Next week, Art Blocks presents Gas Wars by Jack Butcher: the next-to-last release in the Art Blocks Curated series.

This drop transforms a historic logical fallacy into a live behavioral experiment, where collectors themselves become part of the artwork.

The Concept

During WWII, analysts studied aircraft that returned from combat, mapping bullet holes across fuselages, wings, and tails. Their conclusion: reinforce these areas.

Statistician Abraham Wald pointed out the flaw: these were the planes that had survived. The critical damage was invisible on the aircraft that never came back. The absence of data was the key to survival. This became one of history’s most famous cases of survivorship bias.

Gas Wars replays this blind spot in real time. Each mint marks a strike on a grid, recreating 500 simulations priced from $0 to $499 each representing cost per bullet fired at an aircraft. Early pieces show aircraft surviving minimal fire. Later pieces reveal expensive tokens that may emerge damaged, destroyed, or absent entirely.

The Experience - Two Phases

Phase 1: Survive

The pristine survivor - a clean aircraft with no bullet holes - begins as a 24-hour no reserve auction on Jack's platform, starting September 16 at 12:00 PM EST. This represents the ultimate survivor: untouched by the chaos that follows.

Phase 2: Simulate

For the first time on Art Blocks, 499 tokens (#1-499) become available simultaneously in a chaos minting format on September 17 at 12:00 PM EST:

• Variable pricing: Tokens priced incrementally from $1-499
• One mint per wallet
• Custom grid interface where each purchase reveals new impact coordinates
• 500-second minting window only

As collectors choose their positions during the 500-second window, the grid itself becomes scarred — a living document of collective decision-making under pressure.

View the exhibition page

The Prediction

History suggests most will cluster around the cheapest "survivor" aircraft, while avoiding expensive "casualties." Competition for low-priced pieces will likely drive up gas fees, echoing the legendary gas wars of early Art Blocks drops.

Collectors may race for perceived safety while high-information tokens with poor survival odds remain unclaimed. In doing so, they repeat the very bias that misled WWII strategists: reinforcing the visible data while overlooking what was fatally absent.

The paradox: understanding the trap doesn’t prevent falling into it. The economic mechanics create their own survivorship bias.

Context

This project is more than mechanics. It is a meditation on:

• Art Blocks history: transforming the frenzy of early gas wars into art itself
• The AB500 archive: a complete record of 500 generative collections, nearing its conclusion
• Value and bias: themes central to Jack Butcher's practice, where scarcity, perception, and consensus collide

Alongside the 499 works minted on Art Blocks during the chaos event, Token #0 - the pristine survivor from Phase 1 - completes the full narrative of survivorship bias in action.

Closing

Gas Wars is not just collected. It is enacted. Every mint, every wallet, every choice becomes part of the artwork.

This is the penultimate Art Blocks Curated release. One final collection remains before the flagship series closes forever.

View the exhibition page

About the Artist

Jack Butcher (b. 1988, Swindon, England; lives and works in Nashville, USA) is the founder of Visualize Value. His work explores markets, scarcity, and consensus, examining how value emerges, circulates, and persists in networked culture.