4x4 cat

Abstract

We present 4x4 cat, a study in minimal on chain art. Each work is a cat rendered in a 4x4 pixel grid, generated deterministically from its own Solana mint address and stored as bytes on the chain itself. The population is fixed at 99, a number selected for its relation to the widely reported feline property of nine lives. Acquisition follows a burn protocol: destruction of 1,000,000 units of the associated currency, $cat, releases exactly one specimen from the vault. Assignment is decided by the hash of the burn signature. No party, including the authors, selects which cat is released. Five specimens exhibit anomalous properties. We document the methodology, the population, and the claim apparatus below.

1. Introduction

Prior work in on chain imagery has pursued ever larger canvases. We proceed in the opposite direction and ask how few pixels constitute a cat. Our finding: sixteen. The arrangement was fixed from a single reference observation and is held constant across the entire population. Variation is confined to fur, eye pigment, orientation, and field color.

The supply of 99 follows from first principles. A cat possesses nine lives. Ninety nine is the largest two digit expression of this property. No further justification is offered, and none is required.

2. Methodology

• 2.1. Each specimen is a Metaplex Core asset. Its appearance is a pure function of its own mint address: the address is hashed, and the hash selects fur, eyes, orientation, and field. The art therefore cannot be altered, reassigned, or regenerated differently. It survives every transfer.
• 2.2. The rendered SVG bytes are written into the asset on Solana. The image does not depend on any server remaining online. The chain holds the cat.
• 2.3. The five anomalous specimens occupy editions determined by a deterministic shuffle of the full key set. The authors did not choose their positions and were not able to.
• 2.4. $cat is issued on pump.fun under the Token 2022 standard. The claim apparatus verifies the token program at runtime rather than assuming it.

3. The Claim Apparatus

The procedure is as follows. The participant connects a wallet and authorizes the destruction of 1,000,000 $cat. The apparatus verifies the burn on chain and transfers one specimen from the vault to the participant. Destruction of 5,000,000 units in a single transaction releases five specimens. The experiment concludes when the vault is empty.

0 of 99 specimens released

4. Anomalous Specimens

Five of the 99 deviate from the common phenotype. They are documented here for completeness. Their editions were not chosen; a hash chose them.

5. The Population

The complete population of 99. Released specimens are stamped with the wallet of record. This figure updates as the experiment proceeds.

6. Discussion

It may be objected that sixteen pixels cannot express a cat. The population above is submitted as evidence to the contrary. The authors note that every observer tested was able to identify the subject as a cat without prompting, and that several attempted to pet the screen.