BayBatches

Demo

About

The problem it solves Onchain art platforms are often complex, expensive, or inaccessible to non-technical creators. BayBatches solves this by offering a playful, low-cost, and collaborative way to create and collect fully onchain art , no code or crypto expertise required. As a miniapp on Farcaster, it makes creation native to the social layer, where creativity happens in public and spreads organically. It’s a simplified, focused version of Mintbay, built specifically to bring the joy of minting onchain art to more people. BayBatches uses a shared set of visual constraints — 9 colors, 14 glyphs, and typographic styles — designed to connect directly with Base’s builder culture. The word “BATCHES” in the art is a nod to the spirit of the buidlathon. It lowers the barrier to onchain creation while celebrating community, creativity, and low cost fees for fully onchain art on Base. - The entire app, from smart contracts to the UI, was built using AI assistance, showcasing how accessible building on Base can be. - All artworks use a common glyph + color system, making every piece part of a larger collective story. - Anyone can create and publish a fully onchain ERC-721 in just two steps for 0.0004 ETH. Artists earn 50% of each mint. BayBatches isn’t just an app: it’s a proof-of-concept for what it means to create together onchain, with tools that are open, fun, and native to the ecosystem.

How it's made

Challenges we ran into As an artist with limited coding experience, the biggest challenge was building a fully functional onchain minting platform from scratch, including smart contracts, a frontend, and deployment infrastructure. I had no experience with tools like Hardhat, Vercel, GitHub, or contract development before starting. The breakthrough came by leaning into AI as a creative and technical partner. With the help of generative AI, I was able to write, test, and deploy smart contracts, build the frontend, and structure the entire platform without needing a traditional dev team. Another challenge was designing a system that felt collaborative and playful, while still maintaining the technical complexity of fully onchain minting. Constraints, like using small pixel sizes and shared glyphs, helped keep the experience fun and low-cost, while staying true to the ethos of onchain art. Finally, fitting the experience into a Farcaster miniapp required careful design decisions to keep the UX lightweight, responsive, and intuitive; especially for first-time users. Each of these challenges shaped BayBatches into what it is: a creative tool for everyone, not just developers.