My Grandma Is Asking About NFTs
My Grandma Is Asking About NFTs
She's GMI
(Any views expressed in the below are the personal views of the author and should not form the basis for making investment decisions, nor be construed as a recommendation or advice to engage in investment transactions.)
GM all. Shortened intro as this newsletter is packed with information and we’re just about hit the substack limit. Also, if you’re looking to get more involved in the Web 3.0 space, be sure to check out our jobs section at the bottom. TheChild1996 has been killing it. Let’s begin.
PSA: With all the positivity in the air, we wanted to come up with a way to reward you for sharing the MC alpha with your friends…
so we started a referral program!
Click here to join – all you have to do is refer friends to subscribe to the newsletter, and you can win ETH rewards and NFT raffle entries.
Macro Update
We’ve officially entered “easy mode” on NFTs. Practically everywhere you go right now somebody has an opinion on NFTs, good, bad, ugly, great, indifferent… but they are aware. Old friends and family members are even asking us where they should allocate ~$1000 to NFTs for an easy 3x. The top signals are everywhere at the point, including this giga-top signal below:
And yet, we remain bullish. While the mania can end on a moment's notice, we think as long as ETH chops in the low $3K USD range then the NFT bull market will continue to rip. The primary concern is the rapid supply growth which causes liquidity to spread thin, but as we’ve mentioned the money will still flow to the top (it may just take a bit longer to work its way through all the crap projects). Pretty much any project without a legit team goes to 0 in this situation, especially with the high gas we’re currently experiencing. However, if we stay range bound and the “new entrants” continue to pour into the market at a rapid pace (cough cough coinbase release) then this can continue for quite some time.
Interestingly enough with ETH being on the lower end, we’ve seen very hyped projects like Azuki sell out in under 2 minutes at a price of 1 ETH (dutch auction). 10K PFP projects selling out at 1 ETH is healthy for this market, showing that the demand for high-end, the ultimate driver of the art market, still remains. While we think the almost 3x in floor pre-reveal for a project that’s fairly similar in PFP fashion to TheSevens and 0n1 Force is a bit much, you could say this comes from our inner salt on missing the mint. At the end of the day, we underestimated how badly everyone wants a virtual identify (in many cases multiple) so PFP projects continue to lead the way in this bull market.
To end this short update there is a lot of money to be made right now, and here at MC, our main goal is to add as many of you as possible to the GMI club. We recommend jumping in our discord chat for unparalleled alpha that many of our community members provide. With that, let's hop into what’s been catching our eye lately.
New Eye Catchers:
As the NFT market heats up, we keep receiving requests to cover new projects that are minting. While we don’t always agree with this strategy, (we prefer to bet big on a small number of projects that we’re confident will succeed, Creepz for example) many of you are looking for a lottery ticket.
Below are a few projects we think are worth taking a further look at. We are in no means endorsing any of these as we haven’t done a thorough analysis. However, we think these stand out in a sea of noise and are worth checking out further if you’re looking to “gamble.” We may or may not dive deeper into these into the future but for now feel free to check them out.
Whitelist sale - Jan 18th 10pm UTC
Public sale - Jan 19th UTC
Supply: 10,000
Price - .1 ETH
Project looks pretty fascinating. 87k discord twitter followers and a max mint of 2 per wallet, the team seems confident this will sell out with no issue. Metroverse is a land trading game that pays you $MET to play. While we’re a bit skeptical on many of these new projects giving you tokens or trying to be a PVP or P2E game, Metroverse looks serious. Definitely worth exploring.
Edenhorde
Really unsure what this project is all about but have seen it pop up in our circle a few times. Looks incredible and the website has this larger than life epic feel to it. Not much info here but will most likely follow up – recommend following them on twitter for now. Mint is slated for Feb 14th.
Pops NFT
Project looks dope simply because we dig the art and pop culture references. We think this can go a long way and discord / twitter already have a huge following. 1st drop is on Feb 22nd with 3,333 generatives and 33 originals. If you’re into luxury streetwear, this project seems to have the right idea on how to approach their merch game. Again, not much info here but we think this could be a subtle winner. A few of the first edition originals out of the 33 have already gone for over 1 ETH in auction. Worth following in our opinion.
Weather Report NFT
Not much info about this one out, and discord opened yesterday but a few reputable people in the space have been pretty high on this. Founders of the project are legit and the artwork is exactly the whimsical type of stuff that sells out. Already has a whopping 26k followers on twitter (some big players following) and will be dropping in February. Keep on your radar.
Sprite Club Update
Quick update here – we remain extremely positive on the future of Sprites. Project is organically growing and at an impressively steady pace. Discord has been a fun place to interact with a lot of “NFT enthusiasts” and whales involved. The project has moved to a WL only mint and will be capping each wallet at 2 mints max per WL, showing their confidence in the project as well ensuring they can retain a strong community. Watch out for discord invite opportunities and come hang for a good time.
Some Notes on Derivatives
As NFT Mania kicks into high gear, we’ve seen the rise and significant success of derivative projects. These are essentially knock offs of projects like Bored Apes, Doodles, Cool Cats, Punks… really any blue chips. We get a ton of messages and requests to check out new derivative projects and we think 99% are obvious cash grabs. However, due to all newbies flooding the space who didn’t experience the last 3 months in NFTs, people’s hunger to get a lottery ticket, and how easy things have been in 2022, a lot of these will likely continue to pump (and then probably dump).
Let’s use Coodles as an example. Cool Cats combined with Doodles, wow, what a brilliant innovation! Sarcasm aside, we see this is a pure cash grab/pump and dump. Selling the dream of being a 1 ETH floor project simply because it is copying 2 blue chips. Post-mint, the project was pumped to around a .45 floor earlier last week (pretty impressive) and now it’s sitting under .1 ETH. We’re confident this will never see it’s ATH again and will never amount to anything meaningful. Side note: nothing against the coodles team, this project was mentioned to us a few times in our discord so we figured we’d highlight.
As common practice, we would avoid all of these derivative projects at all costs. Yes, we get that one of your friends made 5x on FlippedApeDoodlePunk a day after mint but the majority will get left holding the bag. We think these types of new mints are the equivalent of scam ICOs in 2017. This will not end well for most.
Keeping your NFTs Safe. Guest post by W3nzel.
Special thanks to one of our favorite community members W3nzel. Highly recommend giving him a follow as he is always dropping crypto alpha. While we’re all looking to get rich through our digital images of animals and what not, we also hear about new scams every single day. W3nzel is going to walk you through the top ways to stay protected from these common scams:
Where to begin? Well, when Reese Witherspoon is tweeting about parallel digital identities in the Metaverse and Walmart is planning to drop it’s own NFTs, we can finally say that crypto has hit the mainstream. With thousands of new users joining daily, one aspect is of utmost importance, and that is security! Yet you barely read about proper security measures and habits when you see posts or articles written about NFTs.
Here is a list of 10 security tips and technical issues you should be aware of when dealing with NFTs or crypto in general:
Get a hardware wallet. Here’s a good post that explains the difference between a hot and cold wallet. (MC: We recommend a Ledger or Trezor)
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. 95% of all hacks/scams could have been avoided if the person wasn't greedy/careless. Nobody is giving you something for free, turn your discord dms off.
Use a 2FA authenticator app.
Even when using a hardware wallet, check EVERY SINGLE transaction before you approve. Once you approve the transaction, it cannot be undone.
Routinely revoke permissions to projects and websites you no longer use. They can get hacked/modified, and you might unknowingly send your NFT to a scammer using the site. How you revoke approval.
Do NOT click on unknown links sent to you. Even using a hardware wallet, this individual lost two expensive NFTs because of one click.
Never share your screen with strangers. This might sound obvious, but you'd be surprised how intelligent social engineers can be. They will use every trick in the book.
Cancel the sale before moving your NFT to a new wallet. There is a bug on Opensea. When you list your NFT for sale, move it to a different wallet, but don't cancel the sale, the offer is still valid. However, once you move it back to the initial wallet, anyone can purchase it immediately.
Don't open email attachments. Oldest trick in the book, but people still fall for it. He lost millions of tokens because of it.
Please don't fall for MetaMask Support accounts on Twitter and don't believe DMs from strangers on Discord (disable them).
The crypto space and the world of NFTs is a fascinating new technology. One of the significant upsides of the crypto world is that you don't need intermediaries. That means less friction, fewer fees, but way more responsibility for the end user since no company or helpdesk will undo your errors.
Thank you for reading. Stay safe!
Closing Thoughts (see careers below)
Simply not enough time in the day to research everything. With everything moving so fast, we don’t think there has been an easier time to 10x overnight in the NFT space (also to go straight to 0). Non-jpegers are reaching max cope watching as some kid sells his lambo for a digital image of an ape. Remain level headed and focus on projects/teams that define ambitious yet realistic roadmaps, who continue to deliver on their promises. With that, have a wonderful week of staring at your screen refreshing the floor price on Opensea. If you read this far then we know you’re GMI.
Wagmi, anon.
Web3 Careers:
GM! Hiring is picking back up now that we’ve left the holidays behind and we have a ton of great positions for you to check out this week! The trend we saw late last fall of hiring for community and social media focused roles is back in full force. If you don’t have coding or software skills those roles are probably your best bet at breaking into Web3.
An interesting role we haven’t seen before is a NFT Public Relations position at a traditional public relations firm. Positions like this at the intersection of Web3 and traditional companies will also be natural places for folks with even small amounts of Web3 experience to get their feet wet in the space.
Let us know if you’re hiring for incredible roles or if there are other types of opportunities you’d like to see in this section! Tweet/DM us @MintCalendar, @TheChild1996, or send an email to officialmintcalendar@gmail.com.
Community:
Community Manager (7012.io)
Social Media Manager (Lazy Lions)
Community Lead (Uniswap)
Community Manager (Optimism)
Strategy/Miscellaneous:
Internship – Corporate Strategy Analyst (bitpanda)
Product Lead (Forefront)
NFT Trading Strategist (Hexabit)
Head of Policy & Government Affairs (OpenSea)
VP Public Relations, Crypto/NFT Industry (Interdependence Public Relations)
Marketing:
Content Writer (Weplay Labs)
Developer Relations Evangelist (Metamask)
Investor Relations/Business Development Associate (Sfermion)
Software Development:
Multiple Security and Software Engineer Positions (Phantom)
Sr Software Engineer – NFT Platform (GameStop)
That’s all folks! Hope you all enjoyed this week's addition. Feel free to shoot us a DM on Twitter or email us with what you’d like to see more of! We’re super active on twitter so also feel free to tag us in anything interesting.
If you’re feeling friendly feel free to share this with anyone who you feel might otherwise fall into the NGMI category.
Most of all, have a wonderful week!
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Disclaimer about sponsorships: We’ve been getting A LOT of dms about sponsorships and upcoming drops. Many are NGMI but a few projects stood out and have teams that we’ve taken the time to speak with and are excited to share info on in the near future. If you're launching a new project and are looking to work with us on promotion and/or consultation on how to plan a successful drop, feel free to slide in the DMs in Twitter.