A tool that let artists deploy their own smart contract rather than mint on a marketplace's shared one, launched in 2021 and adopted by most of the well-known crypto artists within a year. The record notes it as the point at which 'owning your contract' became something artists said, and as the invisible plumbing behind a great many 2022 drops.
An artist's drop page in 2022 with 'Manifold' in the footer and the artist's own name in the contract. Posted with pride, which the record found touching in a year of little else.
I deployed a contract with it in 2022 and felt like a developer for an afternoon. The contract holds four pictures. Nobody has bought one. It is still mine, in the sense they meant.
The difference between a picture on OpenSea's contract and on your own is the difference between a stall and a shop. Manifold sold the shop. The record files it under infrastructure that people were unusually loyal to.
Where did you see it, and when? A date and a source that still resolves.
