🌱 Good Morning Everyone!
In just the first thirteen days of October, OpenSea has already done $1.4 Billion (USD) in sales, and the world of web3 has had an absolute unit of a year.
With things changing so fast and so much money and hype involved, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and FOMO into bad investments (been there 😞). Even if it seems to be trending on icy.tools, and the Discord servers have over 10k people, projects can still be susceptible to failure.
Why? Success relies on the team and community behind the project. Projects can’t be successful unless the community is strong and contributes to the overall mission. The decentralized world is about value, and true long-term value can only be delivered when people are dedicated and contribute to a cause.
😵💫 AKLSDFJK HOW TF DO I KEEP UP!?!?
Theres A LOT going on, and it’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of things and get rugged (fake NFT projects where the team makes big promises, but never delivers and just dips with the 💶 ).
The FOMO for trending projects is high, but its important to keep a cool head and not full-send into projects based on OpenSea data or Twitter hype. Whales (NFT collectors with large amounts of capital) are whales for a reason – they can afford to make risky bets and offset their losses with massive gains from just one project. Their investment strategy can be more like a VC firm, but us folks with smaller amounts of capital and much higher risk need to operate like an angel investor.
Ultimately, there’s just a lot going on behind the scenes that we can’t control.
Projects can spark gas wars (surge in gas prices from heavy traffic) and seem to hit all the “signs” of a bluechip (an established, stable investment) but can still fail at the end of the day.
🧐 Why do projects fail?
Lack of community!
NFT projects are not just jpegs - they provide access to and fractional ownership of a community. By buying an NFT, you are supporting that community’s initiatives and goals. You could say it’s like investing in an early-stage startup – you are investing in the team, not just the product at the time. Whatever the initial roadmap says is usually changed and the product becomes built by the community as folks contribute their ideas and perspectives.
It can feel like you’re missing out when projects are minted in minutes, but CryptoPunks started in 2017 and their price went up over time as the value of the community increased.
The community’s goals don’t have to be crazy ambitious like building an online world, or gaining access to a media company, but can simply start as a safe space to make friends under a common interest (check out Web3 Baddies). However, the community should be contributing to their mission, and that takes time to build.
🤨 Ok sick…so what should I do?
Buy into a few projects you TRULY believe in and contribute to their success! In fact, you should believe in them so much that you WANT to contribute.
Engage in a community movie night, or help an online fren with their resume! You don’t have to ship to the Github to support the project! Simply chatting with folks, sharing ideas and feedback, and just hanging out presents a world of opportunity and growth! The most impactful thing you can do to a project’s success is contribute.
Point is - invest in the people, personal utility, and contribute to the mission.
😤 Alright, So WTF is This Series?
I wanted to start writing to help combat some of the commotion and help identify some neat, ambitious projects. Each week or so I want to write about one innovative project or community by spending time with the folks building it to understand:
- What kind of project is it?
- What’s the mission?
- What are they building?
- Why does the community support it?
- What’s happening in the community?
- How can I get involved?
I hope that by compiling this information, I can help to cut through some of the chaos, and provide a more unbiased point of view.
Starting the first one with manny.game, a browser based 3D NFT game integrating other NFT projects as mini games.
Thank you so much for reading! This space is something that excites me every day, and I can’t wait to meet so many cool peeps through this process.
Thank you to Keshav Rao and Tyler Medina for inspiring me to start writing 🌱
Please feel free to give me feedback on this here.
Follow me on Twitter for more!
💙 Peace & Love
We spend so much time online, we forget to make time for ourselves. Take care of yourself bbs.
- Call someone you love 💕
- Cook your favorite dish 🍣
- Lay in the grass and stare at the sky 🌤
Bonus - Some insane highlights in the space in JUST THE LAST MONTH 🤯
National Football League (NFL) Signs a Partnership with Dapper Labs to Create Collectable NFT’s of Game Highlights
Imagine owning a slow-mo moment of Lamar Jackson breaking the Bengals’ ankles.
The Average Price for Cool Cats (an NFT Project) increased by 500% in the last month to ~ 25 ETH ($87, 500 USD)
Check out the Cool Cats OpenSea
The Loot (for Adventurers) project is inspiring people from all over the world to come together and build open-source games
Check out the genesis project which is a community built game using Loot’s on-chain adventurer gear.