What Is an NFT? 2022-2023 Full Playbook

An NFT is a Non-Fungible Token.

Wow thanks. My questions are answered.

Ok, serious talk.

You've probably read the crazy headlines of them selling for millions, or perhaps you've heard your friends talk about them but you've just brushed it off for the most part. Well, the reality is it's only a  matter of time before NFTs are incorporated into everyday life in some way, shape, or form

One thing nobody in their right mind can deny is the impact NFTs had in 2021. It was word of the year for crying out loud.

NFT meaning

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, an NFT is defined as "a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided, that is recorded in a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership (as of a specific digital asset and specific rights relating to it)"

In simple terms Non-Fungible means it cannot be duplicated or replaced. The token part is like holding a physical token, except in your digital wallet, which represents ownership and authenticity. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) live on the blockchain. Each NFT has unique code & metadata which means no two are identical, kind of like snowflakes.

The same cannot be said for cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is fungible.

If you were to trade 1 Bitcoin for someone else's 1 bitcoin, you still have the same value at the end of the day. However, If you have a rookie Tom Brady card and you traded it for another card you would have a completely different card even if it looks identical.

Think of NFTs like this, except digitally. They cannot be duplicated or replaced, and the proof is on the blockchain, forever.

How do NFTs work

The technical side of things isnt always the most fun, but its important to have a basic understanding of how things work. Lets dive briefly into how NFTs work.

Each NFT has unique code & metadata but what does that do? Once the NFT has been minted it now has its own metadata, allowing anybody to see its authenticity, ownership, and transaction history on the blockchain. After an has been minted it can be bought, sold, and traded.

That's one of the many great things about NFTs. Anybody, in any place of the world with wifi, can go to Etherscan and view the token history. This allows for 100% transparency which prevents malicious people from trying to duplicate or forge another fake copy.

Again, think of the example with the Tom Brady sports card - You're going to sell it to a shop but suddenly another person walks in with the EXACT card. The only difference is its fake. Now the shop doesn't know which card is legit and you just lost a sale.

In real life you might do transactions with cash or a credit card. With NFTs, a majority of transactions are made with Ethereum ($ETH).

What is Ethereum

Ethereum, Ether, or $ETH is the currency used to make transactions on the Ethereum blockchain.

A majority, roughly 80%, of NFTs are traded on the Ethereum network. The most notable NFT collections such as BAYC and CryptoPunks are purchased in ETH,

Each blockchain has different currencies for transactions. Bitcoin has its own, Ethereum has its own, as well as Solana, Cardano, and so on. (More on all of those later on)

What is a blockchain?

block·chain

/ˈbläkˌCHān/

According to Oxford dictionary a blockchain is, “a system in which a record of transactions made in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency are maintained across several computers that are linked in a peer-to-peer network.”

But that doesn’t help much does it?

A blockchain is essentially a database that stores information electronically in digital format. They’re mostly known for the crucial role they have hand-in-hand with cryptocurrency and maintaining a secure and decentralized record of transactions.

A decentralized source means no single person or entity has control over something.

What so important is the fact it guarantees the security of information & data, while creating trust without the need for a trusted third party.

This basically means no need for a middle man for transactions because the buyer and seller trust each other so much. The reason for the built trust is the blockchain, where anybody can see any transaction.

A blockchain gathers data in groups, these are called blocks. Each block has certain storage capacity and when it’s full, they’re closed and linked back to the previously filled block.

This creates a chain of data known as the blockchain

The way the data is collected, in blocks, makes entered data irreversible if it’s on a decentralized source.

For example, in Bitcoins case this means that transactions are permanently recorded, viewable to anyone, and not controlled by a single entity. This is the opposite of banks, who are centralized sources.

Ethereum blockchain - by the numbers

First off, I personally believe the most important number here is 99.1%

According to Polygon Network, that's how much the Ethereum merge reduced carbon footprint. Cheers to that in honor of mother nature.

While that is quite important, the Ethereum network still puts up other mind boggling numbers that really makes you think about just how powerful blockchain networks can be.

For my sports fans, in basketball times I would compare it to LeBron James in the 2016 finals when he averaged 29.7 points, 11.3 rebounds, and 8.9 assists. If you don't watch basketball, that's the best NBA finals performance in history.

Without further ado let's take a look at some Ethereum network numbers for quarter 1 of 2022 :

• 105.58 million - total transactions
• 1.45 million - smart contracts created
• 0.0079 ETH, or $16.75 - average gas fee
• 834,874 ETH or around 1.679 billion dollars - revenue generated by Ethereum network
• 404,657 - how much ETH was mined

Any platform, wether its Web 2 or web 3 based, that gets over 100 million transactions in a quarter, is very impressive.

What's the significance

The fact that nobody has more control than the next person. Personally I think this is the biggest reason why one day blockchains will overtake banks.

Last year I was going to Las Vegas and needed to get some cash out at the bank before flying. I go in and fill out a withdrawal form for $10,000 from my savings account. The clerk looks at me funny and asks for my drivers license. She looks at it, looks at me again, then asks for another piece of ID. I give her my old student ID and she continued to analyze both items like i had a warrant out for my arrest.

She asks me why I need the money right now, where I'm going, and what the money's for. I answer all questions honestly. I need it before my flight, Im going to Las Vegas, and it'll be used for food, gambling, drinks etc. She looks at me and continuous typing/looking at her computer for about 15 minutes before she finally gets up to get a manager.

At this point im pretty annoyed so I ask the manager why it's taking so long. He assures me its normal procedures and it would only take a moment. I go out to my girlfriend waiting in the car and ate my starbucks breakfast. I spent about 30 minutes in the car before I decide its been long enough and they're probably waiting on me by now.

Get to the point

I was wrong. The manager of the branch was now on the phone with his supervisor, so I sit down and wait some more. About an hour and half after I first entered the bank, the clerk calls me up to the window and hands me my drivers license and student ID. The manager comes right behind her holding my $10,000.

Hallelujah.

The point of this story was to show you how frustrating and time consuming centralized sources can make things. An hour and half for permission to use MY OWN money? To me, that's absolutely ludacris.

Do you know how long it would have taken to get my $10k from a decentralized source?

2 minutes. I would have sent from my "savings" crypto wallet to my "checkings" crypto wallet in a matter of 3 clicks. No questions asked, no managers, no wait. Just me and my money.

If I had a genie and one wish left, I would wish that the world uses DeFi instead of banks.

What is DeFi? (Decentralized Finance)

I could write a whole article equivalent to a final college essay on DeFi alone, and I will, very soon. For now we'll take a general overview look and real life use cases.

DeFi services are made possible by Dapps (decentralized apps) which the majority happen to run on the Ethereum blockchain. To put it in simple terms, decentralized finance means there is no middleman or gatekeeper managing the system.

DeFi allows for users to conduct traditional financing operations such as borrowing or lending money, saving, margin trading and currency trading, fast and securely form peer to peer. This excludes third parties such as banks and other centralized financial institutions.

Now if you throw NFTs into the picture you have proof of ownership, collateral, and authenticity.

you can already use cryptocurrency to secure a loan. For example, if you have $10,000 worth of Bitcoin (BTC), crypto-lending platform Nexo will loan you half of your collateral value (i.e. $5,000). Crypto lenders won't check your FICO score nor will they put you through a grueling approval process. Why? Because they have access to your BTC if things go awry

All without the loads of paperwork, meetings, and money lost on commissions to third parties, sometimes also known as banks.

Still confused?

No worries I get it. It’s a lot of new information hitting you from different directions at once.

Let me summarize for you why DeFi can be something to we all use in the future :

• No center power which means that nobody has the authority to change the data on the blockchain or change the rules (Interest rates, hidden fees, etc)
• No need for permission to use your own money at any given time. No need for approval requests to be verified by third parties
• Transparency & trust - all data and transactions are stored on the blockchain and nobody can edit them. However, it is visible to anybody
• accessibility - millions of people cant open bank accounts while others have payments blocked. With DeFi, all you need is an internet connection and you can borrow, send, receiver, adn even earn interest on funds from anywhwre in the world.

Woman holds up bank with toy pistol to get her own savings

By the end of this section Im willing to bet DeFi gets your vote as well.

A woman who broke into a bank and held it up with a toy gun did it to demand access to her savings in order to help her sister.

Sali Hafez said she had previously tried to take out her savings amounting to $13,000 - which she desperately needs - however, had been told there was a monthly limit on how much she could withdraw.⁠

She was allegedly told she can only receive $200 in Lebanese pounds each month.

So she took matters into her own hands. Hafez allegedly broke into a Blom Bank branch in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, armed with a toy pistol. When that wasn't enough, activists from a group called Depositors' Outcry entered the Bank and stormed into the manager's office.

A bank customer also claims that the group "doused gasoline everywhere inside, and took out a lighter and threatened to light it."

So what happened

They forced the employees to hand over $12,000 in cash and another $10,000 in Lebanese pounds. On a live stream that was posted to Meta (not facebook) Hafez said she intended no harm.

"I did not break into the bank to kill anyone or set the place on fire, I am here to get my rights.”

Hafez told Al Jadeed TV station the money was to help pay for cancer treatment for her 23-year-old sister.

Chilling. Her OWN money and she was being denied it at a time like this.

Anybody with a heart and sympathy would agree that ethically this is very messed up. Legally speaking however, its what you sign up for when you put your money and assets in the hands of a centralized source.

They make the terms, rules, fees, and just about everything else. And what's worse is that any of that can change at any given time, with little or no notice at all.

Their house, their rules.

So, how does DeFi sound?

Most expensive NFT

The most expensive NFT ever was sold for $69 Million.

That wasn't a typo.

69 MILLION DOLLARS

Everydays: The First 5000 Days is a masterpiece by Mike Winkelmann, also better known as Beeple. The NFT was is a collage of all the artwork that Beeple created and posted online every day since 2007. In case you're wondering, he did not miss a single day throughput the five years

The auction took place on March 11th, 2021. At first, it looked like the artwork was gonna sell slightly under $30 million before last minute bids more than doubled the price.

The highest bidder was Vignesh Sundaresan, better known in the community as Metakoven. After the purchase he said,

"there are going to be hundreds of thousands of people from around the world who are going to adopt this medium, a digitally native medium to monetize art"

Fast forward a year and a half later, he's right so far.

69 Million for a piece of art physical or digital, is absurd. Are all NFT sales like this? Absolutely not, Beeple is one of the most respected artists in the NFT space and that piece was a showcase of hard work and dedication...for 5,000 days straight.

Keeping that in mind, yes some NFTs still sell for millions. Let's take a look at the next Top 5 most expensive NFT sales to date.

CryptoPunk #5822 - 8,000 ETH/$23.7 Million

On February 23, 2022 the second most expensive public NFT sale happened. The NFT was purchased by Deepak Thapliyal, the CEO of Chain. If you're feeling generous you can send him more crypto to Deepak.eth.

Its kind of crazy to think that the first time this CryptoPunk was ever sold on July 10th 2017 , the seller was happy to let it go for 8 ETH or roughly $2k at the time.

Can somebody check in on him?

CryptoPunk #7523 - 4,750 ETH/$11.7 Million

On June 10th, 2021 CryptoPunk #7523 sold for a whopping $11.7 million at Sotheby's. The fact that Sotheby's and Christie's auction house are getting involved with NFTs tells us which direction digital assets are heading.

This CryptoPunk is only 1 of 9 (out of 10,000) with the alien trait, and the only one with a mask.

The mask is symbolic to a time we will never forget in 2020-2021 so it's no wonder the buyer decided to snatch this piece as early as possible. This CryptoPunk has gotten multi million offers which makes everyone wonder what it'll be valued at next time it's sold...if ever.

CROSSROADS #1/1 - $6.6 Million/approx. 4,470 ETH

Our man Beeple makes the list yet again. If I were to put this in basketball terms, he's the LeBron James of NFTs. Or Michael Jordan. Depends what era you grew up watching.

There's one thing isn't up for debate though, and that's the significance that Beeple is bringing to the NFT industry.

On February 24th, 2021 Beeple made history when he sold CROSSROADS for a nice $6.6 Million. At the time this was the most someone paid for a piece of digital art.

But Beeple being Beeple, he outdid himself a couple weeks later with the infamous $69 Million sale.

CryptoPunk #7804 - 4,200 ETH/$7.5 Million

On March 11th, 2021 the 4th highest NFT sale ever went down. Did that date just give you déjà vu? Good because me too.

2 of the top 5 most expensive NFTs in history sold on the same day. This sale didn't create nearly as much  hype but for a valid reason, Beeple sold a piece for $69 freaking Million the same day.

That's like Drake dropping his first album the same day as prime Michael Jackson.

CryptoPunk #3100 - 4,200 ETH/$7.5 Million

Rounding out the list is yet another CryptoPunk! Guess what day it sold.

If you guessed March 11th, 2021 you would be correct. That should be a national Holiday where we have school and work off, in honor of NFTs of course.

The top 4 CryptoPunks sold for a combined $51 Million, and that should tell you two things. CryptoPunks is a very highly sought after collection (more on that next) and Beeple is simply a man amongst kids in the NFT game.

What makes CryptoPunks so special?

CryptoPunks are 10,000 uniquely generated characters. No two are exactly alike, and each one of them can be officially owned by a single person on the Ethereum blockchain.

The project was created by Larva Labs which was founded by John Watkinson and Matt Hall. However, on March 11th 2022 (seriously, again?) Yuga Labs, the creator of Bored Ape Yacht Club, announced that they will be buying the Intellectual property (IP) rights to CryptoPunks.

Believe it or not, CryptoPunks were free to claim for anybody in 2017! Yes, completely free, all you needed was an Ethereum compatible wallet.

Yup, those CryptoPunks selling for millions could have been yours for free. Don't beat yourself up, none of us can predict the future unfortunately.

Many in the NFT community view the Punks as digital antiques. Some people use it as their online persona because they resonate with them so much.

You're probably still wondering why people pay millions for a picture anybody can screenshot right?

Why are NFTs valuable?

NFTs are valuable because they provide proof of ownership and transparency on the blockchain.

Yeah yeah, thats cool, but why the heck do people pay millions for "a picture on a screen"?

At the end of the day it comes down to good ol' economics. Supply and Demand. Let's look at different reasons that drives demand up, exceeding the amount of supply, which in turn creates more value.

Utility

Utility might be one of the biggest factors contributing to the value of an NFT, it makes them become more than just digital assets. They can grant their owner privileges, rights, or rewards which they would not otherwise be able to access without the NFT.

Again, proof of ownership and transparency on the blockchain. Only people that own the legit token that grants these perks are be able to reap the benefits.

Imagine if you have an awesome backstage pass and VIP ticket to see your favorite band but when they scan it at the door they say its a fake. Someone sold you a fake ticket and you couldn't tell the difference.

If that ticket was provided as an NFT that wouldn't have happened because you would have been able to check the VIP ticket history, like previous sales, and more importantly, who the original creator is.

Creator/Founder/Team

Today a lot of people might tell you that a successful project NEEDS to have the founders identities revealed. I would respectfully disagree with those people, however, they are right when they say it creates more trust.

Frankly some people are serious about their privacy, with no mal intent behind it.

But on the other hand, there are bad actors who want to remain anonymous so when they run off with investors money, nobody can call them out.

The founders of one of the most prominent NFT collections to date, Bored Ape Yacht Club (more on them later), were anonymous until Buzzfeed wrongfully leaked their identities.

It didn’t matter to most members who they were because they were delivering on every promise since the start. The important thing for founders, anonymous or not, is to be transparent and keep all promises.

You might be thinking, “my favorite celebrity is dropping an NFT! That’s a great founder, right” Well, not necessarily. Even if that person is the most sweet, caring, and genuine person in real life it does not mean they can create & execute an NFT project efficiently.

I'm not going to name any names since this article will get millions of views monthly, but there have been notable hip hop artists, movie stars, and athletes whose NFT projects flat out flopped.

Community

By definition, a community is a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

Without a community there is no NFT project. Its what can take a project to great success, or put an end to it in the blink of an eye. A solid community is one where members invest time in it, share ideas, collaborate, talk with each other daily, well, you get the idea.

This doesn't just apply if you're trying to make the next CryptoPunk or Bored Ape 10,000 supply collection.

For example, if you're an artist on Instagram with 500 followers you also have a community, and those 500 people can play a large role in the direction your career heads. How much they support and are willing to spend is a different conversation to be had, but the point is that these people are there for at least one of the same reasons.

Don't be fooled though, 500 loyal community members is much better than 50,000 members who are kinda watching. Again, just ask the numerous celebrities with huge followings and failed projects because they had no involvement with the NFT community prior.

Royalties

Royalties might be the ultimate game changer for artists and creators.

Let me give you an example. Let's say Pablo Picasso just created a brand new masterpiece that's about to be auctioned off. How exciting.

The bidding gets intense in the last couple minutes and the piece of art ends up selling for $10 million. Not bad right?

Now 2 years later, the original buyer wants to re-sell the piece. Let's say he puts it up on Ebay and it sells for $50 Million. This is where it gets interesting.

In that $50 million dollar sale this is how the money would be distributed :

• Original buyer - $47,500,000
• Ebay - $2,500,000 (5% fee on art sales)
• Pablo Picasso - $0

Now, if that piece of art had been originally listed as an NFT (you can add the physical piece as unlockable content) the split of the $50 Million sale would look a little different.

• Original buyer - $47,500,000
• NFT listing platform - $1,250,000 (2.5% average % fee)
• Pablo picasso - $1,250,000 (2.5% royalties, low end)

Makes quite the difference huh? Instead of 5% going to a website like Ebay, OpenSea who is currently the world largest NFT marketplace, only charges 2.5% per transaction.

The most important part though is the fact that original creator gets a percentage of the second sale. And the 3rd, And the 4th, And the 5th, And the 214th. Every sale, forever. That is the beauty of royalties.

More power to the creator.

NFT marketplace - Where to create, buy & sell (ETH)

One of the first questions you may have on your journey is where the heck do I even buy an NFT?

There are many different marketplaces out there, and there is no "right" or "wrong" choice. It really comes down to personal preference and what you're looking to buy.

In this section we'll take a look at a number of options and their respective pros & cons.

OpenSea

OpenSea did a whopping $14 Billion in trading volume in 2021. Many newcomers choose this as their marketplace of choice because it is easy to sign up, create, buy, and sell.

OpenSea has an array of several different kinds of NFTs to browse. This includes art, collectibles, domain names, trading cards, and even virtual worlds. Creators also have resources to help them create their own NFTs, with little technical knowledge required.

The platform is home to Ethereum NFTs and introduced Solana blockchain integration in April 2022.

Fee : 2.5% every sale

Pros

• Easy to navigate
• Blue chip collections
• supports 14 different crypto wallets & 150 tokens

Cons

• Customer support takes a while
• Locked or stolen NFTs
• only supports 2 solana wallets

Rarible

Rarible lets holders have a say in how some things operates. They do this by using their native token $RARI, which is part of the Rarible Dao. With tokens comes voting rights for holders to decide on different things within the platform.

For example, Rarible DAO community passed a proposal to end weekly $RARI distribution for trading on the Rarible.com marketplace. Instead, this will let the Rarible DAO focus and further execute its vision of fueling the next-gen web3 projects

Rarible introduced a feature in late 2021 called "lazy minting" that holds off the minting process until the file is purchased. This is great for artists who have been holding off due to minting costs, but puts another fee burden on the buyer.

Similar to Opensea, users can also browse a variety selection of NFTs like collectibles, art, trading cards, etc. They have multi-chain support including Ethereum, flow, tezos, and even Polygon However, to purchase the items you need to own Raribles native token $RARI. Rarible NFTs show up under your OpenSea collection.

Fee : 1% for seller, 1% for buyer. (usually seller eats the whole fee)

Pros

• multi chain support
• DAO governance
• Partnership with adobe for creators

Cons

• reported slow mint times
• lower traffic

Foundation

Foundation was launched February 2021 so its years newer than its competitors like OpenSea (2017) and SuperRare (2018).

Foundation seems to be a fan favorite for up and coming artists. Again, its down to personal preference and what you're looking to buy or sell. It is an invite only platform for creators. (anybody can buy) The unique thing about foundation is that it is made up of 1 of 1 artwork from artists. This means no 10,000 supply collections or other NFTS such as ENS domains.

Fee : 5% every sale

Pros

• true "support the artist" platform
• easy to navigate

Cons

• invite only
• no collections

Mintable

Mintable is one of the few platforms that offer gasless minting which completely nulls the "Are NFTs bad for the environment" argument.

This is a platform thats been around for a while but for some reason it never took off like OpenSea or Rarible, even though it has useful resources for beginners & gasless minting.

Mintable's marketplace fees can either be 2.5%, 5%, or 10%, depending on the type of transaction/product. This is unlike the traditional fixed percentage fee.

Mark Cuban is also an investor in Mintable, whatever that's worth to you.

Pros

• no gas fee mint option
• creators can set their royalties
• 24/7 customer service

Cons

• low traffic
• inconsistent fees
• only Ethereum compatible

SuperRare

SuperRare launched in 2018 and is similar to Foundation in the sense that it attracts artists who primarily focus on 1-of-1 pieces.

However, getting access to sell on here is a bit more exclusive. Once you're a seller on Foundation you can invite literally anybody, even if they have no art, NFT, or crypto experience. On SuperRare, any artist who wants to mint NFTs on the platform must apply and gain approval from SuperRare Labs

They run on the Ethereum blockchain and recently introduced their native token, $superrare

Fee : 3% every sale

Pros

• curated, high quality content
• 10% royalty for creators (high)

Cons

• fixed royalty fees
• tough application process

X2Y2

X2Y2 is an NFT marketplace that launched in February 2022, so it's the newest one that's up there competing with the big dogs. In fact, many people see X2Y2 as OpenSea's biggest rival.

What's unique about this platform is users who stake their X2Y2 tokens on the platform will receive a % of the fees for all NFT trades proportional to their share. Users can also do bulk listing/purchasing to save on gas fees.

On Aug 25th 2022 X2Y2 tweeted, "Buyers on X2Y2 can now choose the amount of royalties they would like to contribute to projects."

This sparked debate with some claiming eliminating royalty payments would hurt the very artists and creators who first turned to NFTs as a more profitable way to sell their work.

Fees : 0.5%

Pros

• bundling on listing/purchasing
• growing traffic
• ability to sort by rarity

Cons

• royalties optional - controversial
• customer service

Now that you've taken a look at various platforms, you'll need a crypto wallet to be able to create, buy, sell, and trade NFTs.

Crypto Wallet - Which one is best?

A crypto wallet is an essential part of buying NFTs and crypto. It's the equivalent of gasoline to a car. Without it, it's not going anywhere. There's many crypto wallets out there so you might feel a little overwhelmed browsing through all the choices.

I'll narrow it down in this section and provide you a brief overview of each one as well pros & cons.

Oh and if you think leaving your crypto on an exchange wallet like coinbase or binance, DONT! Crypto exchanges are targets for hackers and if the exchange as a whole gets hacked, you might end up paying the price.

With that being said, you should note the differences between a cold and hot wallet. Spoiler : If any of you were wondering, us Finance Kids use metamask as a hot wallet & Ledger for cold storage.

*There's not a single affiliate link in this article so don't worry about money influencing my writing!*

Hot wallet

A hot wallet is connected to the internet. They are usually free to use via a browser extension or app. A hot wallet is what you would use to buy an NFT or connect to site, since its on the internet.

It is not a physical item and you can log in from various devices if you have your password or seed phrase. Hot wallets should be used to buy, sell, and trade assets as well as hold small amounts of crypto.  Hot wallets can easily be traced and are much easier to hack than cold wallets.

A hot wallet is necessary if you want to explore buying and selling NFTs. If you are buying to collect, send them to a cold wallet.

Cold wallet

A cold wallet is not connected to the internet. These cost money because you actually have to buy the physical hardware to store assets. Cold wallets are much safer than a traditional hot wallet since hackers can't use the internet to potentially track and hack it.

Cold wallets should be used to store valuable NFTs or large amounts of crypto. Although criminals have zero to little chance to hack your cold wallet, the biggest risk to losing everything is yourself. Since it is a physical item that stores it, if you lose that and the recovery phrase, everything is gone.

A cold wallet is not needed to begin your NFT journey, however, we very strongly recommend investing in one to store your valuable assets. Now lets go over different types of hot & cold wallets.

Metamask - Hot

Metamask launched in 2016 and quickly gained steam as the favorite crypto wallet boasting over 21 million active users. It can be installed as a browser extension or downloaded as an app on mobile devices. I do recommend the browser extension as primary use due to some minor bugs on the app.

Metamask is not a one trick pony, aside from storing cryptocurrency and NFTs, it also allows acts as a host to over 3700 Dapps. (decentralized apps)

Private keys and seed phrases of the users are stored safely where the users are only required to manage their independent seed phrases. Even though the wallet is built for the Ethereum network, it does allow users access to other networks in the click of a button

Pros

• very easy to use
• compatible with different networks
• can swap currencies within the wallet

Cons

• relies on external notes - sometimes app has downtime
• FAQ/customer support

Trust wallet - Hot

Similar to metamask, Trust wallet is another favorite amongst the crypto community. A big factor contributing to that could be the fact that it is Binances' official partner wallet.

Currently users can access it it via the browser extension while developers are working on a mobile app.

Trust wallet has over 130,000 different assets available for user to buy, sell and trade within the app thanks to the Binance partnership. It also has a Web 3 browser feature that allows users to connect to Ethereum based Dapps. (Decentralized applications)

Pros

• exclusive partnership with Binance
• large selection of assets

Cons

• Binance has been breached before
• no browser extension

Exodus - Hot

Exodus wallet is one users can download as a mobile app, desktop app, or browser extension. Users can also buy, trade or stake cryptocurrency directly from the wallet.

Exodus has an integration with Trezor (a cold wallet, more on that in a sec)to provide users an easy way to transfer assets from a hot wallet to a cold storage.

Pros

• cold wallet integration
• resources for beginners

Cons

• sets transaction fees to fastest (which means more expensive) by default
• work in progress interface

Trezor - Cold

Trezor is a cold wallet that is integrated with Exodus (hot wallet) making the transition from hot to cold as smooth as possible. The base model costs $70 and they have an upgraded touch screen model for $250.

A mobile app for trezor has yet to be developed but it can be accessed via desktop. Its physical appearance is relatively large compared to competitors, but then again, that all comes down to personal preference.

Pros

• integration with exodus hot wallet
• touch screen model
• high amount of supported currencies

Cons

• relatively high price
• not so sleek design

Ledger - Cold

Ledger was founded in 2014 and today it is the most well known cold wallet amongst the crypto community. When they launched they had one goal in mind, to keep private keys as far away as possible from hackers.

They are right on par with competition in terms of pricing with the base model costing $79 and an upgraded model selling for $149. Ledger has a highly rated mobile app, a reliable desktop app, and developers claim they are working on a browser extension.

Pros

• sleek design
• easy to set up
• supports high amount of currencies

Cons

• limited storage space
• small screen
• nano S only app only on android

Safepal - Cold

Safepal was launched in 2019, so its relatively new compared to its competitors. It has the capability of storing over 10,000 different tokens and 19 blockchains. The wallet itself only costs $50 making it cheaper than its competition.

As if a cold wallet in itself isn't secure enough, Safepal has a 2 factor authentication code option as well. And if that isn't unique enough, they've built the wallet to be used in any weather ranging from -4 farenheit all the way to a scorching 159 degrees.

Pros

• extra layer of security
• self destruct option
• relatively cheap

Cons

• does not support coin swapping
• does not have some trending coins (Monero, TRON, litecoin)

It doesn't matter which wallet you have, you must always be actively taking precautions to keep your assets safe. Just because you have them stored in a cold wallet doesn't mean they're invincible.

Here are some tips and thoughts to bring even an extra layer of security to your crypto and NFTs. Remember, sometimes the biggest risk to your assets is yourself.

Never click on any suspicious links

This might be common sense but you would be surprised how many people have lost their crypto and NFTs because of this. Malicious people will either email, text (if they have your number) or DM you a link with a backstory meant to make you want to click the link.

DONT CLICK IT!

I know curiosity is b*tch and you really want to click the link. You want to know what's on the other side and find out if its a scam.

If you must find out, don't do it from any device that holds valuable assets. Better yet, don't do it from any device that has a hot or cold wallet on to it.

Better yet, don't click the link.

Never, ever, ever disclose wallet credentials

Again, seems like common sense right? .... right?

I can't tell you how many people willingly give away their wallet password or recovery phrase because they think the person they're sending it to is going to help them in some way.

Its the complete opposite, actually. They're going to help themselves!

First of all, no reputable company will ever ask for your password or recovery phrase. Not coinbase, not binance, not metamask, not ledger, not anybody.

In fact, if anybody ever claims to work for a company and asks you this, go ahead and block them. Or troll them to waste their time, either works.

Never connect your cold wallet to anything

No matter how careful we try to be the reality is sometimes we get lazy. You may accidentally click a link or get distracted and end up where you don't want to be.

If this ever happens, worst case scenario let the nasty individuals run off with as little as possible. You should never keep more than 1 ETH constantly on your hot wallet. If you need more, transfer over from your cold wallet, which should NEVER be connected to anything on the internet.

How to Buy an NFT (ETH)

Ok now that you know where to find them, it's time to learn HOW to buy an NFT. After you buy your first one it'll be like muscle memory when buying each one after that. It's a relatively easy process. You'll need 3 things

1. Phone or laptop
2. Crypto/Digital wallet
3. Ethereum or other digital currency (depends which blockchain you purchase your NFT on)

Step 1 : Set boundaries for yourself

You've probably heard it only a couple million times.

Don't invest what you can't afford to lose! This should should be common sense but you'd be surprised how many people risk bank accounts, retirement funds, and cash they cant afford to lose!

If you invest what you can afford to lose then you won't be as worried if the NFT drops in value, limiting emotions when trading. We recommend setting up some personal guidelines to stay disciplined. You might not think so, but trust me, it goes a long way.

Some of these guidelines might include :

• only spending $x amount total
• only spending $x amount per NFT
• only purchase pieces you'd still love if the value went to 0

During times of financial stress, people don't think clearly leading to poor decision making. Having a plan in place and sticking to it will reduce silly emotional mistakes.

Step 2 : Install a crypto wallet

In this section we'll talk about metamask wallet because as you already know, Its what I use personally. If you don't like metamask or want other options, scroll up to the previous section for more wallet options.

Remember, there's no right or wrong choice when it comes to choosing a wallet or marketplace, its personal preference.

And reminder again, there's no affiliate links in here :)

Download metamask from the app store or install on your laptop browser. Once you have metamask installed follow the on-screen instructions on creating a wallet. My grandma was able to do it without asking me for help, it's very easy.

Its very very important to never share your seed phrase with anybody. If you ever forget or can't remember your password this serves as your "forgot password" bailout. ANYBODY that has these can log into your wallet and access all NFTs, crypto, and any other assets.

**WRITE DOWN YOUR 12 WORD SEED PHRASE ON PAPER**

Step 3 : Buy Ethereum

The next step is to buy Ethereum so you can use that to purchase your NFT. You will need to download a crypto exchange, and like crypto wallets, there's no right or wrong choice. It comes down to personal preference.

Binance

Founded in 2017, Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the world in terms of volume. It doesn't have as many coins as other platforms but still offers a respectable 100+, plenty more than what people need.

Binance's model has been to keep fees near the lowest in the industry, therefore attracting low volume traders. Today, Binance has its own coin $BNB and offers most crypto products such as exchange, earn, staking, derivatives, loans, payments, credit cards, and NFTs.

Pros

• easy sign up process
• simple to use staking features

Cons

• not available in all states
• has been hacked in past

Crypto.com

Crypto.com claims to be the fastest growing crypto exchange in the world boasting over 50 million verified users and over 250 different cryptocurrencies.

One thing that stands out on Crypto.com is there's no transaction fees if you make your purchase with money transferred from your bank account. This seems like a much better option than paying 2.99% for credit/debit card purchases.

Pros

• high speed
• deposits can earn up to 10% back annually on stablecoins (USDT/USDC)
• credit card that pays back 5% in crypto

Cons

• higher fees for credit/debit purchases
• not available in all states

Coinbase

Coinbase is currently the largest crypto exchange in the United States. They've been a leader in the industry since 2012 with over 98 million verified users.

Coinbase operates worldwide being available in 98 countries, employs almost 5,000 people, and holds over $250 Billion in assets. Being this massive, it was no surprise they were the first publicly traded crypto exchange. (NASDAQ)

Pros

• easy sign up process
• easy to navigate
• tools and resources for learning

Cons

• security
• high withdraw fees
• customer support

We'll be talking about the crypto exchange coinbase, because again, it's what I use personally which means I'll be able to give you honest feedback and guidance.

Once its installed follow the on-screen instructions to sign up. Itll ask you for basic information like name, address, and asks you to provide a picture of your ID or driver's license.

After you've entered your personal info your home screen should look something similar to this.

Click the buy button then search for the cryptocurrency you want. In this case it's Ethereum (ETH). The next screen will prompt you to select the amount you want to buy. If you haven't already, input your credit card or bank information and confirm the transaction

Its always best to buy $10-15 extra than what you planned for. It's better to have extra than not enough.

Step 4 : Send crypto to metamask

You need the Ethereum on your metamask wallet to be able to connect to an NFT marketplace to buy NFTs.

Copy your metamask wallet address and head back over to coinbase or whichever crypto exchange you are using.

Your metamask address never changes and is what you will send to people if they ever need to transfer you crypto or an NFT. Its important to note that wallet addresses do change when receiving/sending to an exchange.

Click "send", which is two buttons to the right of where you just clicked to buy.

Please double and triple check it is the correct address. With crypto once you send money there are no refunds or customer service. Once its out of your account, its gone.

Step 5 : Do your research!

Technically you're all ready to go, but if you don't do your research you'll most likely have a short NFT career.

If you are buying a 1-of-1 piece from an artist that makes research relatively easy. However, doing research on NFT collections is a bit more complex so that's what we will focus on here.

Supply (number of NFTs in circulation)

One of the first things you want to research on a project is how many total NFTs are in the collection.

People buy NFTs for different reasons, one of them wanting to feel "exclusive" or part of something.

Now think about it, what feels more exclusive : a club with 50,000 members or a club with 2,000 members?

We're not saying that an NFT collection with a high supply can't be valuable, but if its a larger collection that means the demand also needs to be larger than the supply. The basic rules of supply & demand apply if you are trying to flip NFTs or invest long term.

I recommend not stressing so much about how much money you can make, but to rather be happy with what you purchased, even if the value were to go to 0.

Number of NFTs listed for sale

Digging deeper, the next key stat you want to check for is how many NFTs are listed for sale. This, in hand with amount of sales, is a good indicator of the supply & demand for a specific project.

If an NFT collection has a high percentage of NFTs listed for sale that tells you multiple things. First of all, people want out of the project. If this is paired with low volume/amount of sales then its a recipe for a loss, dollar wise.

If you have a personal connection with the piece and you absolutely love it, who cares if it's worth nothing!

On the other hand, if a project has a low percentage of NFTs listed for sale that is a great sign! This means people don't want to sell their NFT right now, which also means its probably for good reason. If this is combined with high volume/amount of sales then it might be a project worth looking into deeper.

Volume / Amount of sales

One key factor when researching an NFT collection is finding out how much liquidity there is. This is important because it tells a clear sign - either people want to get into the project or they don't.

If an NFT collection only has a couple sales in an hour, or even days at a time, that tells us people aren't willing to give up an arm or leg to join the project. Proceed with caution because you don't want to buy one of the NFTs, put it up for sale, and have it get no attention. Although this may be true, collections with higher floor prices will naturally have less total number of sales.

One thing I personally like to see is at least a couple trades in the past 5 minutes. If there's trades being made every minute, that's a positive sign but you have to keep looking even further.

Unique Owner %

Ok let's say you found a collection that so far has a nice size supply, low percentage of NFTs listed for sale, and decent volume. What's the next sign?

Even though the project has decent value, there's some malicious actors out there that want to fool you. Just because you see sales every minute doesnt mean its what it looks like on the surface. What some people do is hold a large % of the total supply then sell them off slowly to make it look like natural trading.

If  the top owners of a collection own more than 8-10% of the total supply, it's probably best to keep researching other projects. If the top owners hold less than 4-6% thats a good sign that the project is diversified and supply isn't controlled by only a few powerful people.

If a project has a high percentage of unique owners (different wallets) then odds the value of the collection is legit, rather than artificially pumped.

Floor Price

One of the last things to consider is the projects floor price. This really comes down to how much you're willing to invest, and be ok with losing.

It is important to note that a blue chip NFT floor price will be significantly more than almost any other project, however they are seen as more stable for a longer term investment.

These are all factors you want to take into consideration before spending your valuable Ethereum. You should not blindly invest, you will regret it quicker than you can say "NFT".

You should only buy pieces you would still be proud to hang up on your wall even if the price went to 0.

Step 6 : Connect metamask to an NFT marketplace and buy away

Now that you have ethereum in your metamask all you have to do is choose your NFT marketplace. No matter which marketplace you choose, all you need to do is click "connect wallet" on the home page of each one

Actually purchasing the NFT and getting it added to your wallet is a super straightforward process. You literally just click a Buy button and then Approve the purchase when your Metamask wallet pops up. The metamask browser extension will show you how much you’re going to spend, as well as the price of gas fees.

Remember there is no 100% effective investment strategy when it comes to buying NFTs which means you must always do your own research on projects.

How to Create an NFT (ETH)

Now that you’ve chosen an NFT marketplace where you can buy, sell, and trade Non-Fungible Tokens it’s time to create yours.

There are 6 steps to creating an NFT, some of them we've already covered in this article so you're already ahead of the game.

Step 1 : Choose what you want to turn into an NFT

As long as it has a digital file it can be an NFT. Let your imagination run wild! Think about what you like, what you're good at, and what can provide value to others. Some ideas to give you a jumpstart include:

• song
• artwork
• photography
• entry ticket for an event
• school textbook

And to really get your creative juices flowing, these ~interesting~ things were sold as an NFT as well

Influencer sells love as an NFT

You know how everyone says you can’t put a price on love? Well Marta Rentel, an influencer, didn’t get the memo and placed a price tag on hers.

$250,000.

That's right, she sold her love for 250k.

The buyer, whos still anonymous, doesn’t just hold her love in the form of a digital token, he/she also gets to take Marta out to dinner.

After the sale Marta said, "For me, selling digital love is empowering for women because we can love without compromising our freedom and individuality”

Anybody selling some extra happiness?

The Invisible sculpture

The title pretty much tells you all you need to know.  A 67-year-old Italian artist named Salvatore Garau decided he would do the unthinkable. He created the Lo Sono, an invisible sculpture of a vacuum.

Yes. A vacuum.

The bidding started at a light $8,000 before people fell in love…with nothing…and the highest bid reaching $18,830.

This one wasn’t sold on the blockchain as NFT but the buyer got an ownership certificate signed by the artist. This is basically an NFT in physical form so we’ll count it for the sake of the creative juices.

Keep in mind however that anybody could copy/duplicate his ownership certificate leaving in doubt which one is legit. If it were on the blockchain, there’s no debate.

Real estate

TechCrunch founder and crypto investor Michael Arrington listed his apartment as an NFT.

He first purchased the piece of Ukranian property in 2017, and interesting enough, he used the Ethereum blockchain and smart contracts to settle the deal. Upon listing the apartment for sale Michael was quoted saying,

“We are increasingly excited about the role of NFTs in DeFi,” Arrington said. “With homes and really anything in the real world being tokenized, you can plug that physical item into DeFi, assuming the legal niceties are ironed out, and that’s fascinating.”

The cozy studio apartment was listed with a starting bid of $20,000. Fast forward to the end of the auction and the apartment sold for a respectable 36 ETH, or roughly $93,000 at the time.

This was an important experiment for the NFT industry, as it proved it can replace agents, escrows, all while establishing trust.

Smart contracts might sound awfully similar to putting one's home in escrow (a legal arrangement in which a third party temporarily halts the transfer of money or property until a particular condition is met.)

Step 2 : Choose a blockchain

For the sake of consistency we will continue to use Ethereum as our example in this section. Not to mention it is where a majority of NFTs are traded, so odds are that'll probably be your first choice as well.

You have some other options here which include Solana NFTs, Cardano NFTs, Flow NFTs, and Tezos NFTs. Each blockchain has their pros & cons which we cover in this article as well (we cover everything hehe)

You shouldn't stress or lose sleep when you pick your blockchain, and if you are let us help you out to start. Go with Ethereum. I  say this because it's the most adopted one so far, so if you were to encounter any issues, there already is likely an answer.

If you're not sold on Ethereum perhaps you give Solana NFTs a shot (more on them later).

Or heck, you might wanna even take a look at Cardano NFTs. There is no right or wrong choice, but with that being said, Ethereum is the most popular.

Step 3 : Set up your crypto wallet

Done! Well, if you've read everything up to this point (How to buy an NFT section) you have a metamask wallet with a little bit of ETH. If you're still confused or have any other questions, you can read refer back to section "Crypto Wallets - Which one is best?"

Having a crypto wallet is not only necessary for creating an NFT but also selling and trading, so if you don't have one yet, download it right now!

Step 4 : Choose your NFT marketplace

As long as you've made it this far in the article (props to you) you know more than 98% of people about NFT marketplaces, now its time to choose which one you want to mint your Non-Fungible token on.

Remember, there's no wrong or right choice.

Are you dropping a 1 of 1 piece of art? I may recommend WithFoundation in that case.

Are you dropping a 3,000 piece collection? We might steer you towards OpenSea or Rarible then.

It truly all comes down to personal preference, and if you don't like your first choice you can always switch platforms. We just don't recommend minting the same piece on multiple platforms as it can be seen in a negative way by collectors.

Step 5 : Upload your file, aka, mint your NFT.

Connect your wallet to OpenSea like we did under the how to buy an NFT section.

To the left of the 'connect wallet' button is one that says 'create'. Choose your file then fill in the options such as item name, quantity, any unlockable content etc.

Once all info is filled out and you click 'create' that will mint your NFT. This process turns PNG, GIF, MP3, and other file types into NFTs.

Even if you aren't using OpenSea most platforms have their own "how to mint" guide, and it's all generally the same process.

Step 6 : List your NFT for sale

You can first choose whether you want to set a 'buy now' price or leave it open for bids. The strategy here differs depending on what you're selling, how many copies, and who your target market is.

Our suggestion is to start lower while you build up demand. Once the demand is there, raise the price, or let people place bids.

Like most platforms, on OpenSea creators must pay a one time gas fee to list their NFT for sale. In 2022, the average gas fee is roughly $12.

Make sure to set royalties (5-10% is average) to ensure you get paid every time the NFT is resold.

What are NFTs used for?

The mainstream public would probably tell you NFTs are "overpriced JPEGS" and even question why you bought one. Boy are they in for a treat.

They have applicable, problem solving, real life use cases. We won't use the Tom Brady sports card example here, but hopefully by now you understand why that's so important - Authenticity and ownership.

Let's highlight some examples of how NFTs can be used in everyday life

Art

This is what most people think of when they hear NFTs. The reason NFTs are revolutionary with art is because it connects artists/creators directly with fans.

There is no middle man. It goes from creator straight to supporters. Another game changer is royalties. This means every time an NFT is re-sold the original creator gets a % of the sale.

This is not seen in traditional art which is the cherry on top for creators making the switch to digital art.

Gaming

We all know a kid who uses their parents credit card to buy in game items. Once they buy the item, sure, they can use/wear it but thats really the extent of it.

If only those kids could resell those items for real money to pay their parents back AND make some profit.

They can. If games integrate those items as NFTs.

With gaming NFTs you can resell the item for money or even trade with your friends.

Ubisoft integrates NFTs

In December 2021 UbiSoft, creator of assassin's creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow 6, was the first gaming giant to give NFTs a shot. The NFT’s are called “digits” which contains a one-of-a kind serial number on the Tezos blockchain.

Ubisoft commented on this by saying,

"With Digits, items are no longer bound to a player's game inventory since they can be put on sale for other eligible players to acquire on third-party platforms outside of the Ubisoft ecosystem,"

We know by now that no two NFTs are exactly alike, but in-game skins or accessories are identical for each player that owns a copy. This is what Ubisoft is attempting to change so they added a serial number that’s stamped onto the items. The serial number is visible in game to other players.

For example, the first person to get a rare skin will be recognized as so. It won’t be the same as the 100th person to get the same skin, thanks to the serial number.

Music

This is a big one.

First of all if you concert ticket is in NFT form that means no worries of losing it, since it is eternalized on the blockchain. This also means scammers cant steal peoples money with fake tickets, since you would be able to verify the legitimacy of the token, again thanks to the blockchain.

Once the concert is over you can keep the ticket (NFT) as memorabilia or a proof of attendance token. If you ever decide to sell it, you would still be supporting the artist because they get a royalty from each sale, forever.

Artists also have the ability to sell a song or album as an NFT directly to their fans. Tory Lanez proved this model when he sold 1 million copies of his album for $1 each.

Another way music NFTs can be utilized is to reward holders (which could be your concert ticket) with special privileges such as VIP entry, meet & greets, and much more. It all comes back to proof of ownership, only the token holders get those exclusive perks.

It is estimated that 1,000,000 spotify streams is equivalent to an artist selling 25 NFTs each priced at 0.1 ETH. This means the artist would go home with 2.5 ETH, and assuming Ethereum is worth a conservative $2,000, that means the artist just made $5,000.

Think about that for a minute. 1 Million streams from an artist and they only walk away with $5,000. Imagine how much money is lost in the process to record labels, management, and of course, streaming platforms.

After all, it's about connecting creator to supporter with no middle man.

Tory Lanez NFT album

Tory Lanez was the first rapper (sorry Soulja Boy) to drop an album as an NFT. Before Tory Lanez dropped his album  “When It’s dark” no other musical artist that well known had taken the risk with NFTs.

It paid off big time for Tory.

The Toronto rapper released 1 million copies of his album, each for only $1, and it sold out in just 60 seconds.

Even though this was a first, combining a top rapper with an NFT album, Lanez sounded pretty confident even before he released it, believing in the udnelyong technology, and of course his fan base.

After the sellout Tory took to Instagram to explain how he first got the idea,

"They took everything away from me they took the playlisting away from me they took everything they could away from me"

He is referring to the fact that during his legal battles radio stations and streaming platforms refused to play his music, basically blackballing him from the music industry. He needed anoter way to be able to connect to his fans.

Well, that didn’t stop him from hustling. On the live stream Lanez later said,

“Y’all don’t understand what the f*** is going on? Y’all don’t understand I just crack this s***? Y’all don’t understand that I just crack the industry? I just crack this s***. It is over no more middleman.”

This was a great step in the right direction for artists to get back their creative freedom, and more importantly, establish their true value.

What is a Bored Ape NFT? And why do they sell for millions

Even if you’re not an NFT expert, you probably have still heard the term “bored ape NFT” be thrown around once or twice. I mean, they did raise $450 million in a funding round that valued the parent company, Yuga Labs, at $4 billion.

From non existent to a unicorn ( privately held startup company with a value of over $1 billion) in about 12 months.

The Bored Apes, or what you’d see on crypto twitter, “BAYC”, is the infamous Bored Ape Yacht Club collection.

According to their website they define the collection as, “BAYC is a collection of 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs—unique digital collectibles living on the Ethereum blockchain. Your Bored Ape doubles as your Yacht Club membership card, and grants access to members-only benefits, the first of which is access to THE BATHROOM, a collaborative graffiti board. Future areas and perks can be unlocked by the community through roadmap activation.”

Each NFT has a special set of varying traits that include eyes, hats, clothes, mouth, fur, earring and background. No two in the whole collection are identical, kind of like a snowflake.

You might be thinking someone must be insane if they pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a digital picture.

Well, for starters, those people are part of the most exclusive NFT club in the world.

If you think those people are crazy you might want to look away, people have paid MILLIONS for some of the apes in the collection. Lets see the most people have paid for these silly apes pictures.

Top 5 Bored Ape sales of all time

5. Bored Ape #2087

Selling Price : $2.3 million / 769 ETH

Starting the list off with trippy fur, an angry face, and a cigarette!

Bored Ape #2087 was sold for a light $2.3 million on September 30th, 20221.

You know how they say less is more? That seems to be the motto for this ape as its the 9th rarest in the whole collection, and has only 4 traits.

The last time this Bored Ape was sold before the record breaking sale was only 42 ETH

"Only."

4. Bored Ape #8585

Selling Price : $2.7 million / 696.96 ETH

On October 21, 2021 Bored Ape #8585 made history in the NFT world by selling for 696.96 ETH, or $2.7 million at the time.

After 3 sales of over $1 million in the 30 days prior, this was the one that let the whole world that Bored Ape Yacht club was not a ~ bubble ~.

With some dope trippy fur, heart sunglasses, and a crown Bored Ape #8585 ranks 441st in rarity out of the 10,000.

The previous sale for this ape went for 397 ETH so the reseller was close to doubling up.

3. Bored Ape #3749

Selling Price : $2.9 million / 740 ETH

He's just a cool dude wearing a black t-shirt and shooting lasers out of his eyes. Not to mention, hes ranked 27th in terms of rarity in the collection.

Bored Ape #3749, also known as The Captain, was bought by "The Sandbox". At the time of purchase Ethereum was worth roughly $3,920.

Sandbox commented on the purchase and its views on the long term metaverse,

“We strongly believe that culture, whether, games, music, visual arts, will be one pillar of the open crypto.”

The last time The Captain was sold it was for 400 ETH or $1,267,296, only 26 days before The Sandbox purchased him.

2. Bored Ape #232

Selling Price : $2.9 million / 1080 WETH

We set this list up by USD value, however, if we set it in ETH value, Bored Ape #232 would be number one on the list. Typically in the NFT world stuff is valued in Ethereum since 1 ETH = 1 ETH no matter what.

At Sotheby's (spoiler) bidding is done in dollar value, not crypto, so that's how we set the list.

Bored Ape #232 was purchased by Chain CEO Deepak Thapliyal for over 1,000 WETH.

Prior to purchasing, Deepak had to sell some assets to put towards the historic purchase. He sold sold seven bored apes, and an M1 and M2 serum. Or as he puts it,

“Sold some, took profits. Aped in, spent net more.”

1. Bored Ape #8817

Selling Price : $3,408,000 / 852.39 ETH

What do ya know, another gold fur ape.

This is the most expensive Bored Ape sale to date. With a concerned look on his face, yet ready to party, he was auctioned off at Sothebys on October 26th, 2021 with a binning bid of over $3.4 million.

This is the 54th most rare Bored Ape in the whole collection. He has a Silver Hoop earring and the Wool Turtleneck to complete the look, with the rarest trait, golden fur. Only 0.46% of the whole collection has golden fur.

Here's a boring fact, this was the first time this Bored Ape was available for sale since it was minted for .08 ETH

Just like with buying any NFT, each person has their own reason to why they purchased it. Let’s take a look at different reasons to why people are happy paying millions of dollars for a picture of a monkey 😉

Exclusive Perks

The bored apes were initially released on April 23, 2021. Despite the reputation they have today and a mint price of only 0.08 ETH, it took them a full week to finally sellout on April 30th.

That’s right. One of the most popular NFT collections to ever be created struggled to sell out for a week.

If you refer back to the section “what makes an nft valuable?” BAYC checks off most of those boxes. They have a great community, trustworthy team, and allow holders to access exclusive perks and events.

It starts with what they club calls THE BATHROOM. THE BATHROOM is a collaborative graffiti board where members can add a pixel every 15 minutes. It can be anything from explicit language, their ape, or anything else they want. Think of this like collaborative art experiment within the crypto community.

Holders also get to attend real life in person events. This may not seem exciting for some people, until they realize that they end up in the same room as celebrities such as Jimmy Fallon, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, and plenty more.

On October 31st, 2021 the first ever in-real life BAYC event down. About 700 ape owners traveled to New York to attend the world first Apefest.

Apefest NYC 2022

At the end of June 2022, Bored & Mutant Ape holders once again were invited to attend Apefest in New York City. I was blessed enough to be able to attend this time around and let me tell you, it was everything I expected and then some. At first It was hard to take in that this single area was filled with digital pictures worth millions and millions.

What is even crazier is that the owners rangeanywheree from the kid who took a risk with his last $300 to the secret billionaire that can probably buy each Ape that was present.

When I got there they checked my wallet to verify I was a legit Mutant Ape holder then I got a wristband and entered the fun of merch, music, art, and food! I will start by saying I was very surprised, yet pleased, that the food was all you can eat and free of extra charge. Soon after a burger, hot dog, and pizza I notice they have an open bar for anybody 21+. Right on Apes.

On top of the all can eat food and drinks, there was also a curated merch shop with items that are only sold at the event. I had to wait in this line for about 45 minutes (short end) but it was well worth it, I walked away with a bucket hat & dad hat that I wear almost every day now.

The event ended each night with an A-list performer. The performers included Haim, Lil Baby, Eminem, Timbaland, and of course, Uncle Snoop.

Overall, Apefest alone is a great example of the in-real life perks holders can benefit from and I'm sure being only 2 years old, there still much room for improvement. Hopefully I'll be able to meet some of you readers there next year! (DM me)

Everybody and their moms, whether they are into NFTs or not, are waiting to see what initiative Yuga Labs takes next to bring the project to a whole new level. Now we wait.

Your move BAYC.

To Flex

Why do people buy a Mercedes’ instead of a Toyota?

Why do people buy a plain white Gucci shirt when Walmart has the same thing for $1,000 cheaper ?

Why do people buy $50,000 Rolex’s when the gas station watch tells the same time?

I think you get the point. I’ve seen countless people get stickers, posters, car decals, and even tattoos of their Bored Apes. Many people see their Bored Ape as the web 3 version of themselves, so of course they want to show it off.

Welcome to the new era of flexing, Web 3 flex.

NFT flexers. I mean collectors*

Actually back to the rolex analogy, when doing my research i came across an NFT investor that used the same reference. In January 2021 avid and well known NFT collector  "G Money" purchased a CryptoPunk for $170,000 raising questions from the outside as to why the frick someone would spend 170k on 24 x 24 pixelated picture.

“When someone buys a Rolex in the real world, they don’t spend the thousands of dollars because of the watch’s utility value. A simple $5 watch could perform the same utility. It is to ‘flex’ their status,” Gmoney says. “With an NFT, by posting it as my avatar on Twitter and Discord, I can quickly ‘flex’ with a picture. It has the same effect as wearing that Rolex in real life, but digitally”

If you thought I was full of crap, maybe hearing it from one of the most respected NFT collectors changes your views on it. G Money also explained, “Wanting to be part of something and wanting to be part of a group is natural, especially when they have the same value alignments"

Richerd turns down record breaking offer

Another great example of falling in love with your NFT and having it be an eternal flex comes from another well known collector, Richerd. He bought CryptoPunk #6046 on March 31 for $86,000 and claimed he loved it so much he would never sell it.

His bluff was being called publicly around twitter the very next day as he faced the decision of a lifetime. The very next day he was hit with a massive bid of 2,5oo Ethereum ($9.49 million USD)  by blockchain company POAP.

Had he accepted, it would have been the largest ever on-chain NFT sale in USD.

After turning down the offer Richerd took to twitter, explaining  in a thread that he has built his business and identity around the CryptoPunk. To him, that is creating value beyond the NFT itself.”

You heard the man, he's playing the long term flex game.

Visa Joins flex party

Even big corporations are getting in on the fun. On August 23rd 2021, Visa bought CryptoPunk #7610 for roughly $150,000. Did the CryptoPunk help Visa process transactions faster? Nope. Did it strengthen their security measures? Probably not. Did it help with customer service? Nope. Well then why would a giant like Visa buy a CryptoPunk for that much?

the company’s head of crypto, Cuy Sheffield, explained the reasoning behind the huge purchase,

“We think NFTs will play an important role in the future of retail, social media, entertainment, and commerce. To help our clients and partners participate, we need a firsthand understanding of the infrastructure requirements for a global brand to purchase, store, and leverage an NFT.”

Its great that they are dipping their feet in the industry to better understand how everything works, but there's no question Visa wanted to ~ subtly ~ flex on the crypto community.

Obviously not everybody can spend thousands on a profile picture, but this new style of flexing doesn't seem to be going anywhere. In fact, there are businesses that are modeled to monetize from people 'renting' NFTs to increase engagement  and acquire status on social media.

Its a new age

Just like you can rent Lamborghinis, you can now rent NFTs.

Besides, who doesn't enjoy respect, recognition and status?

If you still don't think NFTs have the same effect as a Rolex or Lambo, take a look for yourself. If you scroll through Crypto Twitter you'll find countless people repping their NFTs as profile pictures.

What's interesting enough is that the people who don't see the true value are the ones taking screenshots of NFTs and setting them as their profile pics like they own it. Ironic huh?

Airdops

The Bored Ape Yacht Club has rewarded loyal members with plenty of airdrops, which in the end always seem to be worth at least a couple thousand dollars.
That sounds nice eh? Just hold your beloved NFT and get serenaded with more money. What a time to be alive.

These airdrops have included added collections in the Yuga Labs ecosystem such as the Mutant Apes (MAYC) and the doggo companions (BAKC).

It also includes a very generous airdrop of the native token for the ecosystem, $APE.

Let's take a look in depth on these airdrops and the significance they play in the Bored Ape ecosystem.

Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC)

In mid August of 2021 the founders and team completed the last bullet point on their original roadmap,  they fixed the arcade machine.

This airdrop was innovative because it holders maintain their unique NFT while minting a new piece. Each Mutant represents the final tier of membership to the yacht club, while also allowing newcomers into the BAYC ecosystem at a lower tier/ price point.

This meant that every holder received a serum which can be used on original Bored Apes to “mutate” then into what we know today as the Mutant Ape Yacht Club collection. The Bored Apes were not harmed or altered in any way when exposed to the serums.

The mutant serums come in three different sizes : M1, M2, and M3. The most common is M1 followed by M2, both of which can be used on Bored Apes and the new mutant will resemble it.

An M3 serum however, is much more rare and expensive to acquire on the secondary market if you weren't lucky enough to mint it. The M3 serum creates a totally new and unique Mutant ape.

As of when I'm writing this section (Sept 13), the prices for all serums are :

• M1 Serum - 29.9 ETH
• M2 Serum - 44.5 ETH
• M3 Serum - none currently for sale. Last one sold 1,542.069 ETH

Distribution & Mint

In total there are 20,000 possible Mutant Apes. 10,000 serums were airdropped to Bored Ape holders and 10,000 Mutant apes were available for the general public to mint.

Minting started at 3 ETH, and gradually reduced to .01 ETH over the course of 9 hours. This was to allow the community to set a fair starting price and avoid gas wars.

At the time of public mint all Mutant Apes were unrevealed. This was done to prevent anyone, including the founders, from knowing which mutant will be minted during the sale.  

As of today, Sept 15, there are 19,425 Mutant Apes out of the possible 20,000. The floor price of the Mutant Apes sit at 13 ETH.

Seems like people are playing a long term game to see who had the shiniest diamond hands of them all. It'll be very interesting to see in the next months and years how the remaining unused serums will be valued.

Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC)

BAYC first kicked off the generous rewards by rewarding Bored Ape holders with the Bored Ape Kennel club collection, which are dog companions for the Apes.

This went beyond an NFT mint as the project collected a portion of secondary market sales in the first six weeks after its launch to donate to animal conservation charities and no-kill shelters. Approximately $291,000 was donated to various charities.

Bored Ape Kennel Club is a collection of 9,602 cartoon dog NFTs that are part of the Bored Ape ecosystem. Like mutant apes, it is a completely separate collection that trades independently from the BAYC collection. Each holder was able to mint one companion dog, at no extra costs except gas fees in June 2021.

At Sotheby's September 2021 “Ape In!” sale, 101 BAKC NFTs were sold as a lot for over $1.8 million. The highest individual sale for a cute companion was Bored Kennel #8234 which sold for a whopping $500,000 on August 22nd, 2022.

Show us more doggos!

A cut gold fur doggo

A wounded yet fashionable doggo

A cheetah spotted doggo with a snack

Each NFT is inspired by Shiba Inu (a breed of dog popularized by a viral “doge” internet meme and Dogecoin), the dogs sponsor different traits varying from zombie skin, cowboy hat, a third eye, or even having dragon breath.

$APE Airdrop

Earlier in March 2022 Yuga Labs announced the release of their official token, $APE. Every person that owned a Bored or Mutant ape had 90 days to claim their token rewards. ApeCoin is an ethereum based cryptocurrency that serves as governance and utility token for the Ape ecosystem.

150 Million/1 Billion ApeCoins were airdropped on March 17th.  The distribution of the tokens went like this :

• Bored Ape - 10,094 tokens
• Mutant Ape - 2,042 tokens
• Bored Ape + Kennel Club - 10,950 tokens
• Mutant Ape + Kennel Club - 2,892 tokens

The people blessed enough to receive the aidrop were facing quite the issue. Do you sell for tens of thousands right away or hold to purchase merch, Otherside land, and voting rights in the DAO?

Ahhh what a wonderful problem to have.

During the first days of trading $APE was highly volatile, as expected. For those who were watching it after it went live they saw it go to an all time high of $27.51, only minutes after being available to the public.

Although you shouldn't try to time the market lets see how much those coins would have been worth if you sold at this time. For the fun of it! Finance kids love numbers.

• Bored Ape - 10,094 tokens - $277,685
• Mutant Ape - 2,042 tokens - $56,175

No big deal right? No, thats fu**ing insane. Absolutly F**king insane.

I had my mutant listed for a while at 22.5 ETH before any announcements and it sold the day before the airdrop.  I get into more detail on this on 100 things I wish I knew before buying an NFT. Yep, another expensive learning lesson.

Its important to note that the price of $APE dropped by more than 60% the next day and it eventually held steady in the $10-$12 range before dropping some more.

As of the very moment I write this on September 15th at 12:31 AM, $APE sits at $5.09

'Otherside' Metaverse

On March 18th, 2022 Yuga labs released a video teasing their metaverse called "The Otherside". The video included Cool cats, Crypto Toadz, World of Women, and Nouns NFT.

"The Otherside" is a metaverse which consists of 20,000 plots that vary in rarity. These plots of lands are called "Otherdeeds" which were initially minting for 305 ApeCoins (roughly $5,800 at the time) and and now are available for trading on the secondary market.

ApeCoin ($APE) is the native currency that serves as a governance and utility token for the entire Ape ecosystem. However, holding some ApeCoin was not the only requirement needed to mint an Otherdeed, it was actually the first KYC (Know Your Customer) mint in NFT history. It was also the largest. By far. Like really really far.

The first night only 55,000 out of the 100,000 Otherdeeds were available for minting, and only from KYC'ed wallets. Guess what happened next.

$200 Million worth of virtual land was sold within minutes. Not bad for a company that didn't exist until almost halfway through 2021.

Gameplay

The whole crypto community anxiously was awaiting the first demo gameplay as the unicorn, Yuga Labs, had just created one of the most niche anticipated video games ever.

The first time the public was able to view actual gameplay was called "The First Trip" which consisted of 4,500 community members that got to experience an hour-long tightly scripted demo. Each member was "playing" as the same default ape and there was also a huge one, Curtis, who was guiding members through the demo gameplay.

Technically speaking, the demo went start to finish with no seen glitches or malfunctions. For all my video game lovers out there, the beautiful part about this was knowing that every single one of those 4,500 apes had a real person behind it.

The closest I can think of this is battle royal on Fortnite with 100 players. (Someone please correct me if there's something else)

Bored Ape Founder Gordon Goner  - more on them next - had this to say about the upcoming vison on Otherside,

“We can build a city where thousands of people interact — this is like the level of Grand Theft Auto but in real time with real players,”

I'm not even big into gaming and that gets me excited. I wonder how the real games feel.

Whats next for "The Otherside"

Exaclty what's next is? Your guess is as good as mine. But let's not guess, lets watch this 2 minute video from Yuga Labs to see what's coming

Who are the founders?

At this point you might be wondering who the hell built all this and got a valuation of a billion dollars as a company in the first year.

The founders of Bored Ape Yacht Club were anonymous and only known by their online pseudonyms, which is not an issue considering they had delivered on every promise up until then.

To the NFT community the masterminds behind the project were known as Gargamel, Gordon Goner, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, and No Sass. They all worked for a single entity called Yuga Labs which is technically the founder of the Bored Ape Yacht Club.

On (date here) buzz feed wrote an article and wrongly revealed the founders identity. Since it’s already public knowledge let’s take a look at who’s behind the masks (Scooby Doo anyone?)

Greg Solano aka Gargamel

Greg is one of the two main founders. The 32 year old was born and raised in Miami. Prior to creating the biggest NFT project in the industry, he attended university of Virginia and studied MFA.

He also worked as a book critique and editor. In fact, he co-wrote ‘World of Warcraft’ with one of the game’s designers.

In 2017 Greg really dove into crypto after he noticed his brother in law consistently buying small amounts of Ethereum. Months later he introduced crypto to his eventual co-founder, Wylie Aronow.

Wylie Aronow aka Goner Goner

Just like his co-founder, Wylie was also born and raised in Miami.

The 35 year old used to be a day trader before teaming up with Greg to create BAYC. He was also was once interviewed for a “Readers of the Week” feature by the Chicago Tribune.

Wylie believed that NFTs have a purpose beyond being a digital treasure. He wanted to provide utility and uniqueness to each individual owner. This is when he decided to create a "club-like" environment where like-minded people could hang out, talk crypto, and overall have a good time.

Greg agreed. The rest is history.

Kerem aka Emperor Tomato Ketchup

Tomato Ketchup. Haha I think thats the coolest alias I've ever heard.

Kerem is the man behind the technological magic in the project. He graduated from Gregs university with a degree in computer science which allowed him to bring Wylie and Gregs ideas to life.

Considering the project has never had any major technical malfunctions or errors, its safe to say the Bored Ape Yacht Club has pretty damn good lead developer.

Zeshan aka No Sass

Last but not least! Zekan or No Sass was the 4th founder of BAYC. He doxxed himself publicly just a couple days after buzzfeed wrote the questionable article.

He also graduated from University of Virginia with a degree in computer science. Zekan and Kerem hold it down on the technical side of things.

Those are the men who took nothing to a company valued at BILLIONS in less than a year.

NFT Games

There are an estimated 3.2 Billion gamers in the world.

Many free games such as fortnite or warzone monetize by selling in-game items such as skins, dances, characters, and accessories that make the appearance of their character unique.

There’s many video games out there where it feels like it’s just a matter of when they’ll implement the technology.

Let me give you some examples with well known video games :

• NBA 2K - In 2K you can customize your player with just about anything. This includes shoes, jerseys, hair, eyes, tattooes, leg sleeves, etc etc. Some of these accesories represent being elite in the game therfore seen as valuable amongst other players.As of right now, these items can only be bought with the in-game currency and cannot be traded or sold anywhere else.
• Call of Duty - In Call of Duty it seems like skins are extremly sought after. In fact, when i search "call of duty skins" on google theres a bunch tutorials on how to unluck the rarest ones. Unfortunately players cannot trade or sell these skins for profit. If NFTs were to be implemented users would be able to trade & re-sell these skins.
• Fortnite - Fortnite is a great preview of what metaverses could potentially look like. Each character is disticnctly customizable with jerseys, dances, backpacks, special tools, and accesories. Some playable characters are even real people like Travis Scott or Patrick Mahomes. Fortnite already makes millions from selling these, but what if players could moneztize as well if they want to resell the stuff they earned/bought?

If you combine the passion people have for video games + the technology NFTs have to offer, it seems inevitable that they’ll both play a prominent role in the future of gaming and in game assets.

People already build up accounts by unlocking rare items to resell them for a profit. This is why the Play-to-earn model looks very interesting for the future of video games.

What are Play-To-Earn (P2E) Video Games

Out of the estimated  3.2 billion gamers in the world. how many of them do you think are able to do it for a living?

Unfortunately probably not a lot of them. For the ones that do and you're reading this, congratulations!

But what if the ones who don’t get to do it for a living can still create a revenue stream from it? Wouldn't that be something.

This is where the Play-to-earn model is a game changer. (No pun intended.) Players now have the ability to truly have real ownership of their in-game assets.

Items such as characters, skins, weapons, land, — basically anything you can think of that players can earn or buy — these items can be traded or sold for profit, like NFTs. You’ve read it plenty already in this NFT playbook, proof of ownership and transparency is the name of the game.

A key difference P2E games have when compared to traditional video games is the fact that they’re decentralized. This means the development of the game is done collaboratively with the players.

I’m not saying quit your job and spend 16 hours a day on Play-to-earn games, but it is possible to generate some extra cash on the side.

Heck I’ve seen it first hand. My brother sits in the same spot on weekends because his friends pay him to grind whatever game the 14 year olds play today to unlock new skins and characters. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular P2E games today.

NBA TopShot

NBA TopShot is a digital card collecting game officially licensed by the NBA. It runs on the flow blockchain, which means that users have the ability to purchase cards or packs with a credit card.

I just want to point out that this isn’t directly a native NFT game since it doesn’t require a crypto wallet and digital currency to play/purchase.However, it still has the underlying concept of tokenizing digital assets while establishing trust and security.

Id use the analogy of a stick shift car with a clutch. Those are traditional NFT’s.

NBA Topshot is kind of like an automatic car with manual mode, but no clutch needed.

What is the game

Think NBA TopShot like your traditional card collecting, except instead of pulling cards, its "moments" minted on the flow blockchain. Moments are minted in “Packs", just like traditional cards. Packs are minted in sets as part of different series.

Each series runs in correlation to the NBA season so about every week, users can purchase new packs of NFT moments. These moments can range from a bench player lay up to a Lebron James game winning shot.

Although packs are centered around the current season, NBA TopShot also has moments for the old school fans. There are plenty of vintage moments to bring back nostalgia such as a Michael Carter-Williams dunk from his impressive rookie season.

What are the different moments and rarities

Each Moment comes from a Pack, each Pack is part of a Set, and you don’t know exactly which Moments you’ll get when you make a purchase. Moments come in four different rarity tiers : Common moments, fandom moments, rare moments, and legendary moments.

• Common - 95.8% of total moments. The common category has the largest edition sizes with the intention to be “shared, collective experiences for fans across the world." There are many editions which means widley available and genrally speaking, the cheapest moments. Common moments include a Zach Lavine dunk, containing 40,000 editions of this moment. The current lowest ask for the Lavine dunk is $4. The most expensive common moment sold is a Fred VanFleet 3 - pointer that sold for $140k

• Fandom - 2.5% of total moments. Fandom moments are based on special experiences that correlate with specific events. The reasoining behind this, explained by NBA TopShot, "we want to create a place for Moments where the supply is driven by dynamic demand, rather than preset mint numbers." Fandom moments give an extra benefit to the biggest fans as some moments were made available exclusively to fans who were at the arena.

• Rare - 1.6% total moments. Rare moments are some of the hardest to find, and when you do come across them the asking price isnt like common and fandom moments. Typically these moments feature historic plays from NBA legends. A rare moment includes a Chauncey Billups jump shot from December 2013. The most expensive rare moment ever sold was Lebron James 2020 dunk that fetched $100k.

• Legendary - 0.09% of all moments.

What are Top Shot challenges and quests?

If the suspense of opening packs isn't enough for you, challenges and quests might be for you. They are completely separate from packs and marketplace sales, but still play an important role in the TopShot ecosystem.

Challenges are an opportunity to show off a specific selection of Moment NFTs that give collectors an opportunity to earn exclusive prizes, packs, or Moments. Flash Challenges are a type of Challenge based on the stats and events of NBA games.

An NBA Top Shot quest is similar to a challenge, where users are rewarded with brand new challenge Moments and other perks simply for having a few specific Moments in their collection. However, it is different because the Moments required are far less specific than those of challenges.

Challenges incentivizes collectors to hit the secondary market to find the needed specific moments to complete the challenge.

Challenges and Quests are fairly to similar to each other with slight differences. with challenges its more of a "do your research" on which specific moments are needed to complete it.

For example, Lebron James: Dunk Nov 15 2019 Base Set (Series 1)Common moment might be needed to complete a quest. It has to be that specific set, series, and level of rarity.

With a quest however, players are looking for more general moments such as Lebron James dunk, Steph Curry 3-pointer, and other moments that do not necessarily require matching sets, series, or rarities

SoRare

Sorare is like fantasy football, except for soccer, or fútbol as they call it in my country.

If you're not a futbol fan though, don't even worry. SoRare has expanded its fanbase and by releasing an MLB version of the game and an NBA version is development as I type. (More on them shortly)

Players can buy, sell, trade, and manage a virtual team with digital player cards. The game uses blockchain technology based on Ethereum and was developed in 2018 by Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort.

Just like in traditional fantasy sports games, players set a lineup every week and points are awarded based on the athletes on-the-field stats.

The unique thing about the trading cards in SoRare is that since they're NFTs they are available for trading outside of the platform safely and quickly. This means if you have a card that's in high demand you can list it for sale on a platform such as OpenSea for profit.

Again, a typical video game such as Call of Duty or Fortnite will not allow you to trade or sell in-game items. That is why the P2E model has the potential to be so significant in the gaming industry.

How does SoRare work?

Players must first choose which sport they want to compete in. While primarily soccer focused, fans can also play the MLB version. The NBA version of the game is currently in development and players can sign up to get notified when it'll be releasing.

With licensed players from over 200 teams, gamers can choose from digital trading cards (NFTs) featuring AC Milan, Juventus, Liverpool FC, Real Madrid, the Paris Saint-Germain FC. They also have all 30 MLB and NBA teams as official licensing partners.

The trading cards (the NFTs) are owned by the players who are free to trade, buy, and sell them.

On the other hand, you can create teams with cards from your collection and earn points based on your players’ real-life performances to compete in a variety of fantasy competitions each week against other players.

There are different tiers of cards that are sorted by color :

• Limited yellow - 1,000 copies per player minted
• Rare red - 100 copies per player minted
• Super rare blue - 10 copies per player minted
• Unique black/brown - 1 card minted per player

At the end of the week all points are tallied up and the winning managers from around the world climb the rankings and earn rewards.

How to play

Well first off mate, choose your spot!

Actually no, Im getting ahead of myself. First you have to create a SoRare account then you can choose your sport.

The signing up process is fairly easy and streamlined by SoRare. You sign up, enter some details then bam! You now have a wallet and free starter cards to assemble your team around.

The next step it will guide you to is to customize your team. You can input a team name, nickname, and choose colors.

You will then be asked to select your favorite team(s). Once you have selected you're ready to head into battle against other real players across the world.

MLB version

If you're not a soccer fan, I understand, it's not for everybody.

If you're not a soccer, baseball, or basketball fan....well check back in a couple months to see if they added your favorite sport.

The underlying concept is still the same for each sport. Pick players,  earn points based on performance, play against others.

Scoring & tournaments

The MLB version of SoRare lets users create teams of 12 to go into battle  in 7 different core tournaments.

The lineup consists of the following positions

• Four starting pitchers
• Two relief pitchers
• Two corner infielders
• Two middle infielders
• Two outfielders

The scoring rules go a little something like :

Hitting

• Runs: 3 points
• RBI: 3 points
• Single: 2 points
• Double: 5 points
• Triple: 8 points
• Home Run: 10 points
• Walk: 2 points
• Strikeout: -1 point
• Stolen Base: 5 points
• Hit By Pitch: 2 points

Pitching

• Inning Pitched: 3 points
• Strikeout: 2 points
• Hit Allowed: -0.5 points
• Earned Run: -2 points
• Walk: -1 point
• Hit Batsmen: -1 point
• Win: 5 points
• Save: 10 points
• Hold: 5 points

The better you perform, the better cards you get in return. With better cards you're able to join more exclusive higher level tournaments with better rewards. There are 7 core tournaments that cane be found in the lobby of the SoRare website :

• Common All star
• Limited All Star
• Limited pro
• Rare All Star
• Rare pro
• Super Rare All Star
• Unique All Star

NBA version

SoRare was valued at $4.3 Billion so its no surprise they keep expanding. Following the MLB game this is the next step to penetrating the United States market. Both the NBA & MLB have equity stake as part of their deals.

The hope for both sides is to have the game out to the public for the season opener on October 18th.

Ryan Spoon, the CEO for SoRare sounded enthusiastic to see what this partnership can bring to fans,

“The way I would describe (the NBA partnership) is we are both very motivated to grow together and to make this as successful and broad and big as possible. Thats in all of our interests”

Scott Kaufman-Ross, the NBA’s senior vice president and head of gaming is also looking forward to see fans experience the game,

“We know Sorare is making an investment to build out this platform. This is a new fan experience, so we want to make sure there’s sufficient time to build the product and the community and the fan base. It’s a multi-year partnership with enough time to build a sustainable partnership here.”

It doesn't matter what your sport of choice is, SoRare offers a fun head to head fantasy feel with NFTs.

Axie Infinity

Axie Infinity is an NFT based online video game developed by Vietnamese studio Sky Mavis and they use the blockchain to reward players for their engagement.

When NFTs went semi mainstream in 2021 Axie infinity took off. When the market cooled down, well, Axie infinity kept getting hotter.

Axie is unique because it’s actually partially owned and operated by the players.

Players can go into battle and earn the platforms native token $AXS and exchange it for real money.

Although the Play-to-earn model is relatively new in the gaming industry, Axie Infinity is putting up some serious numbers. We can start by sharing that the most expensive Axie ever sold went for $820,000.

In terms of NFT collections trading volume, Axie Infinity holds the record for all time volume. Here's a quick overview of the games monster numbers :

• All time volume - $4.25 Billion
• All time sales - 17,906,828
• Past 30 days volume (Aug 19-Sept 19) - $7.11 million
• Past 30 days sales - 465,577

For comparison, CryptoPunks have the second highest all time trading volume with $2.93 Billion, but only 22,457 sales.

What is an Axie?

The game is inspired after Pokémon, except here we call them Axies.  According to the official Axie Infinity website, they have 2,800,000 daily active players which would make sense given how many Pokémon fans there are.

Axies are the fierce in-game characters that battle, build, and hunt for treasure. Players can build up a collection and use them across an expanding universe of games.

Stats

Each Axie has 4 different stat categories : Health, morale, skill, and speed. According to an Axie Infinity substack here is what each one does,

• HP/Health - The amount of damage your Axie can take before being knocked out.
• Morale - Morale increases critical strike chance. It also makes entering last stand more likely and adds more last stand “ticks”.
• Skill - Skill adds damage when an Axie plays multiple cards at once (combo). The extra damage is calculated like this: (card attack * skill )/ 500
• Speed - Speed determines turn order. Faster Axies attack first. If two Axies have the same speed, this is how attack order is determined: High speed > Low HP > High Skill > High Morale > Low Fighter ID

The price of each Axie varies widely depending on how strong their stats are. As of today (Sept 19, 2022) the cheapest one for sale is listed at $3, which means it probably won't yield high rewards.

On the other hand, the most expensive Axie listed is up for sale for 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ETH or $132,926,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Yeah I'm not sure what that number is either. Im also willing to bet it will never sell for that much. When skimming through the Axie Infinity marketplace I noticed there was more than a handful listed for Billions.

Its likely that most, if not all, will never sell for that much but it does tell us something. It tells us that people aren't willing to part ways with the most rare assets, unless its well worth the return.

Battle Gameplay

Once you have an account on the platform you'll be able to interact with the marketplace to view all assets. Any players that want to battle first need to own at least three Axies.

The Axie battle system is turn-based card game where the goal is to eliminate all enemies your team of 3 Axies is facing. Each turn, a player must strategically play cards that maximize their chance of victory.

In October 2018, the Axie team released the first ever battle system on top of the Axie Infinity in game assets. This first gameplay was structured as "idle battle" system with inspiration from games like Tap Titans and Bit City.

The next gameplay mode released in December 2019, Classic, was the one that grew the Axie infinity from thousands to millions. The game structure is turn-based card battler where players create teams of Axies to battle it out in an arena. This was also the first gameplay to distribute in-game items as ERC-20 tokens.

Each team of Axies draws cards based on the body parts they have and the players must place these cards at the optimal time to in order to maximize the chance of victory.

On April 6th 2022, Axie Infinity : Origin was introduced to the world. This new gameplay is an evolution of the traditional classic card battler format released in 2019. This mode offers real time combat and three free starter Axies.

Just like how Pokemon has gone through various styles of gameplay and features, we can also expect Axie Infinity to have several variations of battles throughout the years.

Community & Economy

The Axie infinity universe is one where players can interact with each other in a player vs player setting. More importantly, the players own the economy meaning they can own, buy, sell, and trade the resources they've earned in the game.

All data and in game assets can be accessed easily by 3rd parties, which allows developers to build their own experiences and tools within the Axie universe.

As noted earlier, Axie estimates they have 2.8M active daily earlier users which makes it the #1 ranked game on Ethereum. The community behind the game has grown immensely thanks to the fact that players can monetize from their hard work.

That's the key difference between Axie Infinity and a traditional video game. For example, in Fortnite you can play weeks and weeks to earn the coolest most rare skin but then what? Sure you can play with it but if you wanted to sell it or trade it you would not be able to without giving away the whole account that holds the item.

The Sandbox

If you love playing Minecraft then The Sandbox might be the perfect Web 3 game for you.

The Sandbox is a community-driven platform where creators can monetize voxel ASSETS and gaming experiences on the blockchain. It was released on May 15, 2012 for mobile and June 29, 2015 for desktop.

The two games were a smash hit accumulating over 40 downloads across ios and android. In 2018 the creators decided to bring the user generated content to the blockchain in hopes of allowing players to monetize, hence the Play-to-earn tag.

The goal was to disrupt the gaming industry, and they did just that.

They were looking to separate themselves from game makers such as Minecraft and Roblox, by providing creators true ownership of their digital assets through NFTs and the blockchain

How does it work?

The Sandbox platform consists of three products that provides a user-generated content experience

The three products are Voxedit, marketplace, and the Game Maker.

Voxedit

The building blocks in The Sandbox  game are called voxels. Voxels are square 3D pixels used in virtual reality development.

Voxedit is a free, simple, yet powerful tool that allows users to construct their a personalized game experience using voxels.

Players can create 3D items ranging from humans, animals, vehicles, foliage, tools and accessories.

GEM and CATALYST defines the tier, scarcity, and attributes of ASSET. CATALYST adds empty sockets to the NFTs that can be filled with GEMs. The higher the quality of the CATALYST, the more sockets your ASSET will have.

After the items are customized then can be exported from Voxedit directly to The Sandbox marketplace as game ASSETS.

These ASSETS then can be bought and sold on The Sandbox marketplace with the native token, $SAND

Marketplace

The Sandbox marketplace essentially allows creators to upload, publish, and sell the ASSETS they made with voxedit to other players.

It’s important to note the difference between a creator and player in The Sandbox ecosystem.

Creators are the people who upload the ASSETS to the marketplace, and players are the people who buy them for gameplay.

The only way you can sell on the marketplace is to be accepted to the creator fund.

Creations first have to be uploaded into an InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) to provide secure decentralized storage. Once this is done, the creations become ASSETS (NFTs) that can be purchased by players on the marketplace.

Game maker

The Sandbox isn’t a one trick pony. Theres actually many standalone games, experiences, and environments within The Sandbox ecosystem.

The team has ultimately left the universe open ended for creators and players  to monetize, build, and own the metaverse.

The Game Maker allows anyone to build 3D games for free with no coding skills required. This means anybody from the average joe to Vitalik Buterin can contribute to the metaverse.

The experiences you can build with the Game Maker range from action games, puzzles, art galleries, social hangouts, and much more.

A Blockhain based game

Sandbox uses various token types to ensure a smooth flow of transactions and ownership between each type of user that interacts with the platforms : creators, curators, players, and land owners

• Land - The Sandbox Metaverse is made up of LANDS, that are parts of the world, owned by players to create and monetize experiences. There will only ever be 166,464 LANDS available, which can be used to host games, build multiplayer experiences, create housing, or offer social experiences to the community
• SAND - is the utility token used throughout The Sandbox ecosystem as the basis for transactions and interactions. It is an ERC-20 utility token built on the Ethereum blockchain. There is a finite supply of 3,000,000,000 SAND.
• ASSETS - are tokens on the blockchain made by creators who have uploaded their ASSETS to the marketplace. They are stored on the blockhain in the form of an ERC-1155 token.

What is LAND?

LAND is a piece of digital real estate in The Sandbox metaverse. Each piece of LAND is represented by an NFT in the form of an ERC-721 token.

These pieces of real estate can be edited by the owner at any time and can contain other tokens (ASSETS, GAMES) to monetize experiences.

As I said earlier there will only ever be 166,464 LANDS, but when two of them are combined they form an ESTATE.

What is SAND?

You know how peanut butter & jelly are a dynamic duo?

SAND & LAND have a similair relationship. It even has a little ring to it if you say it out loud.

You said it out loud didn't you?

Anyways, back on topic.

For starters, to buy LAND you from the marketplace you will need to have SAND in your wallet. Thats not the only utility it has, these are the other use cases for the token :

• Staking - You can stake your SAND which allows for a passive revenue from LANDS. In theory the more stake, the more you are rwearded. This is also the only way to valuable Gems and catalysts.
• Access to the platform - SAND allows you access to pretty much the whole ecosystem. Players will need the token to customize their avatar, buy accesories, LAND, and ASSETS. Creators also need SAND when uploading a creation to the marketplace.
• Governance - When the Sandbox DAO is launched, SAND holders will have the right to participate in the governance decisions, like development and prirotiies. SAND owners can vote themselves or delegate their voting rights to other players.
• Fee capture model - 5% of all transaction volume in SAND tokens are being collected. 50% of the revenue goes to the Staking Pool as rewards for token holders who stake SAND tokens, and the other 50% is for the foundation
• Foundation - The purpose of the Foundation is to support the entire Sadnbox ecosystem. It offers grants to incentivize high quality content and game production by creators on the platform. As of the time of writing, the Foundation has funded over 15 game projects and granted 100 artists to produce NFTs.

How can creators generate revenue

Based on what we know about LAND & SAND, we know it's possible for creators and players to monetize their time, but how?

I hope this doesn't end up on a reddit gaming thread.

• Selling ASSETS - You can build voxels on Voexedit, import them to the marketplace as NFTs and sell them
• Owning LAND - Much like physical real estate, players can then rent them or populate them with content to increase the LAND's value.
• Building games on the Game Maker - You can monetize by building games and experiences with the Game Maker using your LAND
• Become really good at customizing characters - If you're making the coolest characters in the metaverse chances are someone probably would pay you to customize yours!

Solana NFT - How are they different?

You've heard so much about NFTs but you just got hit with a curveball, Solana NFT, or "SOL NFTs" as twitter likes to call them.  Don't worry we're here to guide you through everything you need to know

Now, we aren't here to tell you one cryptocurrency is better than the other, or that one blockchain is more useful than the other. We are here to provide facts as well as the general public's insight.

In the crypto & NFT world Solana is often referred to as the "Ethereum Killer"  because according to some of the NFT/crypto community "Solana is a blockchain platform that enables NFT trading without the common issues of Ethereum".

Is this true? Well clearly Ethereum is still alive and holding its ground, so take that as you will.

Solana Overview

Solana was created by Stephen Akridge, Greg Fitzgerald and Anatoly Yakovenko. In March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Solana's first block was created. For comparison, Ethereum's first block was in 2015.

Solana is a decentralized blockchain built to enable scalable, user-friendly apps for the world. In other words, the founders created Solana in hopes of solving the Ethereum networks 2 biggest concerns :

1. increasing gas fees
2. network congestion

Increasing gas fees

You know when you use the ATM and you have to pay an extra $5 to get your cash? Pretty annoying isn’t it. Now imagine paying $50-100 every time you try and buy or sell an NFT. This is Solanas differentiation factor.

A gas fee is something all users must pay in order to complete any transaction on the Ethereum blockchain. Different types of transactions require different amounts of gas fees to successfully complete the transaction. If you ask any native Ethereum user what they dislike the most about the blockchain, chances are most will mention the gas fees.

Personally, there's been separate occasions where I've had tp pay over $100 in gas fees for a single transaction. I love Ethereum (largest % of portfolio) but that's frustrating.

At time of writing Ethereum gas fees currently sit at an average of $17. Exactly a year ago, they were $117.

Network congestion

Imagine paying an extra $15 when you try to pay for a pizza with your credit card because millions of others are also paying with a credit card at the same time. No way right?!

Network congestion is the factor that determines whether a transaction will cost $10 or $100 in gas fees. The equation is simple : more people on the network, higher fees. Less people on, lower fees.

During the NFT bull run the total value of NFT sales on the Ethereum network surged to $2 billion in the first quarter of 2021. As you can imagine, thats a lot of people trying to process transactions at the same time, and very high gas fees.

This is why NBA TopShot, a platform who introduced many to digital collectibles, uses flow. Although other networks are not directly competing with Ethereum, they are looking to take advantage of Ethereum's issues. Solana, Cardano, Tezos and others are alternatives looking to capitalize as well

After all, since Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency behind bitcoin, people are on the search to find/create the ETH killer.

Solana, by the numbers

Yes, Ethereum and Solana are direct competitors. Even though Ethereum is the largest and most used blockchain in NFTs, Solana is still very much respectable.

As of 2022, Solana is one of the fastest growing growing ecosystem in crypto & NFTs, thanks to high speed transactions & low cost.

Here are some key metrics we pulled from the official Solana website :

• Solana's scalability ensures transactions remain less than $0.01 for both developers and users.
• Solana has 400 millisecond block times.
• Avg. cost per transaction - $0.00025
• Transactions per second - 3,872

As you can see these numbers are no joke.

But neither is Ethereum.

Solana isn't perfect

The Solana network had a bit of a hiccup when their blockchain suffered an outage.

Twice.

In the same month. 12th time in 2022.

Yup, the Solana network suffered an outage most recently in July 2022 when validators in the network were not processing new blocks for 7 hours. Of the twelve times its has happened this year the longest outage lasted 18 hours and 12 minutes according to Solana's own uptime audit.

Since 2015 this has happened to the Ethereum network...never.

Solana NFT - Where to buy them

Just like on any blockchain, there's different options of where to buy your NFT. Here we'll take a look at different Solana NFT marketplaces. Its always important to remember there's no right or wrong choice, and ultimately it comes down to personal preference.

SolSea

Sounds kinda familiar eh? SolSea was launched in August 2021. (OpenSea was 2017)

SolSea allows buyers to sort NFTs by rarities, typically you need a third party website for that. They've also expanded the tokens they accept for payments. Other than SOL they accept AART, SKULL, BASIS, CHICKS, DAWG, and even fiat.

Their mission from the start was to make it easier for creators to make NFT projects. One of the platforms most unique differentiation factors is that they allow creators the ability to create a copyrighted NFT collection.

Fees : 2%

Pros

• copyright (IP) built in feature
• wide range of payments

Cons

• does not support auction sales
• getting collections verified can be tough

Magic Eden

Magic Eden is one of the most popular Solana platforms to create, buy, and sell NFTs. They do not charge listing fees which is great for creators and artists, however there's a little bit of a catch.

If you want to use Magic Eden you will first have to apply to their launchpad. This is to curate the marketplace in hopes of only having the best quality projects on the platform, rather than many derivatives of already existing collections.

This doesn't mean a new creator won't get accepted. In fact, Magic Eden provides goods & services designed to help the less tech savvy creators to mint their work with little technical knowledge required. Creators have the ability set their royalty %.

Fees : 2%

Pros

• compatible with 13 wallets
• ability to buy in batches
• high traffic

Cons

• no wallet integration on mobile app
• closed source software - lack of transparency

Solanart

Solanart is another popular Solana NFT marketplace, where anyone can create, buy, and sell. No application needed.

It is home to some of the most well known Solana NFT collections including : Solpunks, Degenerate Ape Army, Galactic Geckos, and Aurora. Creators can set their royalties as they wish.

Solanart used to be the preffered destination until poor user experience, high fees, and limited collections  made people start looking elsewhere. It is still a solid overall platform but traffic has decreased from its former days.

Fees : 5%

Pros

• popular collections
• compatibale with wide option of wallets

Cons

• high fees (market royalty, creator royalty, ad fee)
• limited collections

OpenSea

Ah yes, OpenSea again.

In April 2022 they introduced Solana blockchain integration meaning you can now buy & sell Solana NFTs. It was only a matter of time before a big ETH player integrated Solana and who other than the largest NFT marketplace, ol' reliable, OpenSea.

Although OpenSea is primarily centered around the Ethereum blockchain, being the most popular NFT marketplace has paved the way for Solana NFT adoption. This is supported by the fact that there are over 2 million NFT collections on the platform today.

You are able to view your NFTs on OpenSea even if they were minted on Solanart, Magic Eden, or another Solana based NFT platform. Think of OpenSea like the google of marketplaces, except with not so great customer service, and large amounts of low quality collections since anybody with a laptop can create a collection.

Fees : 2.5%

Pros

• high traffic
• NFTs from other Solana platforms available
• easy to navigate

Cons

• overshadowed by ETH collections
• only supports 2 Solana Wallets (Phantom & Glow)

How to Buy a Solana NFT

Not so fast, even if you’ve read every word up to this point, this is brand new information.

I know, how dare those blockchains make us do extra work. Don’t worry though because we’ll guide you step by step with pros & cons so you can be bilingual in crypto wallets and NFTs

Step 1 : Pick a Solana Compatible Wallet

The first step is to download a Solana compatible crypto wallet. Unfortunately you cannot buy Solana NFTs with Metamask since it is a whole different blockchain.

This is the first step to buying any NFT, no matter which blockchain it is on. I personally use Phantom for my Solana transactions, and please remember there are no affiliate links here to influence my writing.

Phantom Wallet

The Phantom wallet, like metamask, can either be downloaded as an app or installed as a google chrome extension. It is currently the most popular Solana wallet with over 2 million monthly users just six months after launch.

The Phantom wallet also supports staking, making it only a few clicks to assign your SOL to a validator and start earning rewards. It also includes built in tools for viewing your NFT collection and clear visibility of any tokens you own.

Pros

• simple, easy to use
• staking compatibility
• fastest growing

Cons

• new, some tests not done
• does not support other networks

Solflare

Solflare is another non-custodial Solana based wallet where users can stake their cryptocurrency. A non custodial wallet means they show the users the private key of their wallet when they initially create it, and permanently erase this key from their own database after.

This makes it essential for users to write down and safely store their private key. If a user loses their password AND private key, they can kiss their crypto and assets goodbye. Like Phantom, Solflare has also tools to view NFT collections and the ability to swap tokens

Pros

• User friendly
• does not store private keys

Cons

• can't be used on all platforms
• more complex setup

Sollet Wallet

Sollet is an open source code web based wallet. This is mostly targeted towards more experienced crypto users and developers.

Anybody can still use it, some even find the web base to be more appealing. However that comes with more risk from a security standpoint. Nonetheless the Sollet still offers users the ability to interact with decentralized apps (Dapps) and swap tokens.

Pros

• can hold ERC-20 tokens
• tools for more experienced users

Cons

• difficult to navigate
• user experience

Step 2 : Buy Solana

Any of the platforms we went over in the How to buy an NFT (ETH) section will work perfectly fine for buying Solana. A reminder never hurt anybody and we wont make you scroll back so we'll talk about them here again :)

Binance

founded in 2017, Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the world in terms of volume. It doesn't have as many coins as other platforms but still offers a respectable 100+, plenty more than what people need.

Binance's model has been to keep fees near the lowest in the industry, therefore attracting low volume traders. Today Binance has its own coin $BNB and offers most crypto products such as exchange, earn, staking, derivatives, loans, payments, credit cards, and NFTs.

Pros

• easy sign up process
• simple to use staking features

Cons

• not available in all states
• has been hacked in past

Crypto.com

Crypto.com claims to be the fastest growing crypto exchange in the world boasting over 50 million verified users and over 250 different cryptocurrencies.

One thing that stands out on Crypto.com is theres no transaction fees if you make your purchase with money transferred in from your bank account. This seems like a much better option than paying 2.99% for credit/debit card purchases.

Pros

• high speed
• deposits can earn up to 10% back annually on stablecoins (USDT/USDC)
• credit card that pays back 5% in crypto

Cons

• higher fees for credit/debit purchases
• not available in all states

Coinbase

Coinbase is currently the largest crypto exchange in the United States. They've a leader in the industry since 2012 with over 98 million verified users.

Coinbase operates worldwide being available in 98 countries, employs almost 5,000 people, and holds over $250 Billion in assets. Being this massive it was no surprise they were the first publicly traded crypto exchange.

Pros

• easy sign up process
• easy to navigate
• tools and resources for learning

Cons

• security
• high withdraw fees
• customer support

Any of these crypto exchanges are reliable and efficient when it comes to buy Solana. After you've purchased SOL you will need to send to send it to your Solana compatible crypto wallet.

Its the same process we do when we buy Ethereum on an exchange and send it to our metamask.

Copy your phantom wallet address, or whatever wallet you're using, and go back to your exchange of  choice and click "send".

Paste your wallet address. Boom. You should have your Solana in your crypto wallet in a matter of minutes, if not seconds.

Step 3 : Find your Solana NFT/ Do your research

If you're new to NFTs or you're primarily on the Ethereum side of things, this step can either be really fun or really boring.

No matter what blockchain you're on, you always must do your own research on projects!

The reason for that is because now you have to go find which NFTs are worth buying, which usually  requires a respectable amount of research. We love doing research though, so we'll save you some time by going over some of the most popular Solana based NFT collections here

Reminder : there is not a single affiliate link in this article, money does not influence my writing or thoughts

Degenerate Ape Academy

Degenerate Ape Academy is one of the most popular Solana NFT projects to date. They were launched in summer of 2021 for 6 SOL which was roughly $250 at the time.

They made NFT history on September 11th 2021 when Degen Ape #7225 was bought by MoonRock Capital for 5,980 SOL which was $1.1 Million at the time, the first Solana NFT to surpass the million dollar mark.

This was the 13th most rare NFT in the collection of 10,000. The Degen Ape team also dedicated 10% initial sales, and 10% of secondary royalties back to the community vault, showing their dedication to the project. The community vault is designed to hold funds for hiring team members/contractors, marketing, and furthering the brand.

Degods

The day I wrote this section in the article (Sept 6) Degods have the highest trading volume out of any Solana based project. Degods is a great example of how far a solid community can take an NFT project.

One of the big reasons Degods stand out in the Solana community is its unique staking feature. Every owner can stake their NFT in return for $DUST which is the projects governance token. Every day, each Degod NFT staked rewards holders with 10 $DUST.

People also have the opposite option, they can burn 1,000 $DUST coins to acquire a new Degod NFT. A dedicated founder, strong community, and experimenting new things has led this NFT collection to be one of the most known on the Solana blockchain.

Aurory

Aurory is a Solana based Play 2 Earn game, one of the biggest today in fact. On August 31 of last year 10,000 NFTs were minted for a price of 1 SOL, the project started out as a concept, but fast forward to day, Aurory is one of the most promising Play 2 Earn games on Solana.

As of right now anybody can hop on the browser based UI and explore the surroundings as a blue surroundings. Holders have more freedom, as they have tokens granting access to gates areas. The next step for the developers and the game is to release a Player vs. Player mode.

What’s stood out instantly to mee about Aurora is how few NFTs are listed for sale, less than 4% of the collection is being sold.

Solana Monkey Business

The Solana Monkey Business project currently hold the record for the most expensive Solana NFT sale.

On October 1st 2021, Solana Monkeys business meant serious business. Just a couple weeks after Degen Ape academy set the record with a $1.1 Million sale, the Solana Monkeys had to one up them.

After originally minting on August 21st, 2021 for 6 SOL ($69), Solana Monkey #1355 sold for a record breaking 13,027 SOL, or $2 Million.

The Solana monkeys have 5,000 NFTs in supply, which is half of other collections like Degen Ape Academy. They also have their own governance token and DAO, MonkeDAO.

Okay Bears

Okay Bears is a profile picture (PFP) NFT collection built on the Solana blockchain, consisting of 10,000 algorithmically-generated bears

Okay Bears comes with utility for holders such as live events and merchandise.

Here’s a fun fact : Okay Bears was the first Solana based NFT project to outperform some of the Ethereum blue chips, in terms of daily trading volume. Okay Bears did an impressive $18 Million in secondary sales in just 24 hours.

They minted on April 26th, 2022 and each Bear was only 1.5 SOL ($145). If you minted one and held on to it, today it would be worth at least 70 SOL. The all time high floor price for Okay Bears is 229 SOL or roughly $8.5k at the time (May 16, 2022).

Step 4 : Connect wallet to marketplace and buy away

Now the easy part! We've looked at different marketplace options so go ahead and choose one, then connect your crypto wallet to it and you're ready to start buying, selling, and trading Solana NFTS.

After the first time you buy Solana and an NFT with your Phantom wallet (or other) it should be easy as pie every time after that, almost like muscle memory.

Remember, as we previously mentioned in the Ethereum section, there is no 100% efficient strategy when it comes to NFTs. At the end of the day you should purchase pieces that you truly love despite the value, ones that if they went to $0 you'd still love and be proud to show off.

Final Solana NFT thoughts

We're still so so early in NFTs and crypto, let alone Solana, to know exactly whats to come of them in the near future. I mean just look at the differnce between the 2021 and 2022 market as a whole.

The Solana blockchain has made significant waves since it launched, and sure its had its fair share of hiccups, but there's no denying that it'll play a pivotal role in the NFT industry.

Even if it doesn't kill Ethereum.

They act like two legends can not co-exist.

If you got that reference send me a DM on Insta and lets have music session.

If you made it to the end, I hope this was well worth the read.