If not, allow me to paint the pixelated picture. Back in 2005 the internet was a different, simpler place. Facebook had just come out, and it was actually cool to be a part of - it was invite only at the time. The era of big-brother levels of surveillance and data harvesting had not yet begun.

The internet was surprisingly hard to monetize at this time as we really didn't have the tools in place to easily track, measure, and extort web traffic like we do today.

So there is this guy, a few years older than me at the time, who was trying to raise money while he was in college. Only Fans did not exist yet, so he had to use his brain rather than his body to work online. His big idea? Make a 1,000 x 1,000 grid, and sell each of the pixels for $1. Each of the pixels would have a hyperlink to some external source – whomever bought the pixel had the ability to set that URL.

The internet loved it.

There have been several others to jump on board and launch their own version of this idea. Back in 2017 Reddit launched theirs, "Reddit Place". It started off as one of Reddit's fun April Fools jokes where they pit communities against each other, and turned into an ongoing part of Reddit as a whole for 5 years.

Communities banded together, creating their version of what place should look like, one pixel at a time.

So then, what is Cardano.Place?

Cardano.Place is the place I built. I am not a developer. My background is in working with high growth startups on performance marketing from the brand side. I co-founded Anvil, sure, but not everyone can be a dev.

I built Cardano.Place as a non-dev, working with the Anvil API, Wordpress, Claude, and a strong background in how websites work.

I wanted to show others how powerful our tooling is. I was able to make something production-ready over a weekend. Mints used to take days to set up - I was firing tests within minutes.

I don't have the technical background a lot of the developers have on Cardano, though I have worked here full time for about 4 years now. I don't have an extensive GitHub library of all of the contributions I have made.

I have knowledge of how Cardano works, and now, the tools to figure it out.

What makes it special?

Cardano.Place brings together:

  • 1,000,000 colorful tiles on a zoomable, pannable canvas
  • True ownership - each tile is an NFT on Cardano
  • 1 ADA per tile - simple, accessible pricing
  • Real-time updates - see the canvas evolve as people mint
  • Built in a weekend - showcasing the power of Anvil API

I hope you like Cardano.Place! If people end up using it, I have some fun ideas! If no one does, it's a really neat tech demo of how powerful the Anvil API is.

I'm proud of what I built, and stoked to be here either way, because I built this place.

<3 Pb