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So WTF are NFTs all about? Buying JPGs? Why can't you just right-click save? Is this a giant ponzi? Far from it...

Antifragile

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I was lucky enough to mint 2/7500! Metakey: Edition 4. The key sold out in 15 minutes.

I love the art of the key and the utility of the NFT are great!
Cool! How did you do it?
 
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Ocean Man

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Cool! How did you do it?
Well, the drop was on Rarible.com, I joined their Discord, and 10-15 minutes before it went live, they dropped the link with a non-functional buy button. I continued to spam the buy button and happened to be able to purchase it!
 

mjbarlow

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Presumably most of us are only interested in the speculation part of the space, NFT's are great and all that, but how do I make money off this?

Anyone getting into the NFTs as speculation now is late to the party. We are early in web3 space, but late for this specific trend.

Look at what the smart money and early speculators did. Those ether rocks, were minted in 2017, 80 of them didn't sell straight away and remained unsold for years. 2017 and the years before the craze was the time to identify this opportunity. That represented true asymetric risk profile, downside lose $300, upside unknown.

Now the space is saturated, everyone and their mother is releasing an NFT collection. Hey come buy my slightly-bored half orangutan half shiba-inu space zombies, extremely rare, only 100 minted. Sure to be worth millions, not.

I say don't invest in any of this shit, but take the lesson from it. Get on discord, get on github, get on twitter and look for opportunities that represent asymetric risk. Look for what could be the next craze and make a modest investment.

Identify something that has a good risk profile before it pops and well before it's on the main stream news. There are thousands of discord servers and projects, all with their own communities and developers, a few of those will make something special. Some of them will be a part of the next craze, and represent massive upside for little outlay. On a side note, I'd like to thank @AceVentures for his posts, and inspiring me to take a look down the crypto rabbit hole with an open mind.

In a year almost every NFT created in the current craze will be worthless (although there will be a very few big winners), just look at the fate of other crypto crazes, the churn rate for projects is insane. Top 20 projects one year are abandoned and drop to zero by the following year. This happens, and it happens alot.

Having said that, I am bullish on the meta-verse, dapps and NFTs. Cutting out the aggregator and moving to decentralised platforms moves value directly from the platform to the individual. This is a no-brainer, the tools aren't there yet, but they will come. It's an exciting time to be in this space for sure and NFTS will be a big part of that.
 

AceVentures

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I say don't invest in any of this shit, but take the lesson from it. Get on discord, get on github, get on twitter and look for opportunities that represent asymetric risk. Look for what could be the next craze and make a modest investment.

Biggest alfalfa out there is on discord/github, you nailed it.

Having said that, I am bullish on the meta-verse, dapps and NFTs. Cutting out the aggregator and moving to decentralised platforms moves value directly from the platform to the individual. This is a no-brainer, the tools aren't there yet, but they will come. It's an exciting time to be in this space for sure and NFTS will be a big part of that.

This!

1633010660581.png

OpenSea is consistently one of the highest gas consumers on the ETH network today. What this says shows in practice is that there is a real demand for NFT consumption, and the success of some NFTs at bringing together massive communities of people suggests the success and proof of the concept.

My bet remains the same - invest in the infrastructure layer on which these types of TX will be settled if you want to capture upside.

Problem is every asset class seems to be inflated beyond reason. Understanding the infrastructure layer is KEY if we want to make intelligent investments in this space.
 
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I understand how the NFT royalties work. However, I need to understand the following:

If you sell a limited edition e-book (let's say there are only 5 units, ever) that is so good that the next person who buys it pays about 10,000 for it, how exactly will the author benefit from royalties if the next interested buyer cannot afford it if the current owner puts a $1,000,000 price tag to it?
This is just part of my guess why some collections in the current market are at 1,000-10,000 units. I mean, that sounds more feasible if the author wants to make some profit, right?
 

AceVentures

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I understand how the NFT royalties work. However, I need to understand the following:

If you sell a limited edition e-book (let's say there are only 5 units, ever) that is so good that the next person who buys it pays about 10,000 for it, how exactly will the author benefit from royalties if the next interested buyer cannot afford it if the current owner puts a $1,000,000 price tag to it?
This is just part of my guess why some collections in the current market are at 1,000-10,000 units. I mean, that sounds more feasible if the author wants to make some profit, right?

Price will be shaped by market supply/demand.

If the seller lists for $1M, but nobody want's to buy at $1M, then nobody transacts. If seller really wishes to liquidate the holding for something, then he will tackle the supply side of the equation.

If people value your content so much, they deem it to be worth no less than $1M and refuse any offers for lower - rejoice, you have found a true believer. You can now compensate this believer by airdropping the current holders of this limited-edition supply with exclusive content. This is how you can potentially tackle the demand side of the equation, by driving up the value of ownership in that edition to get new entrants to take a bite in the secondary marketplaces.

You are also free to create a brand new edition - and not airdrop to the bag holder, but allow a fresh round of mints.

If your 15 mints get locked and nobody transacts - you are still free to create more content and find new buyers.

If you are hoping to make 1 product, build royalties in it, and somehow the marketplace is dying for this product and you make lifetime recurring revenue - you have not thought through enough. This is a vehicle for building a brand, a product, a community. The properties of NFTs alone don't net you a business that rolls in royalties.
 

dauntless

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Price will be shaped by market supply/demand.

If the seller lists for $1M, but nobody want's to buy at $1M, then nobody transacts. If seller really wishes to liquidate the holding for something, then he will tackle the supply side of the equation.

If people value your content so much, they deem it to be worth no less than $1M and refuse any offers for lower - rejoice, you have found a true believer. You can now compensate this believer by airdropping the current holders of this limited-edition supply with exclusive content. This is how you can potentially tackle the demand side of the equation, by driving up the value of ownership in that edition to get new entrants to take a bite in the secondary marketplaces.

You are also free to create a brand new edition - and not airdrop to the bag holder, but allow a fresh round of mints.

If your 15 mints get locked and nobody transacts - you are still free to create more content and find new buyers.

If you are hoping to make 1 product, build royalties in it, and somehow the marketplace is dying for this product and you make lifetime recurring revenue - you have not thought through enough. This is a vehicle for building a brand, a product, a community. The properties of NFTs alone don't net you a business that rolls in royalties.
That makes sense, although I am not thinking about releasing an e-book, I was just wondering about the exclusivity of NFTs and how creators can benefit from making limited edition series. Still, if the author wants to keep releasing new editions because the previous edition owners are hogging them, I fear the sense of owning something special might wane and feel irrelevant to the past buyers.

One good point you mention is creating a community around a brand, I wonder how can one create a community when he/she has zero reputation? right now I'm seeing that the digital art community is pretty big on the NFTs space due to having online portfolios and an early following (DeviantART, Instagram, ArtStation, etc...) but how about non-artistic approaches? I believe these approaches might have to be done with some marketing on the side and starting slow with Discord and similar platforms. I believe it's important to explore the non-artistic fronts further to educate and develop roadmaps for common entrepreneurs to take full advantage of the NFT space and communities.
So far last night, I checked that the artistic community is extremely saturated now, and only if you're a well known artist you can sell digital assets in matters of hours, if not, minutes. Other than that, I question if it's too late for someone with no reputation to try to drive an artistic community around their newly created brand.
 
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AceVentures

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So far last night, I checked that the artistic community is extremely saturated now, and only if you're a well known artist you can sell digital assets in matters of hours, if not, minutes. Other than that, I question if it's too late for someone with no reputation to try to drive an artistic community around their newly created brand.

Put things into perspective first. There are only crumbs worth of numbers of people using and interacting with each other on web3 today. If you think this market is saturated - then you must exercise more creative thinking.

One good point you mention is creating a community around a brand, I wonder how can one create a community when he/she has zero reputation?

The same way you do with every other endeavor - deliver value to people. Share your vision, and see who else resonates with your vision. Don't have a community? Build one - one person at a time. Help one person, share your vision, show them what you know, help them how you can, and now with 2 people, work together to help more people, and the bond-fire grows.
 

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The same way you make money with anything in life - deliver value to people.

The main advantages in THIS economy vs traditional marketplaces is you have pure ownership of your data, your interactions are uncensorable and transparent, and you have a direct line of communication between merchant-customer.

If you were previously not delivering any value - wrapping a shit idea into an NFT will still result in shit earnings potential. But if you deliver real value - the benefactors of this value can participate in the success of the project. If it's an art project for example - there's secondary marketplaces for your buyers to resell and effectively become promoters of the project.

Fictional Example: @MJ DeMarco creates his newest book called "How to break free from tyranny" and creates limited editions of this book in the form of an NFT. FLF fanboys purchase this new NFT and receive the value contained within the information that is shared.

If anybody else wishes to know what's written in this book - their only route is to obtain this NFT version of the book on the secondary marketplace. The more people want to read the book - the more the current holders of this book can earn by reselling on the secondary marketplace. Oh and MJ collects a royalty off of any further transaction.

Say I read this book and got immense value - I can brag about all I've learned and how much this book has changed my life. This promotion is not only good for MJ, but it is especially good for me - because if someone now wants access they have to get this special access from me personally - and I'm now in a position to command whatever I want in order to transfer my rights to this knowledge to someone else.

In this process - MJ benefits from an army of shillers/promoters of his content, without himself having to shove his book down people's throats.

Now say MJ decides to host a new summit - but only people that hold the current NFT are eligible to attend this conference. This further drives the value of the NFT. And any additional input into MJ's brand can have loyalty to the original NFT holders as a baseline. You can see that the "brand" becomes win and let win. Not only does MJ win - but anybody that believed in MJ's brand also wins.
there is a question:how can we pick up the goods from so many NFTs?you can't read the book before you buy it.if it waste too much time to find the valueable products,NFT will lose it's benefit compared to the traditional mode.
 

Ywan

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First of all, thank you for that incredible and eye-opening thread. @AceVentures

I didn’t know anything about NFTs before, but after reading this thread and the blog articles you suggested about NFTs, the Metaverse … I am a believer and think, that this will completely revolutionize the internet.

The question now is: what to do with this knowledge?
I am of course going to invest into NFTs and most of all the underlying technology, like for example LUKSO.
But are there other ways to participate in and benefit from that field? If so, what would that be? Should I start learning crypto programming from scratch? (Not, that I know anything about normal programming.) Or is there a way to benefit while using already existing skills? I work in marketing and public relations, for example. Would there also be a way to use these skills in that field? If so, how would you do that?
 
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Sethamus

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there is a question:how can we pick up the goods from so many NFTs?you can't read the book before you buy it.if it waste too much time to find the valueable products,NFT will lose it's benefit compared to the traditional mode.
I'd say find something like this ART WARS and then dig into it to see how connected.
Seems like you can trace it all the way back to the original curator of the physical helmets(Ben Moore) Art Wars 1183 to be minted of some of the original pieces from 2013 till today. Full body suites to come, issue originally for me was it is launches on a new platform Dropspace.art that hasn't earned trust yet.
 

SunshineGrit

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Put things into perspective first. There are only crumbs worth of numbers of people using and interacting with each other on web3 today. If you think this market is saturated - then you must exercise more creative thinking.



The same way you do with every other endeavor - deliver value to people. Share your vision, and see who else resonates with your vision. Don't have a community? Build one - one person at a time. Help one person, share your vision, show them what you know, help them how you can, and now with 2 people, work together to help more people, and the bond-fire grows.

Thank you AceVentures for starting this thread! I started reading it a few weeks ago and took a deeeeep dive into the new world- Metaverse, NFTs, cryptocurrency, etc. I feel like I entered a new country- it is essentially a new culture with language to learn, new places to hang out and new friends to make.

I have learned a lot, and of course, the more I learn the more I realize I need to learn!

NFT's- are they more valuable if created by writing code vs. digitally created or hand painted?

I see a lot of (in my opinion) ugly art as NFT's... I have ideas for new and fresh art, and have created some, am working on getting that up and running. I may start a new thread for that if someone wants to join the journey.

How exactly does one build a community? I joined twitter specifically for NFT's... there is a LOT to sift through there! If I join some of the other networks, are there specific people or groups to follow?
 

gryfny

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I keep missing all the projects that do very well. I did get it right a couple of times but I made a lot of stupid mistakes.

Mistake 1: Buying too much. I minted 10 (max amount) on the first project. It did sell out but I didn't sell anything. I actually bought even more when the floor kept going up. Floor is now back to mint price...
Mistake 2: Paying insane amounts of gas. Again it's the first project. I paid .4 ETH for minting and .6 ETH for gas. So even though the floorprice is the same as minting, I'm nowhere near break-even. If gas is crazy, it might be better to sit it out, or try to buy on the secondary market.
Mistake 3: Buying dead projects. This is probably the easiest to avoid. I bought some projects that didn't sell out at all. The community was okay and I actually turned a good profit on some of these projects. But when it doesnt sell out, it's really hard to sell above mint. Some projects did end up selling out quite late, and turned out okay! Super Shiba Club floor went up x6-8 from mint, even though it took 1-2 weeks to sell out. CryptoZombiez didn't sell out, so I skipped it. The next day the floor was at x4 mint.
Mistake 4: Solana. There are some good projects, but from my experience most people want to flip quickly on here. You hardly pay fees, so the barrier to entry is lower.
Mistake 5: Buying on secondary markets. After mint, when prices are rising, I bought quite a few nft's because I was bullish. Most of the time prices dropped back a few days later.

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm doing really. But I hope someone can learn from my mistakes.
 
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AceVentures

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NFT's- are they more valuable if created by writing code vs. digitally created or hand painted?

I don't find that to be the case - but the culture seems to be rewarding code-generated art.

How exactly does one build a community? I joined twitter specifically for NFT's... there is a LOT to sift through there! If I join some of the other networks, are there specific people or groups to follow?

Band people around an idea, product, or service. Use tools like Twitter for outreach and for building connections. Use Discord to organize and manage your groups. Build out your own websites for custom offerings.

There certainly are people/groups to follow - this has taken me a very long time to work out. I've tried creating and sharing a curated list in the past but it hasn't worked out well. I think this one comes as a function of spending enough time analyzing different ideas and voices on Twitter. Ultimately they end up reflecting what ideas you embrace - and I think it serves its function best when the source of the content his personalized over time.

With that said - I can recommend a few good launch-pads for you so you can hopefully avoid a lot of scam and guru artists out there.

https://twitter.com/punk6529
This guy has grown a lot on me. After months of following him I can vouch for the value I've received from his ideas. He can conceptualize and communicate the philosophy and is very well plugged in.​
This is believed to be Snoop Dog's anon account. This character is aligned with the core values of decentralization and is a renowned collector.​
Intelligent engineer that delivers timely and meaningful analytics and perspectives​
Fabian - I've talked a lot about him before. He's the founder of Lukso and the co-author of ERC20. Important character to keep an eye on - good chance that future social platforms are built around his identity/nft standards​
This is by no means a complete list or even a top list - just a sample of where some good ideas emerge out of.

All the best!
 

AceVentures

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I keep missing all the projects that do very well. I did get it right a couple of times but I made a lot of stupid mistakes.

Mistake 1: Buying too much. I minted 10 (max amount) on the first project. It did sell out but I didn't sell anything. I actually bought even more when the floor kept going up. Floor is now back to mint price...
Mistake 2: Paying insane amounts of gas. Again it's the first project. I paid .4 ETH for minting and .6 ETH for gas. So even though the floorprice is the same as minting, I'm nowhere near break-even. If gas is crazy, it might be better to sit it out, or try to buy on the secondary market.
Mistake 3: Buying dead projects. This is probably the easiest to avoid. I bought some projects that didn't sell out at all. The community was okay and I actually turned a good profit on some of these projects. But when it doesnt sell out, it's really hard to sell above mint. Some projects did end up selling out quite late, and turned out okay! Super Shiba Club floor went up x6-8 from mint, even though it took 1-2 weeks to sell out. CryptoZombiez didn't sell out, so I skipped it. The next day the floor was at x4 mint.
Mistake 4: Solana. There are some good projects, but from my experience most people want to flip quickly on here. You hardly pay fees, so the barrier to entry is lower.
Mistake 5: Buying on secondary markets. After mint, when prices are rising, I bought quite a few nft's because I was bullish. Most of the time prices dropped back a few days later.

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm doing really. But I hope someone can learn from my mistakes.

I agree with all of your points. These are good - don't downplay yourself, everyone else is also experimenting at this stage. No experts here thankfully.

This NFT game can cause wicked swings in emotions. This is the reason I became so bullish on NFTs at the beginning of the year. After you play with them and feel the emotions they bring, you begin to understand the idea. The feeling of FOMO is unlike anything else in crypto - and unlike most coins which have liquidity somewhere, NFTs can have 0 liquidity, as in they sell out. This makes the ape behavior much more dramatic.

I've personally lost money on ~50% of my NFT gambles. I've won a handsome reward for some of the other ones, and on a handful of select NFTs I've hit the jackpot. What I won big time on was RTFKT. I've talked about this one for months - and I'd been a fan since I learned they did a drop with Jeff Staple.

So what made me bet on RTFKT? Gut feeling. They shared the same values as I did, grew up playing the same games, shared the same outlook on life and in crypto (values around open-source and decentralization for example), their collaborating with many different artists to render more creative outputs, and on one particular instance, I saw in the background of a photo one of the founders posted a copy of one of my favorite books called Be Here Now. I don't believe in coincidences, so I doubled down on my conviction.

This paid off big time. The price on some of my NFTs went up 50x. But I don't talk about this much - because there is unfortunately no clear strategy to repeat the success except for awareness. This is not my bet on how to capture value from the NFT mania.

Imo the surest bet around right now is to invest in the infrastructure components that will form the backbone of NFT consumption. In this case, sell blockspace to process NFT demand. Imo lukso is a prominent EVM that has the potential to meet NFT demand with a UX unlike anything else in web3, so I'd like to serve as a validator node on that network as a strategy to earn income.

Keep playing with NFTs and share your learnings - they are much appreciated :)
 

AceVentures

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First of all, thank you for that incredible and eye-opening thread. @AceVentures

I didn’t know anything about NFTs before, but after reading this thread and the blog articles you suggested about NFTs, the Metaverse … I am a believer and think, that this will completely revolutionize the internet.

The question now is: what to do with this knowledge?
I am of course going to invest into NFTs and most of all the underlying technology, like for example LUKSO.
But are there other ways to participate in and benefit from that field? If so, what would that be? Should I start learning crypto programming from scratch? (Not, that I know anything about normal programming.) Or is there a way to benefit while using already existing skills? I work in marketing and public relations, for example. Would there also be a way to use these skills in that field? If so, how would you do that?

Look into and study up DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations). These are like companies, but they are run by collectives of people using crypto rails. They have treasuries and typically some kind of organizational structure to process funds, move money around, invest with the treasury, pay for work, etc.

They are growing rapidly and some DAOs have billions in their treasuries. Fortunately for anybody that can provide value via the internet, this means you can tap into these treasuries to collect bounties. What type of work do they need? Only way to find out is to participate and see where you can help out.

Here's a very quick example from something that popped up for me today: I noticed that LUKSO is offering a bounty for doing some work around the documentation of one of their tools, which is a fork from an Ethereum repository. The idea was to change the wording in many instances and replace Ethereum with Lukso, or to remove certain comments that aren't useful, or to change a photo in the folder to a more fitting photo aligned with Lukso. This task is relatively simple - anybody with half a brain could click around and after a while figure it out.

These types of tasks are plentiful - and are not the only thing available. Many functions need help. For example. design and marketing, business development and strategy, public relations, social media management, community engineering, product management, a host of engineering roles for piecing together all kinds of systems, and more. You could even serve as a meme lord - a lot of people need good memes (this is no joke btw).
 
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SunshineGrit

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I keep missing all the projects that do very well. I did get it right a couple of times but I made a lot of stupid mistakes.

Mistake 1: Buying too much. I minted 10 (max amount) on the first project. It did sell out but I didn't sell anything. I actually bought even more when the floor kept going up. Floor is now back to mint price...
Mistake 2: Paying insane amounts of gas. Again it's the first project. I paid .4 ETH for minting and .6 ETH for gas. So even though the floorprice is the same as minting, I'm nowhere near break-even. If gas is crazy, it might be better to sit it out, or try to buy on the secondary market.
Mistake 3: Buying dead projects. This is probably the easiest to avoid. I bought some projects that didn't sell out at all. The community was okay and I actually turned a good profit on some of these projects. But when it doesnt sell out, it's really hard to sell above mint. Some projects did end up selling out quite late, and turned out okay! Super Shiba Club floor went up x6-8 from mint, even though it took 1-2 weeks to sell out. CryptoZombiez didn't sell out, so I skipped it. The next day the floor was at x4 mint.
Mistake 4: Solana. There are some good projects, but from my experience most people want to flip quickly on here. You hardly pay fees, so the barrier to entry is lower.
Mistake 5: Buying on secondary markets. After mint, when prices are rising, I bought quite a few nft's because I was bullish. Most of the time prices dropped back a few days later.

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm doing really. But I hope someone can learn from my mistakes.
Thank you for sharing these 'mistakes'. They are gold for the learner! It is really hard to predict what nft's are going to fly and which ones aren't. My motto in life is: "live and learn" So some questions you could ask are: What did I learn from this? what is funny or outrageous about this? And, will this affect me 10 years from now?

It reminds me of a gold rush, really. There were some who made a killing, some who eked out a living and some who went broke. The ones who did really well were the store owners who sold the shovels and equipment and food to the miners. So, like AceVenture mentions, perhaps the best bet is selling the shovels when it comes to nfts.

I'm still going to mint a few and see what happens! My challenge is to do it with as few fees as possible.
Good luck to you!
 

SunshineGrit

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I don't find that to be the case - but the culture seems to be rewarding code-generated art.



Band people around an idea, product, or service. Use tools like Twitter for outreach and for building connections. Use Discord to organize and manage your groups. Build out your own websites for custom offerings.

There certainly are people/groups to follow - this has taken me a very long time to work out. I've tried creating and sharing a curated list in the past but it hasn't worked out well. I think this one comes as a function of spending enough time analyzing different ideas and voices on Twitter. Ultimately they end up reflecting what ideas you embrace - and I think it serves its function best when the source of the content his personalized over time.

With that said - I can recommend a few good launch-pads for you so you can hopefully avoid a lot of scam and guru artists out there.

https://twitter.com/punk6529
This guy has grown a lot on me. After months of following him I can vouch for the value I've received from his ideas. He can conceptualize and communicate the philosophy and is very well plugged in.​
This is believed to be Snoop Dog's anon account. This character is aligned with the core values of decentralization and is a renowned collector.​
Intelligent engineer that delivers timely and meaningful analytics and perspectives​
Fabian - I've talked a lot about him before. He's the founder of Lukso and the co-author of ERC20. Important character to keep an eye on - good chance that future social platforms are built around his identity/nft standards​
This is by no means a complete list or even a top list - just a sample of where some good ideas emerge out of.

All the best!
Thank you for the suggestions! I will definitely follow them.

Side note: my sons friend was over (this kid is writing code for his own games) I asked him if he could write code and build me something. He (age 12) nonchalantly says, "sure, I can do anything!" So I've asked him if he can make me a 3D model that floats. We shall see what it looks like, my mind was spinning with ideas!
 

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Look into and study up DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations). These are like companies, but they are run by collectives of people using crypto rails. They have treasuries and typically some kind of organizational structure to process funds, move money around, invest with the treasury, pay for work, etc.

They are growing rapidly and some DAOs have billions in their treasuries. Fortunately for anybody that can provide value via the internet, this means you can tap into these treasuries to collect bounties. What type of work do they need? Only way to find out is to participate and see where you can help out.

Here's a very quick example from something that popped up for me today: I noticed that LUKSO is offering a bounty for doing some work around the documentation of one of their tools, which is a fork from an Ethereum repository. The idea was to change the wording in many instances and replace Ethereum with Lukso, or to remove certain comments that aren't useful, or to change a photo in the folder to a more fitting photo aligned with Lukso. This task is relatively simple - anybody with half a brain could click around and after a while figure it out.

These types of tasks are plentiful - and are not the only thing available. Many functions need help. For example. design and marketing, business development and strategy, public relations, social media management, community engineering, product management, a host of engineering roles for piecing together all kinds of systems, and more. You could even serve as a meme lord - a lot of people need good memes (this is no joke btw).

Thank you for the detailed reply. I will look into DAOs for sure.

I have another question, if you don't mind: as I am a big fan of focus (I literally wasted years trying to do too many projects at once, not finishing a single one), would you suggest going all in on NFTs, DAOs ... and stopping all other projects?
Or is it still a good idea trying to build a fastlane business while also looking into NFTs (when there is time left - in this case I would have around 5 hours per week, as I am also working full time)?

Thanks.
 
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AceVentures

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Thank you for the detailed reply. I will look into DAOs for sure.

I have another question, if you don't mind: as I am a big fan of focus (I literally wasted years trying to do too many projects at once, not finishing a single one), would you suggest going all in on NFTs, DAOs ... and stopping all other projects?
Or is it still a good idea trying to build a fastlane business while also looking into NFTs (when there is time left - in this case I would have around 5 hours per week, as I am also working full time)?

Thanks.

If that's what you wish - then yes go ahead.

There are many roads to Valhalla - pick one that you enjoy. I love NFTs and web3 - everything aligns with my values and world view. So for me, the choice is easy - I eat it up all day and have fun doing it.

I believe our biggest problem in the 21st century is an existential one: what do I want? This is the hardest question to answer. Figure out what it is that you want - and go full steam.
 

The Questioner

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If that's what you wish - then yes go ahead.

There are many roads to Valhalla - pick one that you enjoy. I love NFTs and web3 - everything aligns with my values and world view. So for me, the choice is easy - I eat it up all day and have fun doing it.

I believe our biggest problem in the 21st century is an existential one: what do I want? This is the hardest question to answer. Figure out what it is that you want - and go full steam.

Are NFTs currently really a way to make money sustainably and is it really a good idea to bet everything on that by going all in? Based on my modest knowledge of the subject, it seems to me that NFTs right now are pure speculation.

At the moment, nobody knows where the journey will go. Don't get me wrong. I think, that there will be plenty of ways to make money in this space in the long run, but I think that this is not yet the case.

I don't want to agitate, but I am really interested in your opinion. Are NFTs already more than speculation? Or is it more a thing of being an early adopter to then leverage the knowledge and make money later?
 

Ocean Man

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Are NFTs currently really a way to make money sustainably and is it really a good idea to bet everything on that by going all in? Based on my modest knowledge of the subject, it seems to me that NFTs right now are pure speculation.

At the moment, nobody knows where the journey will go. Don't get me wrong. I think, that there will be plenty of ways to make money in this space in the long run, but I think that this is not yet the case.

I don't want to agitate, but I am really interested in your opinion. Are NFTs already more than speculation? Or is it more a thing of being an early adopter to then leverage the knowledge and make money later?
Just try buying and selling yourself and figure it out for yourself whether or not you think it’s something you should get into. Some of us believe in this space and some of us don’t. We can’t decide for you.

You’re asking @AceVentures whether or not you should all-in on crypto and web3. That’s not the type of decisions you should be asking them. They can’t decide for you, that’s your decisions and you need to come up with your own conclusions.

Sorry I’m a bit irritated because those types of comments are slowly starting to appear more and more. If you want to know whether crypto, web3, or NFTs or worth pursuing… try it out! Buy some NFTs, sell some, try buying/selling some crypto… just try it and make a decision for yourself.
 
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AceVentures

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I don't want to agitate, but I am really interested in your opinion. Are NFTs already more than speculation? Or is it more a thing of being an early adopter to then leverage the knowledge and make money later?
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VKPNJ8sOU_M&feature=youtu.be


That's Zucks presentation over the metaverse. One of the largest companies in the world is going all in on the metaverse, and yes using NFT standards to represent digital assets.

Maybe it's pure speculation and all of this is bogus - only way to tell is to get your hands dirty and learn for yourself. You say you have a limited knowledge of NFTs yet you form an opinion that they're pure speculation, my recommendation is to simply educate yourself more before you form conclusions about what it is and what it isn't.

Note @Ocean Man - he didn't know about NFTs or any of this shit last year. But here he is, asking questions, participating, educating himself, getting involved with crypto communities and projects, and he's been able to form his own opinion as a result. He's learned so much in such a short period of time. Primarily, he's been open minded and willing to dig down the rabbit hole. That's the way to go.
 

SunshineGrit

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I agree with all of your points. These are good - don't downplay yourself, everyone else is also experimenting at this stage. No experts here thankfully.

This NFT game can cause wicked swings in emotions. This is the reason I became so bullish on NFTs at the beginning of the year. After you play with them and feel the emotions they bring, you begin to understand the idea. The feeling of FOMO is unlike anything else in crypto - and unlike most coins which have liquidity somewhere, NFTs can have 0 liquidity, as in they sell out. This makes the ape behavior much more dramatic.

I've personally lost money on ~50% of my NFT gambles. I've won a handsome reward for some of the other ones, and on a handful of select NFTs I've hit the jackpot. What I won big time on was RTFKT. I've talked about this one for months - and I'd been a fan since I learned they did a drop with Jeff Staple.

So what made me bet on RTFKT? Gut feeling. They shared the same values as I did, grew up playing the same games, shared the same outlook on life and in crypto (values around open-source and decentralization for example), their collaborating with many different artists to render more creative outputs, and on one particular instance, I saw in the background of a photo one of the founders posted a copy of one of my favorite books called Be Here Now. I don't believe in coincidences, so I doubled down on my conviction.

This paid off big time. The price on some of my NFTs went up 50x. But I don't talk about this much - because there is unfortunately no clear strategy to repeat the success except for awareness. This is not my bet on how to capture value from the NFT mania.

Imo the surest bet around right now is to invest in the infrastructure components that will form the backbone of NFT consumption. In this case, sell blockspace to process NFT demand. Imo lukso is a prominent EVM that has the potential to meet NFT demand with a UX unlike anything else in web3, so I'd like to serve as a validator node on that network as a strategy to earn income.

Keep playing with NFTs and share your learnings - they are much appreciated :)
Congrats on your good instincts! I've checked out the shoes and they are THE most interesting shoes I have ever seen!. With the RTFKT and the physical drop they make... does the person who owns the shoes at the time get the "real" shoes? Do they pay an extra fee for them? Will you be getting a pair of those amazing shoes?

I would like to have a physical drop on the nfts that I create, and so am gathering info on how that works and best way to market. Providing value and all that. My thoughts right now are to set a date that printing will begin (for ex; March 2022) and personally mail the item to the owner. My collection is small- 12 items so it feels do-able.

I'm thinking of having a 3 day, highest bidder auction, since I'm new to the marketplace and don't know the value that will be placed. My concern is: will everyone who bids need to pay gas/tx fees? Or just the highest bidder?
ETA: on opensea, when hosting an auction, the seller pays the gas fees.
Any and all suggestions are appreciated.
 
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The Questioner

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Just try buying and selling yourself and figure it out for yourself whether or not you think it’s something you should get into. Some of us believe in this space and some of us don’t. We can’t decide for you.

Maybe it's pure speculation and all of this is bogus - only way to tell is to get your hands dirty and learn for yourself.

Thanks for your answers. I like this sapere aude approach. I will dig into it more in order to get to a reasoned judgment of my own.

Thank you.
 
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Equilibrium

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NFT's ain't shit
A friend and I are driving down the street. We stopped for cheeseburgers, and I showed him the images of silly-looking art going to a few hundred dollars.

Why on earth would anyone buy this? We laughed.
he sums it up in one phrase
NFT's ain't shit
Youtube decided I"m interested in NFT's and started showing me more videos. One after the other gets watched as my interest grows.
I don't get why people are buying.
I've gotta figure out what's going on.

I misread it and lost 300 dollars.
Just poof. Gone into the ether of nothingness. A gas fee paid to who knows who, for I don't even know what. I look at the artwork.

Screw it.
And click buy and confirm.
This time the fee is around $150
I sit there thinking, and the fee raises, then lowers at random.

Screw it.
I click buy.

I'm now the owner of a vampire NFT
Now I can connect my discord to get a new username that show's I own the NFT. I don't for quite some time.

Then I do.
Now I'm in a chat room, an echo chamber of vampires. It's memes day and night of coffins. When does the coffin change?

It turns out the art was going to transform into a vampire.
It wasn't a coffin NFT; it was a vampire.
I think I got the dumbest looking vampire out of anyone. But apparently, the background was somewhat rare, so I accepted the offer. Then I bought someone else's with the profits.

I lost 500 more dollars in the ether learning what WETH is. Then when I was not too fond of the plans they outlined, I sold for 7k.

Seven thousand dollars made off of a picture.

Holy shit.

I watched as the discord reversed their bad plans, and the prices skyrocketed around 10k. Finally, I left the server, but not before I lost 2k.

A little wiser to gas fees, I now knew you lose anywhere from 200 to 500 on fees. The answer? no one knows. Try when everyone is asleep.
4k in eth now. I transferred some to a new chain, something called Solana?
I have lost some in a failed mint. I gained some from a flip, and I'm now at 10k. I"m getting brighter now though, my wallet is opposed.

Then I see the roadmap for a new project long-term income.

Four eth.
I snag the two art pieces for 2eth each.

I'm making more on each flip now, but I won't sell my two art pieces. I like them.

I am more active in the discord each day, helping newbies understand the roadmap, and then I get a notification. Hey, want to be a mod?

I think I made 700 dollars today from some silly, badly drawn art project on the side. I won't sell my prior art, though.
Maybe it's more, and perhaps it's less. Kind of hard to read eth prices
Click, click, click. A sip of my drink. Reload the screen. Do it again.

Meanwhile, my central server, where I"m now part of the team, meets with lawyers to handle a hundred thousand dollar situation. The lawyer will cost 500 an hour. Is that cheap? I don't even know at this point.

Flashback to a few months ago.
I can't believe how wrong I was. But, this is fun, I'm part of something much bigger, and I feel alive.
it's just a hobby has nothing to do with my master plan. But NFT's ain't shit
 
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sonny_1080

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After reading this entire thread... I had some questions and began messing around.

As a total newb (I heard about NFTs for the first time YESTERDAY)... this was helpful:

 

Devampre

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I'm trying to better understand the value propositions of various NFT collections.

One popular benefit appears to be VIP membership + rewards. Another benefit that I've just encountered is token creation of fractional shares of the bluechip NFTs (from my understanding, this means you can own shares of a particular NFT without holding full ownership the NFT itself.) Beyond this I see offers of contests, giveaways, and other promotion promises once the NFT collection meets a certain market value.

Are there any other benefits that you've noticed?
 
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sonny_1080

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infrastructures on which NFT transactions take place....

Dapps like decentraland?
opensea?
lukso being a company that creates different contracts to enable the transactions to exist?

hmmmm....
 

sonny_1080

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