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NFTs have been blowing up in 2021 and I am late to the show. It was only after Beeple, CryptoPunks, and Bored Ape Yacht Club became household names did I pay attention. But the market is oversaturated with artworks and buying into a project at floor prices can be a speculative effort. Who knows what's going to be trendy in six months' time?
Regardless, I wanted to own NFTs. If only to learn the ins-and-outs of owning one. I quickly discovered that Twitter is a great platform to win an NFT as giveaways are done almost everyday. So with a Twitter account in my holster, I set about on an experiment: how many NFTs can I own from joining 100 giveaways?
I didn't see through with the experiment, in the end. I learned that the most successful NFT projects were on Ethereum, and that absurdly-priced gas fees create a high barrier of entry for this ecosystem. I also learned that there's another blockchain that's widely populated by NFT projects -- WAX. Now, I know next to nothing about this project but I knew enough to focus on getting WAX NFTs, mainly that it's got really cheap gas fees and it's very easy to set up a wallet and Funko will release NFTs on the platform which will increase adoption.
I stumbled on a few awesome Twitter users, who hooked me up with invites to Discord servers. This is where things in the NFT space are happening. Artists release their products on Discord and socialize with their fans. There are chatrooms where participants can panhandle for tokens, either as a game or to pay fees for free NFTs. I spent around 2-3 hours to collect 0.03 WAX, but that was enough to get a free NFT. It's a pretty cool one too...
Thanks to @SirLRonHODLer, I found a few Discord servers to scavenge through. I quickly fleshed out my NFT collection and was pretty happy with what I found.
Kebere Gourmet Internet Culture
This was when I decided to stop with the experiment. It was a nice feeling to 'own' a digital asset but I didn't think it was worth the time. The value of these assets are unknown, probably close to nothing, besides the aesthetic enjoyment I get from some of them. So I conclude that I will get very little out of harvesting free tokens from airdrops and hunting out for free NFTs.
The valuable NFTs have strong social support, from the number of users and the star power of its owners. If I want to jump in on an NFT project with the purpose of flipping them, then I need to jump on a project that has huge demand. Funnily enough, VPunks -- the Vechain clone of CryptoPunks -- started minting around the same time I started this experiment. The secondary market for VPunks is showing great promise. One particular VPunk, #9901 sold for 8999 VET just today.
I could've bought a VPunk at 390 VET. I was there when the project was promoted on Reddit. But I dismissed the project as just another copycat clone and that it would never take off. Little did I know... In conclusion, the NFT market is too new for me to speculate on what would be valuable in the future. The success stories make my greed glands salivate, but it's too hard to find the right project.
Content with my short venture in the NFT space, I moved on with my life and quickly forgot about the whole affair. By now, I am a regular user of Twitter. I've since followed diverse crypto accounts, from news, to podcasts, to social figures, to engineers. I read it often to keep up-to-date with this fast-moving industry. One afternoon, while scrolling, I stumbled on an NFT that I immediately wanted. It was of Homer Simpson drawn Galgos-style, carrying a vial of nuclear waste.
The Galgos
This was when I learned of Cardano NFTs. Now, Cardano does not have smart contracts, at least until September 12. So projects create their own tokens in the mean time to serve as NFTs. I began to realize, as I'm sending 20 ADA for a chance to win this particular NFT, that collecting digital assets will be inevitable. Everyone is a consumer of pop culture, in whatever niche they favor, and some of them will want to own memorabilia. The Simpsons was what did it for me.
I didn't get the NFT I wanted. But I got 2 Ultra-Rare cards so I'll trade one Ultra-Rare for two Rare Simpsons card.
Finally, I bought some Politikoz because I missed out on VPunks.
