In the spirit of envelope pushing and græy area spelunking, we’ve got another hybrid between art and avatar, in this column that I’m rebranding ‘Stud Finder’ — because it turns out there are a lot fewer Duds on SolSea than Open. 

Now that I’m a Solana-maxi, be prepared for Sol-ful shilling on a constant trickle. This project is the perfect place to start, considering it’s something of a SOL shill itself.  ‘The Solarians’ is a PFP gang for you art purists out there, but it’s not like the majority of PFPs we’ve seen to date. It draws on a Dutch Golden Age / Baroque style infused with some new age digital abstraction. (And then, because it’s an NFT, it’s animated.)

Generous comparison? Maybe. I’m cutting the art itself some slack because the alpha white paper behind the project excites me. The Solarians appear to be arcade tokens to a metaverse game, Serpent Academy, where the ‘game’ in question is a series of science lessons. The pandering toward women in STEM is strong, but so is the use case, and you know I believe a great concept can always overcome incoherent execution. 

The project (like Solana) is green in more ways than one, so plan to hold for at least 2 years or look elsewhere for your NFT gold. But for .07 SOL a piece (Solana’s so green there’s no gas fees) supporting this project will only set you back the price of a slice of bread… at least after hyper inflation gets its hands on it.