Advice For New NFT Collectors
I've been buying and selling NFTs since March. Here's my advice as a collector from the journey so far.
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The Spirit of web3
The Projects
The Visitors
All Smilesss
Jungle Freaks
Doodles
The Lizard Lab
The Pluto People
Shroom Folk
Ugly Goof
The Formula
The Call to Action
To all the cosmic travellers out there,
Following last week’s guide to creating a strong NFT community, I’m going to look at specific projects that, for me, have successfully built meaningful communities. This is based on my own research; my own journey, and so obviously everyone’s measured list of successes would look different. I do count myself extremely lucky for the projects I’ve discovered though, and I think it’s well worth breaking down what they are and how I believe they’ve succeeded in capturing the opportunity to build something special.
“This NFT world is likely the greatest unlock of artist opportunity in 100+ years. This isn’t a suboptimal or fringe version of the real-world art economy, it is a vastly improved one.”
— Scott Belsky, Chief Product Officer at Adobe, Founder of Behance, Venture Partner at Benchmark
The Spirit of web3
“… collaboration leads to better outcomes than competition”
When a project embraces this self-realising ideal of web3, they unlock a boundless potential that can only manifest when a large group of people align themselves to cooperate and succeed together.
As I’ve been wandering around this new world, poking my head behind Discord-shaped doors left ajar by fellow travellers, you build up an intuition as to when a project feels right, and when a project feels wrong. This only comes with experience, and I’m not talking about months of experience, but I’ve been in (and often very quickly out) of well over 200 Discord servers now.
As collectors - and I use the word collectors rather than consumers, because I think that’s a tremendous shift in how we operate as users of these creations; it’s not a matter of buying objects and simply using them for their inherent value as an object anymore. The value is in the collecting, the holding and the sharing what we find together - the cultural value of what we collect.
While we roam this vast landscape with all its colours, shapes and fanciful creatures, it is our duty to do our own research and suss out what is worth our time and attention. After all, that is the ultimate finite resource.
I bought my first NFT on Nifty, and at the time it felt like a leap of faith in a blind alley. What I realise now, in hindsight, is how far away that was from the real experience of discovering and minting an NFT as part of a community.
Nifty is old school, forced to fit on to the new era. It’s great for onboarding and it will certainly have a role to play in the transition from individual consumption to communal collection. However, it’s not the end goal.
Following my trial run with Nifty, I minted my own NFTs and naively hoped to suddenly become a crypto artist. This was not to be the case, and so I ended up drifting back to learning about crypto as a whole again, and NFTs drifted into peripheral vision.
Then in August, I found myself dipping my toes back in with a regenerated interest to discover more of what’s under the hood. I needed to dive deeper and head underground, to make sense of the noise and learn what the opportunities were that I had been ignoring beyond making my own art and selling it.
That’s when I landed in my first true NFT project; wrapped in an insulated blanket of collectors, built upon a fascinatingly compassionate community who only sought to support one another and celebrate the art they were embracing across this vast digital tundra. This was the mighty Discord Server of The Visitors NFT. The further I travel into the grand realm of NFTs, the more I realise I struck a pot of community gold with my first. I must give myself a pat on the back for that, and I must declare my bestowed faith upon that special, special project.
The Visitors
I class The Visitors as my spiritual home in the NFT world. It is that sacred garden I can always go back to, sit on a bench in the safety of my people, before venturing off once more into the maddening chaos of the outside world, filled with all its the wonderful bounties, as well as the harsh realities of dodgy projects, scams, and spammers all vying for your attention.
It has become a gym where I’ve worked on my game, built confidence, asked questions and found mentors who, without hesitation, are always there to offer advice, help and to pass on valuable information they discover themselves.
There is nothing better than arriving in a Discord and seeing that there is already a group of Visitors making it their home, because you know if it’s got Visitors committed to participating in the project, then it’s got something worth digging for.
The compassion with which that community show people when they arrive in the Discord; asking questions or hoping to buy a Visitor, is always flawless. The Visitors community has been nothing but a blessing for me on my journey, and it’s given me some wonderful opportunities; some of which you’ll soon read about. It’s my NFT citadel, and they all feel like family to me now.
How did I find it?
I found the visitors through the discord.art community. I don’t know why it stuck out as one that I wanted to jump into as my first, because I was soemwhat walking blind. I saw the little alien emoji for the room, and I just fell into the project and I liked what I saw.
I soon realised it wasn’t the easiest one to choose as a first, because it was being minted on Polygon. But that didn’t deter me. I bridged my ETH to Polygon, and suddenly found myself authorising my wallet and hitting that glorious mint button to reveal my cute little Visitor. 24 hours later I was minting my second.
There is a humble confidence in the project, that spills down from Mike, and is emitted through the whole community. He’s a well-established artist with a good following outside of NFTs, but he’s really taking the opportunity to do something special with The Visitors; artistically and technologically. There’s no agenda to rush the art, to force any hype, to stir up any inauthentic fuss, because he knows his the crowd he’s got is special, and in the long run the rewards will inevitably come for the risks he’s taken. Many question why the work he’s put in isn’t reflected in the price as it stands. But he is calm in the knowledge that the market will catch up to the quality of the art, and the quality of the community he has created.
The spirit in the Discord is one of loyalty, long-term belief and the joy of simply collecting and sharing the little visitors, that have come to symbolise home for me in NFTs. With some novel elements to the project coming up soon, notably the recycler event - sadly, my two visitors are going to be meeting their bitter end as I put their necks on the block in order for a new and unique character to be born from their honourable ashes - there will be plenty of organic interest in the work, bringing long-term value to all holders.
This project is destined to evolve in waves, collecting loyal admirers with each expansion. If you have spent even a tiny amount of time in projects, you’ll know that long-term gradual growth is a rare thing indeed, and should be treasured when you find it. For all of these reasons + many more, it will surely be known as one of the sacred corners of the NFTverse when written about in thousands of years.
The Passport To Everywhere Else
Beyond the art and the space, what the Visitors also gifted me was a place to be involved in the observation of the wider narrative, and to find projects early and learn how to hone my craft in terms of engaging in the space and creating opportunities for myself.
If this was my tweet it would read, ‘Being a successful NFT investor sometimes comes down to being in the Visitors discord at the right time with enough liquidity.’
It’s been that simple for me. Of course it’s taken a lot of time and hard work as well, but the good luck has always begun in the Visitors discord, or at least with the team.
The community manager, Trish, posted about a new project that she was involved in on Twitter in early September. The Discord was fairly fresh, and I’d learnt by now that the earlier you get in the better, so I thought, ‘well, if Trish is there, it’s definitely worth looking in and seeing whats going on.’ So I followed her into the All Smilesss discord, and as of tomorrow, the rest will be history.
All Smilesss
Minting today (29/10), this one is destined to be special.
‘Under promise; over deliver’ is the motto of the smilesss team. The epitomy of richerd’s summation below, and it’s what I was preaching in last weeks piece.
They haven’t had to promise much to create a real excitement around anything Waheed, the artist, touches. It’s clear he’s destined to be a real leader in this space in terms of how art, in its purest sense, can be utilised in the space. I spoke of the weakness I associate with vast future roadmaps, teams pushing invite contests more than working on the project in the background, making promises to create hype and getting people to work hard on rank rewards to create an inauthentic buzz just for their drop, to then recede and leave the community somewhat stranded with depreciating assets. Ethereals is a good demonstration of this.
Not the Smilesss team. They’ve have done things differently. They’ve done nothing to force the adoption of the project. The community has grown on its own accord, through word of mouth and sneak peaks into what the art is going to look like.
The multiple niches that Waheed has managed to mutate into one collection is what is going to create such a unique air around the collection. It beautifully fuses sneaker culture, high-end streetwear, hip-hop, storytelling and high-quality 3D character modelling. Backed by Waheed’s personal story and energy, I am just excited to be aboard the Smilesss lambo and on the journey with them.
There’s no flashy utilities that have been brandished, no ‘extras down the line,’ and not an invite contest in site. It’s organic growth. And that breeds loyalty in the community, and a spirit of commoraderie and support. The team is unbelievable, and the common faces in the Discord who are always there to assist in peoples questions and queries are a testament to the air of quality that the entire project breeds.
As Waheed stated in a recent interview, he delayed the launch for a whole month, which in a lot of Discords would have caused an eruption of toxicity and anger in the crowd who are used to the fast delivery of promises and roadmaps, in order to flip and move on.
This one is different. Full stop.
There was no qualms, no anger, no frustration. In fact, if anything we all became more excited, because it clearly shows us that Waheed is not doing this for many of the reasons I try and avoid entering projects for. He’s not there for a quick buck. He’s there to leave a legacy.
To be honest, he already has. His 1/1s and previous pieces have left a trail of interest in their wake, and his collectors have been duly rewarded with whitelist spots and free pieces in the coming generative drop.
I’ve learnt a lot from that team about how to grow an organic community, and how to lead with quality and transparency. It affects how a project feels when the marketing feels rushed, false, desperate, and this one is far from that.
I’m well and truly ready to see where this takes us as a community, and where it takes Waheed as an artist in this space. His time has come. Look at the attention to detail in the images above; it’s simply breathtaking.
Its high-end art. Its streetwear. Its sneakers. Its music. Its 3D character design. Its storytelling. Its community. Simply put, its very exciting.
Jungle Freaks
Once again discovered via the Visitors Discord, I walked into this project not really knowing anything about Hustler Magazine or the artist himself, George Trosley.
After a little bit of research, I realised it was definitely worth putting some effort into getting OG status at level 5, and hanging around long-term.
As an ink penning illustrator myself I loved that this was a master of his craft, working with his son to create a completely hand-drawn NFT collection of 10K pieces. A lot of the animal pfp projects that have spawned following the stylistic success of BAYC are all starting to look a bit digitally pastiche to me, and so I was immediately struck by the creative intent to hand-draw every trait that would emerge in the generation of the pieces. A piece of art is always infused with something a intangibly special when it’s been hand drawn.
I knew it was going to be unique when I got in there and watched it blossom to 4K in about a day. Then it just kept on collecting people as it grew, and before long there was 40K people in the Discord all vying for a chance to mint in the pre-sale! It has truly changed my game this project, and it’s allowed me to spread my wings as a collector. I’ll always look back on this project as the one that probably changed my life. It was my true awakening, when the NFT game went from being fun to seriously game-changing.
The community is absolutely immense. The loyalty in our twitter raids and our embrace of the Prince’s calls to action binds us all together under the jungle canopy. Yes it’s a fictional war between apes and zombies, and we have our moments, but really the jungle spirit lives in all of us as one. It really feels like a tribe; a brave army of freaks I’m proud to be a part of.
I think the fact that every announcement and statement the Prince drops on us is always in capitals has rubbed off on me. I can’t not talk in that chat and use lower case letters. It is not who I am in the jungle. It is not who we are. We are freaks. It is our jungle. That means we use capitals and profess our admiration for the jungle spirit with a deep devotion to the life of capital letters Prince holds himself to in leading us.
If the artwork was not enough; if the father-son foundation to the project wasn’t enough; if the 50,000 strong Discord at launch wasn’t enough; if the 5 minute sellout wasn’t enough; if hitting a floor price of nearly 2 ETH just three days after launch wasn’t enough; then the simple fact that the Prince himself has quit his regular job to focus purely on the project and its future growth is enough to convince you of where this is going in the long-term.
I got real lucky with my minting too, as I grabbed #106 in rarity, in the form of a glorious diamond robot zombie, with a black bra delicately planted on its head, a .45 calibre rifle strapped to its back and a silver pill dissolving gracefully onto its tongue. In that 0.07 ETH mint, I have a piece that I’ll be holding long, long, long into the future.
It was also my first whitelist minting, and so it has opened my eyes to the game that is there to be played. Get into great projects early, spend time in the community, commit to the ones that call out to you and then enjoy the ride. Some you’ll win and some you’ll lose, but if you’re learning all the way then you’re growing in the right direction.
The jungle is a special place indeed. I’ve erected my hammock amongst the treetops, and my life as a freak will run long into the future.
Even Frodo Baggins has confirmed himself to be a freak.
Notable Mentions
I want to quickly go through some other projects that have really stood out to me in how they have designed novel ways to engage and grow their community. It’s true what DCLBlogger says below, that there is so much room for artistry to be demonstrated in these experiences, and that’s without even seeing the artwork. What great artistry seems to attract is a strong community who are committed to celebrating and sharing what they have enjoyed together. The success is measured by how much they feel a part of the story that’s being designed for them.
I think that’s the bottom line for me. That’s the power of attraction behind my favourite projects. It’s the quality of the story, and the honesty of the team in how they grow their community.
Projects with misguided intentions always seem to be ousted, and the communities are wise to inform each other of bad actors. The immune system of the NFT space is strong, and we work together to keep each other safe.
Doodles
I got into the Doodles yesterday with the purchase of my cutest character yet. I’d been following the growth of this project alongside the Jungle Freaks, as they were both being dropped at a similar time. The difference between how the projects feel is dramatic, but both have a really strong community at their core, and so I really wanted to be a part of both.
The Doodles team have some really interesting plans down the line, backed by the Doodlebank, which contains a large sum of the profits made from the drop. The decisions as to what to spend this fund on is for the members of the community to decide, and so with that there is a really exciting role for all holders to play in deciding the future of this project together.
It is a massive bonus of course that the artwork is completely distinctive, and for the pfp life that so many of us are repping nowadays, it ticks all the aesthetic boxes and is highly distinctive amongst all the other projects that are out there.
Lizard Lab
When you arrive in a Discord normally, you check a box, click an emoji and all the rooms suddenly emerge from nowhere. You look at the Q+A and the roadmap, for key dates and roles that are available and then if you want to stick around you say hello and start chatting.
In the Lizard Labs, you’re dropped into a twisting and interactive narrative that completely opened my eyes to the potential of Discord server design. Rooms open when the correct clue is entered, you’re approved for POAP collection when you reach a certain room in the story, exclusive chats are unlocked along the way. It’s riddled with clues and suspense as you see others trying to work out the way forward alongside you. It was really impressive, and by far the most innovative and interesting entrance to a project I’ve experienced so far.
I am in complete admiration for the technical skills and the storytelling craft that the makers of this project applied; lizard experimentation, mysterious disappearances and abandoned laboratories that we, as explorers of this story, were left to crack open with inputs to a blinking terminal. With the clues laid out for us in responses to certain control commands, it was an incredibly tasking and rewarding journey to solve each POAP in the investigation.
From the storytelling to the coding, I was blown away. It gets you into the world they’re building and once you’re in you want to stick and encourage others to solve it without giving them the answer. It’s organic, honest, innovative and exciting; it leaves everyone rewarded, and it leaves the project respected as something new and novel.
The Pluto People
In a similar way to the Lizard Lab, the growth of the Pluto People has been built on the mythology, the storytelling of the artist, and the investigation it has inspired in the community. Every now and then we get delivered a new slice of the Pluto People’s culture; a snapshot into their mysterious and ancient history on a far away planet.
The community has gathered around these unique cultural artefacts that ? Has been feeding us with, and together we have conceptualised complex mythologies that could explain the signs, symbols and archaeo-futuristic technology that they seem to have evolved to use.
Shroom Folk
With a strong connection to the Visitors community, and a similarly unique aesthetic that celebrates left-field culture and psychedelic art, the Shroom Folk is currently minting as we speak on Polygon. If people are looking for a community to base themselves in, which the Visitors is for me, I couldn’t recommend a better place to look than here for new projects.
You will look back on that community in awe for what it can do for your journey in NFTs, and so for the price of a mint as it stands, it’s an absolute no-brainer if you want to learn and grow with other amazing and talented creators and collectors in the space. Plus, the art is awesome and there’s 1/1s in the collection to uncover!
Ugly Goofs
For it’s sheer unique style and humour in all it’s pieces, I can’t not mention Ugly Goof and their project. They had great caption contests and other prizes for engagement that really elevated the communities engagement with the team and the story behind the name.
It’s interesting to see how projects are beginning to arrive into NFTs from various creative fields, and doing things their own way with the infinitely adaptable technology. Ugly Goof is a magazine that is very illustrative, and so it’s playing to its’ unique strengths and building a collection of pieces that are unmistakably Goofy.
I had the joy of winning one of their caption contests with backstories to three characters of their choosing. I had fun making it, and I realised that a little bit of hard work in these communities can go a long way to being recognised by the team and rewarded.
The Formula
Find A Community You Like + Engage
The spirit of these new spaces, and web3 as a whole, is imbued with a completely different dynamic to what we are moving away from in web2/web1. It’s important to observe these fundamental differences in order to nurture them; to understand why it’s happening, and why it needs to happen.
It’s a decentralised system of creators creating and people collecting. It’s a game and it’s incredibly enthralling, and when it goes well it can also be very rewarding. BUT: the system has been beautifully untethered from the control of a single entity, and so it is fraught with dangers and scams at the same time. This leads me to my next piece of advice:
Educate Yourself on Obvious Red flags
You mustn’t be lackadaisical when you make decisions on a whim here. If you give someone access to your wallet, then your things are gone and there’s no getting them back. It’s a ruthless lesson to learn and it breaks my heart when I see someone trying to get others to learn from their own mistakes after losing everything by clicking a link, or giving their private keys out.
Don’t trust those DM’s in your Discord from unverified accounts. I read a tweet today that said; if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. This is a simple guide to drill into yourself.
DYOR
There are thousands of these “100X your stack!!” YouTube videos, but really this is a long game we're all playing, and you should find peace in the fact that you're here now and learning, because that is the ultimate whitelist spot to be signed up to.
It can be overwhelming, and it feels like every minute you're not in the Discords is a moment wasted, but it's about looking after yourself, and making good decisions when you are online and relaxing when you're not. Find people and communities you trust, ask them lots of questions, make mistakes, just not HUGE ones, be curious and just engage with the people out there because we were all beginners at one point.
The beauty of this decentralised and openly accessible system is that the decisions you eventually make are yours to make. There is no safety net, but there is a wonderful adventure to be had. So, do your own research, back yourself to make good decisions and make the most of the opportunities that come your way.
There is going to be plenty of opportunity around the corner and so it's important to enjoy the journey and appreciate we can't all be winners, but we can all be at peace.
The Call to Action
Why do I think the critical study of these phenomena is important?
Because this is where the spirit of web3, and its beautiful essence of borderless and leaderless community, is discovering itself. It’s not being forced into any shape by one singular entity, and that is its greatest strength.
It will come up against resistance, and people will be tempted by the powers that voice that seeks to conquer and fall back to competition, but if we maintain focus on the grander vision; of a united and open metaverse, that is controlled by no one and accessible to all, then I believe the world will be a much better place for generations to come.
So, the more we look at what is occurring in these projects - these discord servers of 500 to 50,000 people - the more we can understand what it’s going to take to hold us all together and get the open metaverse over the line.
It is between these spaces that radically new structures of organisation and cooperation are being forged, and so we can’t ignore the role they are playing in shaping the web3 that is to come. As Coopahtroopa states above, it starts with memes; with jokes and connections that transcends borders and rigid cultures. It then evolves to form new models of real organisation, as we are beginning to see in NFT communities (such as I’ve talked about here). Beyond that, DAO’s and DeFi guilds are realising the amount of growth there is still to discover in this space as a global community.
Emperor Zuckerberg has released the blueprints to his Death Star this week, Meta. We are beginning to understand what we are going to be up against. With every word we type, every mind we touch and every life we change, our army grows.
It’s a war of love between ourselves. Everyone else doesn’t really stand a chance if we maintain the momentum we have behind us now. But we must remain focussed and remind ourselves what’s at stake. The players are taking their seat at the table, and they will seek to divide and conquer. They’ll try and pull us apart by any means necessary; smiling at us as they lie about the ‘vision’ they have for us all. The point of web3 is that it’s no longer one persons right to enforce that vision.
It’s not their’s to decide; it’s ours to discover. If we maintain our rampant and playful exploration, and listen to our own chosen thought-leaders who share and eloquently portray our ideals in magnificent twitter threads (@punk6529), we can steer the ship in a glorious direction.
That is our call to action.
Take part. Engage.
One jpeg at a time.
One server at a time.
Fortunately, this is also the most fun I’ve ever had, and it feels like it is my absolute purpose to do so. Long may this continue.
Thanks for reading once again. If you enjoyed this NFT dissection and want one of these a week in your inbox then make sure you subscribe below!
Thank you for your recommendations, they are really fascinating. Moreover, there are many types of NFTs available on the market, and each one has its own set of rules and regulations. This can make the process even more complicated for a beginner who knows little about cryptocurrencies. https://servreality.com/nft-blockchain/nft-game-development/