ETH and NFTs a few words of caution for new NFT buyersQuick tips for new NFT buyers.
No investment advice is given here. Use this only for information and educational purpose and these are only intended to provide a general overview of my little experience in the NFT world.
1. Size accordingly. Try to limit FOMO.
2. Most projects offer ambitious roadmaps, but very few will be able to deliver even 30-50% of what they are promising. I see projects offering video gaming and tokenization. I typically avoid those. On one hand, because assembling a videogame in the short term seems unreasonable for many new projects, and on the other hand, because tokenization has a huge regulatory risk attached to it. Most people will focus on the art, but art and the artist have to be seen as only one element of the business as a whole if you consider yourself an investor more than a collector. My thinking is that good art coupled with a good business plan will do alright as a long-term investment. There are way too many projects and sometimes you'll feel like seeking a needle in the haystack. Do your own due diligence. Don't rely much on other social media advice and influencers. You have your own best interest. With time art will become more sophisticated, expect the sector to change quickly and exponentially in the coming months. Don't judge the art for its simplicity or look. Pixelized art may be as good an investment in comparison with more realistic or detailed art. It all depends on the eye of the beholder. I do tend to feel biased by the art that I like, but that's just me. I like to know who the artist is for example, but many buyers don't place much attention there. They are in the space because of the art, expression, desire to connect with others, have a sense of belonging to a certain community, bragging rights, etc. Understand this.
3. Look at their Twitter followers. Some accounts are just recently created for the purpose of offering the NFTs, which in itself is not a red flag, but the investor has to dig into the Twitter timeline to perform what I call the "scratch test". Most of the comments you see in 90% of those recently created Twitter accounts can be considered of low quality. Some even come from unverified accounts.
4. Discord is also a place where NFTs are pumped, people get into whitelists and presales. I always take a look at the structure of the Discord as a whole. Some are poorly assembled, but as scammers are getting better you may end up having a hard time to identify the good from the rotten apples. A key thing is to identify whether the developers and artists are fully identifiable (a.k.a. Doxxed). I tend to avoid projects in which I cannot identify developers and artists, since there is little skin in the game when things go south. I'm not implying that not being doxxed means that they could be scammers but it is all about incentives in the end. In some cases, it's about privacy or things related with NDAs, etc. But I'd recommend to conduct a little more due dillgence in those projects where the team is not readily identifiable. Suspect always from huge giveaways, there is no such thing as a free lunch in the space. Most people do well it is because they grind hard. Be ready to work hard in due diligence and know your sniping tools to identify rarity traits.
5. Some project's teams choose moderators from the crowd that have spent a considerable amount of time in the chat, and they may fail to conduct adequate identification and internal KYC as there may or may not be a formal working relationship. Some of those moderators may be compensated with NFTs or crypto after performing tasks. Understanding these incentives will save you from trouble. This is harder to identify but buyers have to ensure that the team of developers and moderators in the Discord are well-coordinated and have an ongoing relationship.
6. Do not click on random links in Discord and messages from a moderator unless you are requesting the contact. You have to be aware that this is the Wild West and there is no way to protect you after you send your crypto to someone. Most of the scams are conducted by sending the crytpto by oneself. In very few cases the account is directly hacked as the seed phrase typically protects the wallet.
7. There are people that I see that just leave a significant amount of coins in their trading wallets (Metamask for example). I rather treat those differently but that's just me. Regulation will come for sure to the sector, but as long as the authorities can only see the ramp up and ramp down, without being able to see what happens in the middle of the road, we all have to be careful of who we send our crypto to.
8. Buying the minting may not necessarily be a good idea. You can get the NFT at a lower price, but the rarity traits are randomly delivered after the reveal. I'd favor the sniping approach right after the reveal for those "buy now" options. At least by then you will be avoiding a bit of the ongoing gas wars and have the opportunity to select a few rare ones if you can afford them.
9. Avoid the gas wars by waiting for the right time to buy and send your crypto. If you are not an advanced user do not tamper with your Metamask personalized gas options. There are a lot of resources online that will help you understand this better.
10. Always do your own due diligence. No one will have your best interest buy only you. This does not necessarily mean that you should not trust others. The beauty of participating in this decentralized space is the trust among communities and users, which gives me hope about the potential for the sector.
11. If you are sitting on the sidelines you are doing perfectly fine. You'll have your chance to invest whenever you feel like doing it in this new space. This is way too early for regular investors whose risk profile differs from those early adopters. Just wait for regulations to set in and also for projects to implement best practices regardless of the lag between the current state and the ideal regulatory framework that we now need to avoid falling into scams and mistakes that can be avoided by just waiting.
12. Crypto can be seen as energy and time. Respect those. Sometimes the dimension of money is lost when thinking in ETH or BTC terms. Spend that time and energy wisely and you'll be alright.
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