Steven Klinger | CMO & Sales strategist
If you already read what I wrote about the Web3 market, and especially NFTs, you know that I am a fast learner.
When I get interested in something, I do not simply look at it from a distance. I dig. I read. I ask questions. I talk to artists, communities, builders, collectors, and sometimes to people who probably did not expect a random French guy to arrive in their DMs with twenty confused questions about wallets, mints, floors, metadata, and why everyone is suddenly yelling “LFG” at 2 a.m.
I tried to absorb as much as I could about every NFT project I found. Some were fascinating. Some were disappointing. Some were scams. Some made me rethink what art, ownership, speculation, community, and technology can become when they all crash into the same tiny corner of the internet.
But I never really took the time to write in detail about the project that made me create an ETH wallet in the first place:
@normiesART.
Today, many people in the NFT space know @serc1n’s project. Some know the floor. Some know the burns. Some know the Canvas. Some know the Arena is coming. Some just know the little pixel faces.
But I want to do something more complete here.
I want to tell the story of the first 70 days of Normies, explain why this project caught my attention, why I still hold, why I keep talking about it to people who probably did not ask for a full lecture on onchain pixel art, and why I think it matters beyond a simple NFT collection.
So what are Normies, actually?
Before launch day, It took me years to understand on-chain art, even i created 2 fully on-chain generative art collections it was always challange to create a pfp collection that represents my style. All started with reading these books: "on NFTs" (Robert Alice), "Free to Show more
Normies are a collection of 10,000 fully onchain generative 40x40 monochrome pixel faces on Ethereum. The collection was created by @serc1n and @YigitDuman.
https://www.normies.art/docs/normies
Every pixel, trait, and metadata lives directly onchain. They are also CC0, which means anyone can use, build, remix, and create with them.
There are four main types of Normies: Humans, Cats, Alien ( <3 ) and Agents
And yes, I am biased. I am an Alien holder.
Agents and Cats get a lot of attention. The Alien arc will come and yes, I’m biased.
The important part is this: Normies are not only small profile pictures. They were designed as programmable, readable, remixable onchain objects.
At the surface, a Normie is a tiny face. Under the surface, it is infrastructure for culture.
Before the launch (February 2026)
gnormies! Today is the day we let the NORMIES out! 7PM CET // 1PM EST Official mint link, WL checker will be posted in few hours. Please don't click, mint anything until i post the official links, stay safe. NORMIES are fully on-chain, generative pfp collection. Every NORMIE Show more
I remember seeing a tweet from @serc1n about a collection he was about to release.
At that moment, I was barely entering the NFT world. I did not even have an OpenSea account yet. I was not able to properly send funds to a wallet. That is how early and clueless I was.
The tweet was presenting what Normies would become: these small pixelated characters, simple but immediately readable, with a visual identity that stood out from the little I had already seen.
There was something nostalgic about them.
I have been a very invested gamer since I was three years old, so pixel art speaks to me.
Old games, limited screens, tiny sprites, characters built from almost nothing but still somehow full of personality. That is probably why Normies clicked so fast.
I remember thinking: this is going to work like crazy.
Was that a rational investment thesis? Absolutely not. Nobody can truly know, let’s be honest.
Before Normies, I was barely onboarded
At that time, I was working with zKorp, a team of Web3 tech builders. I was helping them with their commercial and marketing strategy.
They had much more experience than me in crypto and NFTs. They had already spent money in this market, made their mistakes, seen projects rise and collapse, and knew very well what kind of rabbit hole I was starting to fall into.
To them, NFTs were a mess, a money sink, a dangerous playground.
And honestly? They were not completely wrong.
The market is full of scams, fake hype, obscure accounts, projects that disappear after mint, people farming wallets for GTDs, and communities pretending to be deeply passionate about art when, in reality, everyone is refreshing the floor price.
No offense. I also participate in this circus sometimes.
But I still wanted one Normie. At least one. Just because I liked it.
The mint price was 0.005 ETH. Around nine dollars at the time. And somehow, even with that price, I could not mint in time. Mostly because I did not know how to fund my wallet properly…(I know)
So I insisted with one of my clients and asked him to buy one for me on secondary before the reveal, because I really wanted to be part of it.
Thank you, @cheelax! You basically pushed me into the NFT world.
And my first Normie was an Alien, lucky me!
I still hold it today. No edits. No modification. Completely untouched.
I am emotionally attached to it. If I ever sell it, it will have to be for a very big amount of money ( I am sentimental, not stupid)
February 18, 2026. Day 1: a tiny mint with a very loud signal
Normies launched on February 18, 2026.
The mint price was 0.005 ETH. The full supply of 10,000 minted out SO DAMN QUICK. Pretty good for a project made of 40x40 monochrome faces huh?
It looked like a simple art collection, but it already had the smell of a system. That is the difference I started to feel with Normies.
Many NFT projects try to look bigger than they are. Normies looked tiny and somehow felt bigger than expected.
February 20, 2026. The API changed everything.
To make builders' lives easier, I built an API server for Normies and put the smart contracts on GitHub. Read the docs at api.normies.art or let your LLMs do the work: api.normies.art/llms.txt View the source code on GitHub: github.com/ygtdmn/normies
@YigitDuman released the Normies API.
That matters a lot. Because an API changes the question from: “Do you like this collection?” to: “What can you build with it?”
And that is where my brain started doing its usual annoying thing. I come from tech. I work in marketing and business strategy. I love games. I love systems. I love communities. I love when an object is not only something you consume, but something you can extend.
An open API means builders have something to grab. Traits. Pixels. Metadata. Canvas information. Token data.
It creates a surface for experimentation.
And in the first weeks, that is exactly what happened. People started building tools, viewers, generators, experiments, games, small apps, weird things, useful things, useless things that were still culturally useful because they showed that people cared enough to make something.
Why I Created an Album About Normies - and For Normies Normies are not just a collection. They are the early stage of something that is learning how to exist. What we’re witnessing right now is rare - a system forming identity, memory, and direction in real time. Most Show more
@dopemind10 was the first to release his music album about Normies btw:
Me? I made a living world where (alive) Normies talk and do weird stuff. But a lot of tools were made by the community. Thanks public API!
You can see a lot of community tools there:
https://www.normies.art/tools
In NFT projects, silence kills faster than price. This is not happening with Normies.
February 25, 2026. Canvas: when holders became co-creators.
gnormies! 👾 Let's do a recap of yesterday's NormieCanvas launch with some numbers and key details about the canvas. - 228 Normies burned already, this is 2.28% of the total supply - 52 holders burned their Normies and counting. Highest level normie is now at Level: 30, in Show more
Then came Canvas. This is probably one of the most important parts of the project.
The idea is simple: holders can burn Normies to gain Action Points, and those points can be used to permanently edit pixels on another Normie. The edits are onchain (ofc) and the change becomes part of the token’s history.
Ownership becomes authorship.
And the word “burn” is important here. You are not just clicking a button in a cute editor. You are destroying NFTs people paid for in order to transform another one.
One day later, 228 Normies were burned.
What I find especially interesting is the delegation feature. You can give the right to edit your Normie to another artist.
It allowed holders and artists to collaborate. It turned some Normies into commissioned, collaborative, permanent onchain artworks.
I would have loved to do it myself. But burning Normies was too expensive for my budget. So I watched from a distance, enjoyed what others created, and honestly, that is fine too.
This is also something worth saying: you can belong to a community without participating in every expensive ritual inside it.
Not everyone can burn. Not everyone can sweep. Not everyone can commission a legendary edit.
But everyone can observe, share, learn, support, build, explain, archive, and care. That matters too. Well… that matters to me!
February 27, 2026. THE100
gnormies! Great news from us: Community created THE100 What's it? - It's basically first 100 customized Normies. In less than 24 hours of NormieCanvas launch, 520 Normies are burned and 102 Normies are customized. Please load 4K and zoom in This is how we build together
Another addition to the burn mechanism: the first 100 customized Normies became, without anyone knowing it, history.
These first 100 will continue to be important for Normies history…
March 12, 2026. Official sponsor of NFC 2026!
gm Normies! We are happy to announce that Normies is the official sponsor of @NFCsummit this year!☀️ Plans for NFC Lisbon: - We will create biggest mural in the event venue with 18 Normies. - 1st edition of "Normies Brunch" for holders. In this brunch we will use mosaic tiles Show more
Normies will bring pixels in real life at NFC Lisbon.
Normies are sponsor of the event and a lot of things will come: “physical normies”, a Normies brunch, biggest mural in the event venue…
March 13, 2026. Normies X @nuclearsamurai
Congrats to @nuclearsamurai on Xnormies launch and reveal. Love to all those who pulled my amazing members of #THE100 Didn't get any of mine but that is totally fine! What a god damn good collection it is.
The Normies X NuclearSamurai collab is Normies’ first crossover project, a new batch minted for free to Normies holders based on a snapshot.
Their style is a natural extension from Normies’ minimal 40x40 pixel art, but in 3D printed form. The XNuclearSamurai drop was offered exclusively to THE100 Normies holders (snapshot taken), letting them claim new NFTs for free.
March 14, 2026. Venom Normie
We're honored to welcome @AdamWeitsman deeper into the Normies family!🖤 All started with "Skelemoon", which was created one and only @lphaCentauriKid. It's a 1/1, iconic masterpiece in the collection. Today, Adam has collected 300 Normies, largest single acquisitions in our Show more
The creation that marked me the most is Normie #7783. The Venom-looking one.
Transformation of Normie #7783: Venom Style!
It is incredible. It is still a Normie (ironically a Human one too)
But it has become something else. According to the latest sale I saw, it sold for 4.50 ETH, around $10.4K at the time of the sale. For a classic human one at first.
March 24, 2026. The Adam Effect.
@adamamcbride is one of the biggest contributor of the NFT ecosystem.
After a creation for him, Skelemoon (amazing one, truly), he bought 300 Normies with one sweep. Making him the biggest holder of Normies (for now!)
A huge impact on this project, of course.
March 27, 2026. Huge news for the Normies ecosystem!
Normies awakening is announced! It will enable each Normie to become an autonomous AI-powered agent living on-chain.
This means your Normie won’t just be a static pixel face but a dynamic, evolving personality that can interact, learn, trade, and make decisions based on its history, traits, and customization.
The ERC-8004 standard handles agent identity registration, discovery, and permissionless communication between NFTs and external systems.
Normies has deeply integrated this agentic NFT vision:
- The burn-to-edit system, action points, and leveling directly shape the agent’s “personality.”
- Each edit and on-chain interaction feeds data into the Normies “HIVE” (a collective AI swarm).
This is coming soon… you will see later…
April 4, 2026. 0.2 ETH.
X40, that’s what Normies made from February 18 to April 4. I don’t know what more I can tell you about it!
April 29, 2026. 70 days of Normies.
gm! It's been 70 days since Normies launch. It's still 2 months old we make sure baby steps before big leap. Some numbers before details: Total volume: 1140 ETH ($2.3M) Total burned: 1761 (250 ETH or $600,000) Total sales: 24,000 Mint price: 0.005 ETH ($9) Current floor Show more
Here we are, 70 days after mint day. These numbers speak by themselves! Still 1,659 holders! That’s not nothing huh?
In roughly these first days, the project had already reached more than 1,100 ETH in total volume. More than 1,700 Normies had been burned. Hundreds of canvases had been customized. There were weekly spaces, community calls, tools, experiments, music projects, community submissions, and more than 60 apps or tools built around the ecosystem.
But the numbers are not the whole story. The story is that the collection kept producing signs of life. The project did not just rely on people waiting for the floor to move.
It gave people things to talk about, things to make, things to argue about, things to collect, things to explain to their Web2 friends.
Which, unfortunately for my friends, I did A LOT.
So… Why I kept looking at Serc
After Normies, I looked elsewhere. I found amazing projects.
Human Resources and Panorama are part of them. I discovered artists, marketplaces, niche communities, more experimental works, and many projects I would probably never have looked at without Normies pulling me into this world.
But I was also disappointed a lot.
The more I looked, the more I realized how rare it is to see a project where the artist is not only present, but deeply invested. That is one of the biggest differences between Normies and many other NFT projects.
Not as a vague anonymous founder behind a brand account. As an artist with a name, a face, previous work, public exposure, and actual involvement.
Before putting more trust into Normies, I looked at what he had done before. Silhouettes. Veil of Echoes. I liked both a lot.
Because I have seen too many projects pushed by obscure Twitter accounts with no identity, no artistic background, no real plan, and a whole lot of noise around allowlists, wallets, and “community”.
Normies felt different.
And the more time passed, the more I saw Serc invest time, money, attention, and energy into the project.
What I said there is still what I believe.
People praising rising projects and founders can be cringe, because of course, most of the time, they are making money from it.
But I can honestly say that Serc is investing a lot into making Normies work.
He took time to talk to me and help me understand the ecosystem. And I am not a whale. I’m a 2 Normies holder.
And that is not just community management. That is brand building. Actually, I think Serc runs Normies like a company and I mean that as a compliment.
Yes, NFT art is a business, nothing else.
I know some people do not like when we say that. But NFT projects are businesses. Art can be art. Culture can be culture. Community can be community.
But when there is money, markets, incentives, assets, liquidity, secondary sales, sponsorships, collectors, and expectations, there is business too.
That is not an insult. It is a fact.
And one of the strongest business signals in Normies is the scale of Serc’s involvement.
He sweeps his own collection. He uses Normies to create new artworks and collaborations. He reinvests into the ecosystem. He pushes IRL presence. He supports community activity. He keeps building the next layers.
Look at NFC Lisbon, for example.
Normies are bringing fun to Lisbon.
Not many NFT projects spend that kind of money and energy to sponsor an event, show up in real life, support murals, street artists, merch, holders, and community moments. That is not just “floor price go up” behavior. That is brand and culture investment.
Explaining Normies to people is not easy
I talked about Normies a lot to my friends.
And I am pretty sure I looked like that conspiracy meme with the guy in front of a board full of strings.
No, but you don’t understand, it is not just a JPEG. You can burn some of them to customize another one, and the edits are onchain, and all the transactions stay on the blockchain, and there will be PvP with Normies Arena, and Serc is also launching HIVE, and by the way I built a 3D simulation of all the Normies living on Earth, look.
Hello @normiesART ! I created a world where all alive normies are roaming around. You can follow them, hear what they want to say, seing their strange behaviour (aliens, you know...), and just before The Hive came live! @serc1n @nftgothsa @dopemind10 just-a-normie-world.vercel.app
https://just-a-normie-world.vercel.app/
When a project is hard to explain, it can mean two things: either it is nonsense or it is actually doing several things at once and building something in the long term.
Normies is art, but also tech. It is a collection, but also a system. It is speculative, but also creative. It is deeply online, but it is moving IRL. It is individual ownership, but also collective culture. It is a tiny pixel face, but also a ticket into a strange evolving world.
That is why I keep talking about it.
NEXT: ZOMBIES!
What are Zombies? It's the new and final trait in Normies collection. Currently we have Human, Cat, Alien and Agents. Zombies will be rewarded to top 21 recursive burners. What is recursive burn? Recursive burn = full burn ancestry. Not only how many Normies were burned Show more
Now you know it… there are a lot of burned Normies. Literally money burned to create art. And Serc announced something for top “burners”: turning a Human into a Zombie!
A new and final trait in Normies collection.
NEXT : Normies Arena
When @normiesART Arena opens… Your pixel soul belongs to me
I am very curious about Normies Arena. It’s supposed to be live on May 15th!
From what I have seen, the rules seem to give Aliens a pretty important place.
And since my first Normie is an Alien, I will obviously pretend this is a very rational reason to be excited. More seriously, I think Aliens are strangely under-discussed in the project narrative haha.
Normies Arena is an upcoming fully on-chain PvP game for Normies. It turns your Normies into fighters with unique roles based on their type: Humans are core fighters, Cats support by boosting defenses, Aliens steal pixels strategically, and Agents command but rely on your Humans to fight.
You can learn more about it there:
https://www.normies.art/lab
I’m very curious of what impact this game will have on the collection!
NEXT: Normies Awakening & the HIVE
This probably one of the things I am most curious about.
The idea of a collective consciousness, of us observing a micro-world, really speaks to me. It reminds me of “Le Cycle des Dieux” by Bernard Werber, which is one of my favorite written works.
The feeling of observing a small world, with its own logic, interactions, collective behavior, and emerging story, is exactly the kind of thing that makes my brain light up.
I like the idea that these small onchain objects can become characters, populations, signals, agents, or cultural particles inside a larger system.
Future plans for this include agent economies, delegations, autonomous canvas edits… where your Normie can literally customize itself!
I am very curious to see the concrete implementation.
Why I’m still holding
I hold for several reasons. Yes, money is one of them, I’m not lying.
This is crypto. This is NFTs. Everyone likes to pretend they are here only for art until a serious offer appears. A very big offer would make me think. A need for money would make me think too, like everyone else.
I already missed big opportunities in this ecosystem because of greed or lack of experience. I am not going to pretend I am above that.
But whatever happens, I want to always keep at least one Normie in my collection. Because I do not hold only for the floor.
I hold because my first Normie is part of my own NFT origin story.
I hold because Serc’s involvement is rare.
I hold because the collection is fully onchain, CC0, and open to builders.
I hold because Canvas created real cultural artifacts.
I hold because Arena and HIVE could extend the project into something more alive.
I hold because I built around it.
I hold because I watched the project move from pixels to tools, from tools to culture, from culture to real-life presence.
And I hold because, honestly, Normies ruined my standards for NFT projects haha, my expectations are now way too high for NFT projects!
My deep “frustration”
I would like to contribute more to the Normies ecosystem. Not only personally, but professionally.
With my marketing and business strategy background. My tech understanding. My ability to build narratives, structure offers, create systems, and help projects grow. But it is difficult.
Normies is a loud, engaged, community-driven project. It is also not my project. I am not the artist. I am not the founder. I am not inside the company, if we can call it that.
So sometimes it feels like wanting to board a ship that is not yours, while also seeing routes, opportunities, business models, and bigger things that could be built.
Maybe I am not so different from an investor looking for the right opportunity.
Except instead of putting huge money into buying a lot of Normies, I’m driven to earn my upside by building professionally for the project. That is probably my business brain speaking.
But I think it is honest to say it. Attachment is not always pure. Sometimes it comes with ambition you know?
Damn, I’m speaking like a LinkedIn Guy… or I listened to @roshanpateI.
What could go wrong?
Of course, Normies can fail. Any project can. People can get bored. The market can move on. The artist can get tired.
No project is eternal.
And I know what I am talking about: I am the kind of person who jumps from concept to concept all the time. So yes, I see the risk.
But for 2026, I am confident because like I said earlier, I see daily investment, execution, community activity, cultural production, and a clear will to keep expanding the world.
That is enough for me to stay.
NFA DYOR obviously. I am just a guy who once could not even fund his wallet correctly.
Why Normies matters for the NFT ecosystem
Normies is interesting because it shows what an NFT collection can be when it is treated less like a static drop and more like an evolving cultural system.
Fully onchain art matters because it gives permanence and composability. CC0 matters because it invites people to build.
APIs matter because they turn holders into developers, archivists, toolmakers, and weird experimenters.
Canvas matters because it transforms ownership into creative participation.
Arena matters because it can turn identity and traits into gameplay.
HIVE matters because it hints at something more collective and alive.
And the community matters because none of this works if people do not care enough to show up, talk, burn, build, write, draw, collect, remix, explain, and sometimes look completely insane in front of their friends.
Normies is not perfect. No project is.
But in 70 days, it managed to create more movement than many collections create in their entire lifetime.
That is why I wanted to write this. Not to tell you to buy. Not to promise you anything. But to explain why these pixels became important.
And why, if you are trying to understand what is happening in this little corner of the NFT world, Normies is worth studying.
Start with the docs. Open the archive. Look at the canvases. Read the tweets. Watch what Serc is building. Talk to the community. Come talk to me directly if you want it too, talk to the Normies bot Serc created to onboard newcomers.
And then decide for yourself if these pixels are just pixels. For me, they are not anymore.
