As one door closes another one opens and in this case the door we are about to open is at least twice as big as the one we're closing.
We are about to sign off on 2021 and what an interesting year it has been. We started off the year with the hope that 2020 was in the past, unfortunately 2021 seems to have got worse. So while the real world crashed around us we took to the internet to find peace and what better place could represent tranquility than the vast expanse of the Open Sea.
I started my journey in March, from buying PFPs to AI projects there has been a huge change in focus and incredible development in this space in such a short time. We are already looking at gaming being the headline act of 2022 although as we all know plans can change in an instant in NFTs.
I thought the easiest way to review 2021 is with some "awards"! I have only chosen from collections I have invested in and my choices are not based solely on price but rather multiple things such as potential, personal enjoyment, community, to name a few. Here is my review of 2021!
Top 3
This is a project I found by chance on OpenSea one night and it looked really promising, I decided to watch it for a while. After around a week or two the price was about 0.11 ETH, it was the lowest it had been in a long time so I picked up two. There was a staking process which I believe has closed now, this entitles you to some ALI tokens in the airdrop and also allows you to train your AI. The training process is impressive, you log on to the site and have a debate with Artificial Intelligence. You are rewarded for winning with ten tokens, losing gets you one token and I have to admit I lost one debate even though the AI agreed with me in the end!
The idea is that using community power through these debates we can teach the AI to learn communication. This communication will be utilised later on when your AI NFT is able to be used on certain collections effectively turning JPEGs into intelligent characters ready for the metaverse. Currently there are only ten collections that can be fused to create an iNFT, these are - Bored Apes, Waifusion, Pudgy Penguins, Dogepound, Fame Lady Squad, Polymorphs, Boss Beauties, Uninterested Unicorn, Fluff World, Stoner Cats.
It's an incredible project and one that has gained major attention since it's inception, it's also exciting to think of what these are capable of, this truly is a limitless project. With an interactive metaverse built with these iNFTs each character will continue to learn through it's interactions and develop personalities as well as skills. In their own words this intelligence will "enable us to not only explore what it means to be human and what constitutes a personality..." it's like the start of a sci-fi, to be honest it's scary and exciting in equal measures.
This was one of my biggest regrets of the year too. I had been looking to buy some ENS domains for months but always talked myself out of it and chose to spend the ETH elsewhere. Then out of nowhere one day I checked Twitter to see countless people saying they had received a big airdrop of ENS tokens for their participation in the ENS ecosystem. Some of the tweets mentioned "life changing amounts", it was yet another near miss. After the disappointment of missing the drop I decided it was time to jump in, I read about what they had planned, I checked who was behind them, I then found the capabilities of these domains.
I was so impressed and sold by their vision that I now own twelve domains. I believe that although it is likely to face some strong competition Ethereum is still the dominant network and is likely to be for the next year. For this reason I think ENS is well placed to capitalise and the option to link multiple addresses to your .eth domain allows more people to have access as well as more transactions that are able to take place through your domain, currently you can link your BTC, LTC, and DOGE addresses to be able to send and receive crypto and NFTs, no more remembering long addresses, simply enter your ENS to enter a world of easy transacting. As ENS says, these domains are "Your web3 username".
There is a strong team behind ENS and big support from other companies across multiple industries. The continuing development is amazing, they currently boast 603,000 registered names with 254,000 owners. It's not only crypto addresses that you can link there is a lot of technical capability to these names but I would suggest reading about
ENS on their own site to see the full current ability as well as potential.
One of the first collections I had a really good feeling about. I wrote a brief intro to The Collector Chronicles
here. It has featured some of the biggest collectors in NFTs so far and with their permission and input. It is designed to be a snapshot of NFT history and if you take a look at the pieces
here you can feel the nostalgia of projects you may have forgotten already!
Without doubt it's been a difficult second half of the year for a majority of NFTs and this collection is no different, the bear market hit just as TCC was gaining a lot of new attention. Everything requires a bit of luck, luck which evaded TCC but that hasn't stopped the growth. There has been a steady increase in owners and with a very involved and responsive creator in Maku there has been a shift in focus to keep the ship moving in the right direction. I think it needs to be respected that while there were many creators that deserted projects as soon as times got tough there are also some dedicated individuals who continue to achieve their dreams and provide value to their collectors, The Collector Chronicles certainly falls into this category.
With 2022 set to be a big year across the board I believe with their "snapshot of history" ideals and the added element of using your Chapters interactively for scavenger hunts there is still a lot of positivity moving forward as TCC cements it's own place in NFT history as a curator of some of the most popular NFTs and collectors of the time.
Worst 3
The clue is in the name, this whole project was hype and red flag after red flag. In my defence I was new to NFTs and was in that stage where I'm looking to jump into the next mint without really understanding what I'm doing. I've wrote about this one before but it is still one of the absolute worst things I've seen during my time in this space. Everything about it was awful and yet I still got caught up in the hype.
It serves as a warning not to invest solely on hype, the art itself was awful, the roadmap was stupid and only served to further devalue the asset, deadlines were missed, promises were broken, devs were unresponsive, it was a textbook example of a bad project. I don't think I ever was in profit with my Hippo but I had plenty of opportunity to leave for a loss, I don't know why but I always expected some positive outcome, obviously this never came and now my NFT is worthless.
Lesson learned, do your own research.
Although I don't actually own anything from this collection I did try and mint and lost some gas money, for that reason I have included this, as well as the glaringly obvious reason that it was an absolute flop of a collection!
This was one of the most hyped collections of 2021 and the first time I had experience a total domination of NFT chat. I remember at the time it was all anyone was talking about. It was during the PFP rush and The Sevens art looked quite cool and with everyone scrambling to get one the price was only going to go up, right?
The reality was both disappointing and suspicious, the project sold out quickly but not without controversy, someone had managed to mint 1000 of them, yes one thousand! That was a bit suspicious but not unbelievable, what happened next absolutely looked like an inside job, after much outrage in the NFT community apparently the creators reached out to the individual and they agreed to return 500 of them to the community wallet and cover the cost themselves. I really don't think someone that has the intention of creatively shafting the community by minting 1000 of them has any sense of charity, they are extremely unlikely to return half of them but apparently they did. More likely I believe a member of The Sevens team was involved and when the community found out what happened they were forced into a concession, even if they managed to walk away with 500 of them. Thankfully the floor price has plummeted and currently sits at 0.07 ETH.
This was one of the most elaborate rug pulls I've seen and sadly been invested in. One night while browsing OpenSea under the influence I saw these bones NFTs, this was before my due diligence days so I assumed it was recently minted and was awaiting reveal. I was half right, although they hadn't just been minted there was a backstory I was unaware of until I had bought three of them. I checked out the Discord and apparently it was an event called "The Apocalypse" where everyones Raccoons had been turned to the same image of bones.
They say there were a few reasons why they did this including it being part of the roadmap as well as
highlighting how some metadata can be changed at any moment and a project can be ruined. Regardless of this attention grabbing event the developers promised this was 100% not the end and the project will continue with an updated roadmap. A new road map was delivered and the bones were revived as Zombie Raccoons, this is probably where I should have sold. From this point on it was all downhill, the developers disappeared and the Discord fell silent. There was a manhunt to find the developers and some information was found that brought back one of the devs who laughed about what had happened and occasionally entered the server to annoy everyone. It really reminded me that there are people that are out to scam and some developers have no intention of continuing a project despite what they say publicly.
The project was taken over by the community and a new server has been created
here.
Notable Mentions of 2021
This project had to be included. Fortunately thanks to my Hype Hippos experience I was more vigilant when it came to hype projects and that's exactly what Mekaverse was/is. It exploded in popularity and everyone wanted one, I read quite a bit and did some research and something didn't feel right about it. I decided not to try and get involved, it was either going to be a missed opportunity or a great bit of initiative.
Now I'm obviously not saying Mekaverse is dead, not by any stretch of the imagination, but after release this project was regularly hitting triple digit volume each day as well as a floor price between 4 and 8 ETH, there was a lot of money changing hands. These days the floor has sat around 1 ETH for about a month and volume is in the low double digits. After reveal, which was delayed, many people were unhappy with the art work too, some pieces were almost identical which is not what you expected from a big project like this. The future is unclear but if recent history is an indicator then Mekaverse could still fall.
Of course EVERYONE wishes they had minted an ape, I'm no different. The crazy thing is I was around and active before the mint even happened, I really don't know why I didn't mint one but to be honest I had an opportunity shortly after to buy on secondary but I remember thinking "why would I pay that when all you can do is draw on a bathroom wall". You know what they say, hindsight is 20/20. Since creation they have gone from strength to strength, a quite incredible rise, they have gone from a JPEG to a cultural movement that now lists, musicians, actors, sports stars, tv personalities and more amongst the community. Everything takes a slice of luck but this success has been achieved by tireless hard work from
Yuga Labs and one of the biggest and dedicated communities in the whole crypto space.
BAYC featured on the front cover of Rolling Stone Magazine
They have no plans to slow down either, on the horizon is a Bored Ape game and a token too. Recently there was also a lot of talk about the CryptoPunk vs Bored Ape battle and the inevitability that sooner or later BAYC will overtake CryptoPunks, it seems the NFT crown is destined to rest on the head of BAYC. 2022 is truly going to be the year of the Ape.
I made it my goal in NFTs to one day own a Bored Ape and with the price ever increasing my goal gets harder but I will get their eventually, even the Mutant Apes are rising quickly. Still, I'll get their one day!
Becoming one of the first big companies to truly immerse themselves into the NFT space Adidas Originals took the jump with a big announcement of a collaboration between
Punks Comic, Bored Ape, and GMoney. It was a huge announcement and although the mint was 0.2 ETH and 30,000 pieces available, totalling a mouth watering 6,000 ETH, the very fact that Adidas Originals were
dropping an NFT gave a lot of credit to the whole space and also validation if anyone still required it. If you were lucky enough to buy on mint day your 0.2 ETH investment is now worth 0.73.
They have secured a big advantage by entering early and 2022 is almost certain to see other companies following in their footsteps.
Regret Of The Year
I could talk about the times i've been scammed but instead ill go for a tie between two purchases i didn't make. The first was a time a few weeks ago when my ASM was worth about 1.6 ETH and Rumble Kongz floor was about 1.2. I really felt like i had to make the trade but i talked myself out of it, within a couple of weeks the floor for Kongz was around 3.5, i haven't checked since. The second was something called NFTworlds, i had been watching them for a few days and the floor was about 0.11 ETH, i really liked the concept and have serious thought to buying 3 of them. I still couldn't give you a reason, i don't know why i didn't buy them, last time i checked the floor was about 1.5.
On Christmas day i tweeted "Just by being in this space you will be presented with multiple opportunities to change your life, you will miss many but you WILL take some". I think this sums up this space perfectly. Yes i've been rugged, yes i've missed some glorious buys I have also had some hits, often just by being in the right place at the right time. it sounds simple and it is, just by being in this space you are exposing yourself to opportunities everywhere, yes some will be small and some will be big. So this is the biggest in terms of percentage increase this year, one night browsing OpenSea and thought I would check the activity page, there was a sudden flurry of people buying this ASM box, I assumed it had just minted so I checked out the project for about 30 seconds before i bought one for 0.08 ETH, i think it was about 1.9 at its highest but it's currently worth around 1.6. All just by being on OpenSea!
Freebie of The Year
This one came in at the last minute and it has to be mentioned.
Over the Christmas period we had a taste of what this space can be about, rewards for being active. Personally I took advantage of two free airdrops, OpenDAO and RADAR. There is also GAS which I am yet to claim but likely will at some point, despite the promise of "free money" there is always a risk, I noticed a lot of people wary of the OpenDAO drop and rightly so, people should be suspicious of these kind of things because inevitably there will be bad actors coming in to take advantage. It didn't take long either, only today I was reading about another claim called YEAR which quickly turned out to be a scam, people lost money and it's a pretty crappy way to end the year but it's a lesson learned that will improve their experience in the long term.
With this in mind I think OpenDao has every right to be applauded. Yes some people will say it rewards the big spenders so the rich get richer but personally I am not a rich person, to wake up Christmas Day and have around $1000 for free is amazing, I think of everyone who sold and either treated their family or treated themselves. Of course some people that bought the token will lose money but this goes with any token you buy, $SOS is no different. Obviously I didn't sell and the price has dropped by at least 50% so far but this was a free drop so I'm prepared to see what the future holds for $SOS.
And Finally...
With 2021 almost finished I'm excited for the opportunity 2022 holds, it promises to be a rollercoaster ride and no doubt I will pick some awful projects as well as some good ones. I've learned a lot of lessons this year, some of them more costly than others, but in a space as new and developing as this sometimes you can only learn from your own mistakes.
We've seen a big shift from profile pictures to fantastic looking play to earn games all within this year, the focus has shifted multiple times but my plan now is to avoid collections of the "now" and look for NFTs that will improve the space and carve out the direction we head in.
My personal goals are to increase my holdings in crypto and diversify what I hold, I got a bit carried away half way through the year and put more into NFTs than I would have liked! I also intend to work harder on this blog, although it is a personal blog I feel like I can provide more value to the community through writing. I will introducing a theme called "10 Questions" which will focus on highlighting creators through their responses to the 10 questions, giving them more exposure and bringing readers new collections they may have been unaware of. I will also be covering different topics and not just projects I have invested in.
Ultimately web3 is all about decentralisation and helping uplift each other, my artistic skills are non existent to I will endeavour to add value and help others through words instead.
Thanks for reading and have a great new year, see you in 2022 ✌️
Comments
Post a Comment