ciphrd, also known as Baptiste Crespy, is a generative artist and software engineer whose work draws on artificial life, microscopy, and video game systems design. In November 2021 he founded fxhash, an open generative art platform on Tezos that let any artist mint without curation. His generative collection RGB Elementary Cellular Automaton, released that same year, applies a cellular automata algorithm that generates its imagery from simple binary rules.
Ciphrd traces his interest in biology and microorganisms to an accident of exploring video game algorithms, where he found that applying simple rules to millions of agents in a particle simulation produced emergent behavior resembling patterns in nature. He has named artificial life systems such as Tierra and Clusters, along with microscopy, as his main sources of algorithmic and visual inspiration. When fxhash's early growth drew an offer of venture funding, he turned it down to keep the platform independent, relying instead on secondary royalties from RGB Elementary Cellular Automaton sales to sustain it at the time. fxhash later took investment: a $5 million seed round in August 2023 led by 1kx, followed by funding from Coinbase Ventures announced in 2026 to support the platform's expansion to Ethereum and Base.
