The Doomed by XCOPY
The Doomed turns six years old. In celebration, we explore the history, lore, and possible future of this iconic work.
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The Doomed
Six years ago, on October 20th 2018, the artist known as XCOPY released The Doomed on the KnownOrigin minting contract as an edition of 100. It was XCOPY’s first mint on KnownOrigin.
One day later, on October 21st 2018, the first edition sold for 0.075 ETH, which was worth $16 at the time.
Over the next 434 days, The Doomed would slowly mint out.
Just as the first cases of COVID-19 were being reported out of China, XCOPY sold the 100th and final edition of The Doomed on December 29th, 2019 for 0.06 ETH, which was worth $8 at the time.
The description included with The Doomed is just one sentence:
“Tech won't save us.”
Six years later, The Doomed ranks among the most iconic and storied works in all of cryptoart.
Recent sales of common Doomed editions have ranged from $50,000 - $90,000. Edition #1 of 100 sold in August for ~$140,000 to the collector known as Artifaction. In the words of the prominent cryptoart collector known as Cozomo de’ Medici, The Doomed is “a piece of the bedrock of the cryptoart movement.”
Adding to the value of each edition is the fact that some of the editions may be permanently lost. According to one XCOPY collector, “We think there are only around 85 available to collectors as some sit in wallets with no activity for four or more years.”
The Origin
The Doomed is officially six years old, but it’s story begins much earlier.
The very first incarnation of what would become The Doomed first appeared on XCOPY’s Tumblr in January 2013 as a stroboscopic, noisy spasm.
Various incarnations made it to XCOPY’s Tumblr between 2013 and 2018, a couple of which are posted below.
The best account of XCOPY’s Doomed progression on Tumblr can be found in this fantastic essay about The Doomed by maxand98, which I recommend in its entirety.


Via XCOPY’s Tumblr we can see his progression as an artist. The version of The Doomed that was ultimately minted is less chaotic, more technically complex, more refined, and more solemn than the earlier versions.
The very fact that we have access to XCOPY’s tumblr going back many year before the rise of blockchains, ownable digital objects, and “cryptoart” movement is special. It’s the 21st century equivalent of getting access to the private journals and sketchbooks of artists past.
The Variants
Following the release of the original Doomed, XCOPY minted four other subsequent variants.
The Doomed (mono) was minted as a 1 of 1 on Superrare on May 3rd 2019 and purchased 20 days later by collector Martin Lukas Ostachowski for 0.3 ETH ($73.68 at the time)
When I reached out to Ostachowski to ask about The Doomed, he wrote “The several-year evolution of his skull artworks and the continuous repetition of the different The Doomed series across feeds and galleries have rendered them recognizable as the Campbell soup cans of Crypto Art.”
In October 2020, on the second anniversary of the original Doomed mint, XCOPY minted three more limited edition palettes on Known Origin.
In the XCOPY tradition, many of these editions were given away via raffle, this time to holders of the original Doomed, holders of other XCOPY pieces on the Known Origin contract, and even to holders of the $DOOM token. Here’s one of XCOPY’s tweets about it at the time.
And here’s an announcement from XCOPY’s Discord at that time:
Were any of the original Doomed holders upset about those surprise variants being released? I couldn’t find any evidence of it, but if they were, XCOPY had this to say to them at the time:
Tech Won’t Save Us
What is The Doomed all about? Why does it move people?
I think, at its core, The Doomed resonates with so many art collectors for the most obvious of reasons: Because it reminds us, in a visceral way, that we too are doomed.
When I stare into those hollow, hopeless eye sockets and get lost in the matrix-like trance of digital dust I feel both the weight and weightlessness of my existence. We are all temporary glitches in this shared universal fabric.
The cryptoart collector known as Benji, who helms The Pella Collection and holds 5 copies of the Doomed (3 original, 1 Red variant, and 1 Red & Black variant), told me that they were drawn to the work in part because of the description: "Tech won't save us.” In their words:
“Tech won’t save us” is a memento mori that really got me thinking about both the inevitability of death but also the fragility of us as humans - we place our faith in future technology being able to solve our problems, whether they be medical, environmental or societal - and I believe The Doomed is a powerful reminder of the futility of this way of thinking. With the growing expectation that emerging AGI will solve all our human problems, The Doomed says to us "watch out!!"!
The XCOPY collector known as Jediwolf shared a similar sentiment with me:
For me, The Doomed is an extremely important conceptual work initiated by XCOPY back in 2013 and released in its final form only in 2018, when major topics such as AI’s influence on our world were not yet widely discussed. The work explores the convergence of the matrix, machines, and a dystopian vision of our future. 'P(doom)' is a term in AI safety that refers to the probability of catastrophic outcomes resulting from AI, and it became widespread only in 2023, ten years after the first version of the artwork was published. What will be the actual value of P(doom)? XCOPY is saying - tech won't save us.”
The cold hard truth is that it will be lights off for you and for me and for everyone we know soon enough. Tech won’t save us.
But ironically, tech might just save The Doomed.
Thanks to technologies such as the Ethereum Blockchain and the InterPlanetary File System, there is a fairly decent chance that The Doomed will persist in its oceanic blinks for many generations to come.
The editions will pass on from steward to steward, until eventually they are all lost, housed in institutions, or secured in the most diamond-handed of vaults.
When I ponder that future, I feel some warmth in the knowledge that over the years, millions and perhaps even billions of our fellow human beings will share in the experience of looking at The Doomed, and being looked at by The Doomed.
The Future
From a market perspective what will happen to The Doomed in the years ahead?
In the past six years it has gone from $8 to $80,000, a 10,000X increase in market value.
Six years from now, in the fall of 2030, how will the art world value The Doomed?
How many more editions will be lost?
How easy or difficult will it be to acquire the remaining editions?
What will be the state of the Ethereum blockchain and crypto more broadly?
What will XCOPYs status be in the contemporary art world?
The collector Benji told me that they think The Doomed “will emerge over the next decade as the world's most iconic work of digital art, similar to Warhol's soup cans or Marilyn prints or Banksy's Girl with Balloon in the traditional art world. It will ultimately be held in the top art museums and collections globally and there will come a time where you simply will not be able to buy one no matter what the price - as prized as a Da Vinci codex.”
Whatever happens, there is little doubt that The Doomed will always hold a special place in the history of the Cryptoart movement.
Post Script
The collector known as Artifaction, told me that one of the reasons he loves The Doomed is because to him “The Doomed represents ‘risk.’ The risk an artist takes to put him or herself out there to the world in a more grand way. The risk a collector takes early in an artist’s career.”
XCOPY was producing glitchy digital art for years and years before anyone gave him a dime for his work.
When the blockchain enabled him to mint and sell his work, he took the leap and persisted even when it took him 433 days to sell 100 pieces for the price of a beer. He was taking a risk, and it paid off.
Those early collectors, such as Martin Ostachowski, also took a risk by spending their money buying work from an unknown anonymous artist minting work on a (then) low-value blockchain as part of an art movement that was ignored by most of the world.
Right now, each of us knows in our heart of hearts that two things are true:
I am doomed
There are things I want to do that I am not doing out of fear.
The antidote to #2 is #1.
When you stare your fate directly in the face without blinking, it is strangely relaxing.
The stakes are lower than you think.
The risk is not as high as you might imagine.
Tech won’t save you, but you can save yourself.
Acknowledgements
Huge shout out to maxand98, whose essay about The Doomed was hugely helpful in informing this piece. I recommend you read it in its entirety.
Thank you to XCOPY/Doomed collectors Artifaction, Benji, Cozomo de’ Medici, Jediwolf, Martin Lukas Ostachowski, and Pravijn for contributing their thoughts and quotes to this piece.