Art 🤝 Smart Contracts: NFTs at Meridian 2025

Imagine walking into a conference and discovering you're not just an attendee, you're a collector, an explorer, and part of a living art experiment. At Meridian 2025, we turned that vision into reality, bringing together 24 artists from around the world to create 80 unique works of art over nine days. The result was an immersive experience that connected the physical and digital, through integrated art drops at sessions, collection points around the venue, and even a built in treasure hunt. We proved that blockchain is as much about building community as it is about building infrastructure.

The Meridian NFT activation transformed the conference into an interactive experience where attendees scanned QR codes to collect proof-of-attendance tokens at sessions and a tap to collect process for hidden digital treasures throughout the venue. This was the first major showcase of smart wallet capabilities on Stellar, a meaningful collaboration with artists who've been building in this ecosystem for years, and a technical milestone that pushes the possibilities for smart wallet activations.

The technical infrastructure was half the story. The heart of this project was the art and the people who created it.

This collaboration began where so many good things in crypto do: on Twitter. We connected with Brainfrog, a community-driven collective led by Dixie (known in the community as RockinFREEWorld). For years, Dixie has been one of those people who just makes things happen, whether it’s onboarding newcomers, organizing fundraisers for charitable causes, or building a network of artists and creators who want to bring joy and creativity to web3.

When we approached Brainfrog about Meridian 2025, they went above and beyond, and assembled 24 artists from around the world. Jesse Praiz shipped original paintings from Nigeria. Manson Keller sent work from Canada. The collection spanned styles, continents, and visions, all united by a connection to Stellar and a desire to show what's possible when art and technology work together. And all works corresponded to the theme of this year’s Meridian, The Blueprint, to showcase what is possible when building on Stellar.

A portion of the proceeds is supporting three causes the artists care about: the Baboon Sanctuary for wildlife preservation, the OvaryIt Foundation for women's safety and empowerment, and BlinkOASM scholarships for education in Pakistan. As is the Stellar way, real world impact played a huge part in this collaboration.

We also introduced a special sub collection, Andrew Dixon's "Stellar Punks: The Blueprints." Andrew created 12 pieces: 10 hand-drawn architectural blueprints and 2 motion works that detail characters, ships, and settings for what could become Stellar's first on-chain comic universe.

The pieces are technical plans, the kind an architect would draw, for a fictional world. It's a blueprint that could one day become a living, expanding story owned and shaped by the community. Andrew delivered the most direct expression of our conference theme: building the infrastructure for what comes next.

Claims were limited to 50 people per piece, introducing an element of exclusivity. Attendees understood the mission, with some hustling around all corners of the venue to collect all 10. For those that put in the effort, they are the only people in the world that hold the blueprints to this comic universe.