How I discovered NFTs
In short; I suddenly watched parts of my Twitterverse typically focused on #Startups #VCinvesting #ProductManagmenet #Finance #ValueInvesting and #Trading mutate into ape pictures (like BAYC), pixel faces (mostly Crypto Punks), and other weird characters. With prices flying high around these "overpriced jpegs" it seemed like a new type of signaling for the digital world. I kind of liked it so I decided to check that out.
First Crypto
I'm not completely new to the crypto space. I discovered (or re-discovered) crypto in 2019 and slowly moved part of my attention into DeFi world. I'm not building or coding, I'm exploring and supporting interesting projects with finance and attention. This means I do invest and I provide liquidity in the early stages. I test different DeFi and DeFi 2.0/3.0 services, trying to avoid CeFi, and looking for things that are more exciting and more interesting than traditional finance and trading.
DeFi was and still is full of interesting stuff; full of failed experiments as well as full of great new ideas. But it got fairly monotonous last year as DeFi started just spreading from blockchain to blockchain. Services are pretty much copy&paste versions of what already exists on Ethereum L1 and overall it turned into airdrop farming and forking game. Don't get me wrong, there are amazing new projects being born which blow my mind almost every month or quarter - like Olympus Finance treasury math or Alchemix self-repaying loans. And then there's the world of DAOs.
But even though these projects are cool, things in DeFi are generally heavy on attention, heavy on research and understanding. It's time consuming and hard to do if you have some other job to do.
Then NFTs
Enter NFTs - as I mentioned, I registered NFTs probably around early 2020 and after I decided to give it a try in late September 2021. "Give it a try" meaning that I tried to immerse myself in NFT space to see how the community works, and who is moving things forward and are NFTs usable as investing tool.
For that I would create a special separate set-up which I recommend for anyone thinking about diving into the space:
- I would create several hot wallets which I would use for specific steps within my NFT exploration game (e.g. at least one clean wallet for minting is an absolute must),
- I would create a separate Twitter account focused on NFT space,
- I would try to create some "art" myself and mint my own NFTs - I'm no artist but you have to start somewhere and I like cloud photography,
- I would create a separate email address and user name which I would use across NFT space for joining discords, spaces, newsletters, etc.
With this simple prep, I was ready to start researching interesting projects and people. Here was my first mistake early on, I started searching for projects with cool visuals rather than for interesting people.
Now I can confidently say that NFTs (and the whole crypto space) is like the world of startups, where you look for "interesting" people and teams.
Anyway, first I started following NFT artists on Twitter, I joined discords of projects which seemed cool and, of course, I browsed OpenSea as the largest NFT marketplace. I was specifically looking for projects and artists with "cool visuals" which for me meant colorful pictures, dreamy animations, generative art pieces, abstracts, and sometimes game NFTs with a story.
Community is all in NFTs
From day one I was amazed by the community support for projects or individual creators. I was also amazed by the ease with which individual creators can create art and share their stories. A shocking and exciting finding was that even a one-person team can create amazing NFTs (mostly generative) and keep the story unfolding while growing her/his community.
Like @JasperMinds with his quizzes, NFT giveaways, and regular Twitter Spaces talks - which he started around Sept/Oct 2021, and by now (Jun 2022) he has evolved it into the whole Pixel Face metaverse.
If the story is attractive and keeps the community engaged that person just found her/his niche community and so-called 1000 True Fans. It can possibly become their main job in a few months - which is almost in an instant. Added benefit = you can do it from anywhere if you have access to the internet and a computer. Simply amazing!
Well, this is a longer than expected recount of why I really enjoy NFT space and why I enjoy communities inside this little jpegs world where creators regularly show-up and delight.
You can see some cool creators and filtered projects in the B.F.G.'s feed here...
till next time 😉
If you enjoyed this one sing-up for next ones and if you wanna share your experience or discuss your projects just hit me up via contacts.