GM. Welcome back to BivNFT, oldheads.
For newcomers, hello. You are likely here because you decided to take a chance and subscribe to someone’s newsletter based on one viral tweet they had. I thank you for your bravery.
But yeah…wild. Apparently, there are a lot of NFT nihilists like me out there. Over 9K people (and counting) agree that the best argument to combat NFT haters is to bring to their attention that the world (and everything we do in it) is inherently dumb too.
We’re on a big blue marble. We get in a mechanical horse every day (except Saturday and Sunday, of course) and drive to a place where they pay us in paper to sit and look at pixels all day. Then, we go home to play with our domesticated wild animals and watch men we don’t know dribble around an orange ball for a few hours. Trading cartoon animals with internet money is really par for the course when you sit down and truly think about it.
But back to business. Last week, I asked for feedback and an overwhelming amount of you said the newsletter needs ‘more data!’. To that, I say…
However, I’ve got to give the people what they want, so I’ve made some dope charts for this week to try out this whole “research” thing everyone keeps saying I should do (it will also explain to the noobs here how this newsletter works).
ALPHA
For those who don’t know, I became a dad this year. But not just any dad…no, I became a #GirlDad (which for whatever reason holds some kind of extra gravitas as a hashtag).
As part of becoming a father, it is my obligation to be obsessed with weird stuff. Brewing my own beer. Check. NFTs. Big check. Putting a modern spin on my daughter’s college fund portfolio? You know it.
In last week’s newsletter, I mentioned that World of Women went on a historic run fueled by the NFT community realizing that projects like it were undervalued. Why was it undervalued? Well, because in classic white man fashion, we forgot about a huge section of the population (50% to be exact) who may get into NFTs.
When looking for NFTs to add to my daughter’s college fund, I naturally have to look at projects like World of Women. I want something that not only looks cool but also has meaning and significance to my daughter; selfishly, I want to show her I supported women-led and women-centered projects.
Honestly, I think a lot of these projects are a good bet for 2022 and maybe even way beyond, for this reason (even if you aren’t a #GirlDad).
Reese Witherspoon simply is GMI. Her tweet above encapsulates why “investing” in NFTs for my baby’s college fund may not be such a crazy concept after all. She’ll need a parallel digital identity, after all, so she’ll need something that looks like her and resonates with her.
That makes it certainly possible that a project like World of Women, Encryptas, Fame Lady Squad, or Sad Girls Bar will provide that for her. And my hope is that even if it doesn’t, they will instead become “historical”. That way, they will hold their value in the market and she can sell them to fund her college or her trip to space during the mandatory gap year (I imagine that’s what kids will be doing in 18 years).
I simply need the NFTs to appreciate at better than 5% per year. That’s the beauty of an alternative investment portfolio. I’m swinging for the fences.
Keep an eye out for projects that spotlight groups that may be marginalized or forgotten. Women clearly aren’t the only group that has been largely ignored in NFTs so far. There are probably many “sleeping giants” already in plain sight that will boom as more people flood into the NFT space.
Realize that there is revenue in representation (just look at what Marvel has done with Black Panther and Shang Chi). Supporting these projects is not only philanthropic…it’s also diversifying your portfolio.
BETA
This week, OpenSea reimbursed users who had their assets “sold” due to a huge exploit. A smart, yet horrible OS user named ‘jpegdegenlove’ was able to find a bug that used old listings to buy blue chips NFTs for way under the floor.
In one case, an Ape was sold for 195 ETH after he was able to buy it for just 23 ETH. All in all, jpegdegenlove walked away with Apes, Cats, Doodles, and more valued at more than 400 ETH.
This OpenSea exploit shows not only does the platform continue to drop the ball, but that we’re still fighting a mostly losing battle with centralization.
Normies already are hesitant to risk themselves by being solely responsible for their assets. If they lose ETH because of an exploit/error on their end, we all know there is no recourse for them to get that money back currently.
Add exploits like this that are on the platform’s end? I can’t see people wanting to take a risk on NFTs on top of all the security knowledge and research they have to bring to the table.
OpenSea has done the right thing here by reimbursing the affected accounts, but the articles of the exploit are floating around online now. The damage has already been done.
I see the call for centralization in crypto becoming louder again and people flocking to chains where they “call Ethereum” so to speak and ask for their money back in the cases of fraud (just like you would with a conventional bank). They will prioritize “safety” over their own agency; it’s human nature.
We might be doomed to repeat ourselves in the long run. If that happens, instead of calling them “banks”, they will be called “chains” in this dystopian future.
DELTA
Speaking of World of Women, immediately following the pump last week, there was a lot of discussion about who was profiting from it all. World of Women are likely mostly owned by men who are then, in turn, profiting off the pump. Logan Paul, for example, has his rare World of Women sold to the SandBox for 200 ETH a few weeks ago (because I’m sure he needs and deserves it).
And speaking of women in the NFT space, Paris Hilton continues to shine a light on them. This week, she had her second visit to Jimmy Fallon where they talked about NFTs. I’m laughing pretty hard at the part in this video where Jimmy whips out the iPad from behind the desk and it has an Ape in sunglasses on it. You can hear the audience tentatively pause and then start their required clapping.
I’ve unintentionally created a series of ‘2022 NFT trends’ posts. We’re going on 3 in a row and next week I’ll make it 4. I’ll be diving into the confusing world of art and 1/1’s for that one. You might even see a break in format from me! Stay tuned. After this series concludes, I actually promise to start making some charts and being more data-oriented…ya nerds.