Checks - VV Originals

Checks is a grid of 80 colored checkmarks on a dark canvas by Jack Butcher of Visualize Value, a play on the blue badge Twitter had just started selling for $8 a month. Every token carries the same line in its description: "This artwork may or may not be notable." The Originals are the second stage of the work. Two Originals with the same count can be merged into one with fewer checks, so a grid steps down from 80 to 40, 20, 10, 5, 4 and finally a single check.

It began on January 3, 2023, as a 24-hour open edition at $8, and 16,031 identical editions were minted. Butcher worked out the rules for what came next in public over the following days, with Jalil Wahdatehagh on the contracts. From February 12, 2023, an owner could burn an edition for an Original with the same number, with no deadline. The Originals are fully onchain: the contract draws each one as an animated SVG whose colors cycle once it is clicked. When two merge, the new colors come from both parents, and the owner picks which number survives.

The first single check, #240, was made less than two hours after the Originals opened. Sixty-four single checks, 4,096 editions in all, make a Black Check, so no more than three can ever exist, and none had been made by October 2026. Every merge burns a token, which means the series shrinks as owners play it: 5,329 Originals were left at that point, and 3,556 editions had never been migrated. In May 2023 Christie's offered three works from Checks Elements, a related series built on the same logic.