For those who do not know what NBA TopShot is...it is an NFT platform allowing fans and investors alike to own short clips as NFTs of plays from the recent/current NBA. Months ago TopShot exploded, boasting one of the highest numbers of registered accounts (~800,000 in early April). The platform was very equitable for its investors...almost guarantying a profit off any pack opening. Base sets sell for $9 when they drop...in its early days, moments were hitting a price floor of $4, when factoring in the 5% resale tax Dapper takes on secondary transaction, that equated to a $1.20 profit per pack. Moreover, that profit level was consistent for every "bad" pack opening, get lucky and receive a moment worth $5+ and instantly you're making more money. Those higher quality packs, Rares and Legendaries, were swinging people profits well above their initial price. However, no longer is this the case. NBA TopShot has now implemented tons of measures to impede the growth of their casual investors.
The Problem
No longer are base set releases open to returning collectors. The past 4 or 5 base set releases have all been exclusive to "New Collectors," more specifically people who have never purchased a pack before. For those of us who have been around TopShot for longer than a week, well there has not been much to do, especially recently. This is because TopShot implemented a new metric for eligibility, collector scores. TopShot now assigns all collectors a score based on the moments in their collection. The most recent non-New Member drop was a rare drop requiring a collector score of 2,500+. To put this into perspective, I have been casually involving myself in base drops and some limited drops (Cool Cats, Hustle and Show) for a couple months. I have 17 moments in my collection and boast a collector's score of a measly 204. Yep, 204 (A link is provided here in case you want an in-depth breakdown of collector's score calculation). Anyone can see the problem here. In order for me (or anyone) to become an eligible and experienced collector you need to put hundreds into the secondary market. Welp there's a solid reason for that and for all of these changes...they are in place to promote secondary market sales. Why? you might ask...it's because Dapper takes a 5% transaction fee on all secondary market sales, so the less they saturate the market with drops the more people will be inclined to add to their collection in the marketplace, thus increasing their profits.
Market Trends
Finally comes the market trends. Right now most all common base-set moments are seeing a price floor of $3, so if you luck out with your first pack shelling out 3 mediocre serial common moments you're in for immediate loses. Even rare packs, which used to net at least a $20 return on investment, are no longer guaranteeing a profit. You are now expected to invest real money (more than a couple hundred dollars) into TopShot in order to expect to make some kind of actual gain. With that being said, you would be doing so at a time when the NFT market is losing its traction. Recently, there has been an uptick in secondary sport NFT market sales, so places like TopShot's marketplace; however, the longevity of this rise is ambiguous and the volatility is immense. Here's a link for an article better detailing the crash of the NFT.
What Can You Do?
Reminder, this is not professional advise. Get involved and hold. NBA TopShot is currently in its second series, meaning all moments tagged with a xxxx/xxxx+ serial, and "series 2" can increase their volume. These are the cards worth $3. In contrast, the series 1 base set cards are all listing on the market right now for at least $30. Granted, the volume increase per card from series 1 to series 2 on base sets has gone up exponentially, 3999 maximum up to a current 40,000 and counting, so value increase upon termination of the series cannot be expected to increase relatively. However, the ending of series 2 will guarantee at least a small increase in prices for those extremely common moments, and larger for those more rare moments. If you are a big fan of the concept, want to get involved, and do not want to lose money then buy a New Collectors drop and a couple other more lenient packs (like this upcoming Play-Off drop) to scale your collection. At this point all you need to do after is wait. While your card prices may fluctuate day-to-day, and selling whenever is up to you, you know based on past experience all of your moment prices will rise once series 2 ends. Who knows if TopShot will eventually do away with such marginalizing requirements for their drops, but there are still ways to make money and get involved casually on such an engaging NFT platform. Maybe I'll see y'all there.
Let me know what you thought in the comments...let's b*tch about TopShot together!
