with contemporary abstraction, creating images that feel timeless, dangerous, and emotionally charged. She has sold out multiple collections across chains and worked on collabs with brands in the space such as Redbull and Gate.io.

Oil painting is the foundation for her, “the real trance state and the place where I feel I can put my emotional impact the most.” But digital work is deeply tied to her process because it removes fear. “If I screw it up in paint, I can photograph it and fix small things digitally, which means I paint with more freedom and less panic.” She also enjoys mixed media digital work which uses collage, ai and digital painting in myriad combinations. In practice, most of the time the physical painting remains the truth of the piece. She’s only minted maybe two works that were meaningfully different from the physical original. Usually edits are minimal, “tiny corrections, fidelity, balance.” For a long time she did her signature eye flashes digitally because it needed a steadier hand than her more expressive painting style, but she’s now worked out a technique for doing them in paint too.

THE SERAPH began as her only self-portrait and has since lived multiple lives across chains. It started as something intensely private. She painted it during a period when she wasn’t feeling herself, “a dark emotional dip that I recognized, and I knew I needed to get painting again, not strictly working in digital.” She stared at a blank canvas for weeks, then one day she just went, “Right, enough,” got the mirror out, grabbed the few colours she had, and the painting arrived in a kind of trance. “It’s also the only time I’ve made something that was literally a self-portrait even though so much of my work is self-portraiture in other ways.” Seeing it transform across chains has made it feel like more than a single entity. “It’s become something preserved, something that can be linked across my worlds (ETH and Bitcoin) almost like a portal. That idea genuinely excites me: connecting the same work through different environments, while keeping it permanent.”

This work is deeply connected to loss, memory, and honoring someone who never got to collect it, and that reality changed everything. A collector she genuinely respected, “someone well liked, young, building her own company,” wanted to buy the work. They’d agreed on everything and it was off the market while she was moving. Then she went quiet, which didn’t feel like her, and later she heard she’d passed away in an accident. “That hit hard. Not because of the sale, but because my last messages to her were mundane logistics. After that, I didn’t feel comfortable putting the piece back out into the open market like nothing happened. It made the work feel like it carried a responsibility, not just a price.” “So this release isn’t just about distributing artwork, it’s about handling something with care.”

Although she’s created extensively on Bitcoin before, this project feels especially intimate. Bitcoin, for her, “makes you take the moment seriously. On ETH, if something goes wrong, you can fix it, on Bitcoin, it’s done. I remember how nervous I was on my first inscription because it felt final.” THE SERAPH already had weight: it pulled her out of a dark stretch, it’s her only direct self-portrait, and it’s tied to someone she associates with loss and memory. “Putting that onto Bitcoin, where it becomes immutable, felt aligned with what the piece already is.” She’s also cautious of her release cadence on BTC. “I’ve purposely held back because I want my best work there and a distinct direction. This felt like a work worthy of that level of permanence.”

Breaking the original 1/1 into 25 fragments that each stand alone yet belong to a whole was both structural and symbolic. “What I love is that the fragments genuinely read as their own paintings. When I saw them, I was shocked in the best way, each one stands on its own and the detail still holds in unity.” Symbolically, “it mirrors something real: you can’t own a whole person. People can collect pieces, moments, sections of a story, but not the entire source. I also like that it invites multiple collectors into one work without flattening it into a standard edition format. It’s participation without dilution.”

The final stitched inscription exceeds Bitcoin’s typical size constraints and becomes something physically monumental on-chain. For ROCKETGIRL, “scale is emotional for me, not just technical. The painting itself is big in presence, and I like the idea that the on-chain form can be physically monumental too, while still being constructed from something elegantly minimal.” “And honestly, there’s a kind of awe in that wizardry: fragments becoming a restored whole, and the whole becoming something that exists in a permanent way. It turns scale into a statement and I love that.”

This drop embeds lineage, metadata, and provenance directly on-chain, and that matters deeply to her. “We’re watching in real time what happens when work isn’t truly preserved when marketplaces or hosting goes away and the art becomes vulnerable.” “I want my Bitcoin releases to be special, but I also want them to be safe, traceable, permanent and anchored. The story is part of the work, and the ability to follow that lineage matters to me because it protects both the piece and the context that gave it meaning.”

Collectors who mint a fragment also receive an edition tied to the restored whole. What she hopes that relationship feels like is simple and intentional: “I want it to feel like you’re holding a real piece of something larger and that your participation activates the full image, not just your portion of it.” “You get a fragment that stands alone, but you’re also connected back to the restored whole. That link is the point: ownership isn’t only possession, it’s involvement in preserving and completing a story.”

If THE SERAPH is encountered decades from now, without context or backstory, she hopes it still creates something visceral. “I hope it still reads as a moment of crossing, a passage through something heavy into something clearer. That’s what it was for me: relief, a wave of release, like stepping over a chasm.” “Even without the backstory, I want the work to carry that charge, a sense of human presence, intensity, and survival. Something that holds. Pieces of me.”

Explore ROCKETGIRL on BTC

Partner Artist Spotlight: Intrepid

Gamma Team — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 22:36:50 GMT

Partner Artist Spotlight: Reece Swanepoel

Gamma Team — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 03:35:55 GMT

Partner Artist Spotlight: Superama

Gamma Team — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 01:45:31 GMT

Partner Artist Spotlight: Artifishal

Gamma Team — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 04:52:18 GMT

Ordinals Spotlight: CLEAVE by RedruM

Eliherf — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 06:08:26 GMT

R edruM is a digital artist whose practice has long been rooted in a human-centric exploration of identity, emotion, and distortion. His latest project, CLEAVE, does not represent a departure from that vision, nor an improvement upon it, but rather a new territory to explore. Through this series and thanks to the trust and collaboration with Gamma, RedruM expands his focus from the human figure to the structures that shape meaning itself. In CLEAVE, identity is no longer embodied, but distributed across systems, landscapes, and recombination without losing its emotional core.