How to Get the Next Alpha NFT You Can Afford
Even if you don’t have Moonbirds money you can still get an NFT that will moon
The NFT generative art trend seems to have shifted from a free-for-all market to one where blue-chip and high-end projects take center stage. Aside from the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Cryptopunks, Azuki, and Beanz — the Moonbirds NFT project from Proof Collective has taken center stage.
Before I can discuss how you can scope out projects that will potentially moon, I will have to address the success of the Moonbirds project and the lessons learned from their launch.
Moonbirds is a collection of 10,000 non-fungible tokens issued under the ERC-721 standard on the Ethereum network that launched on April 16th, 2022. The collection was minted at a price of 2.5 ETH each and also comes with 5% royalties on each secondary sale that go to the creators. Owners of Moonbirds also hold full intellectual property rights over them. There was no free minting and no secondary market sell-off — unlike this NFT project.
In just one week the Moonbirds have caught the attention of every NFT collector and then some. Based on a floor price of 36.79ETH and a circulating supply of 9,991, we’d estimate the market cap of Moonbirds to be $1,086,210,178 at an ETH price of $2,955. As of this writing, the current sales floor is 36.79ETH for Moonbirds. The success of the Moonbirds NFT mint seemed like it came out of nowhere to many. However, to many others, it was planned to perfection.
Moonbirds was co-founded by Kevin Rose, a veteran tech industry entrepreneur who founded Digg in the Web 2.0 era and now hosts an influential crypto podcast. Rose and his partner Justin Mezzell, created a collection called PROOF Collective NFTs, and they were minted back in December 2021.
At the time you could get a PROOF NFT that looked like a pass for between 2–4ETH. The PROOF Collective is a members-only community that’s only accessible for those 1,000 people who own a PROOF Collective NFT pass, the current floor price for which sits at an incredible129 ETH at the time of this writing.
Holding the PROOF Collective NFT comes with utility benefits — one of which was the ability to mint two Moonbirds during the recent launch for 2.5ETH. Since most people didn’t want a PROOF NFT pass to be their PFP the Moonbirds NFT was a welcomed launch. Moonbirds can be a PFP for all the social media sites you’re on. Buying and holding the Moonbirds is rewarded with increased magic — — so to speak. “Nesting” the avatars, the Moonbirds NFT won’t leave your wallet and will see potential growth as the nest grows with time.
One of the best things about blockchain-based technologies and public ledgers is that since they are public anyone can read and use the data to obtain valuable insights. For example, late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon was gifted two Moonbirds. Such high-profile celebrity endorsement is invaluable because since Fallon tweeted about owning Moonbirds NFTs last week, their asking price has doubled. Fallon didn’t divulge that they were given to him free, but the info on the blockchain is there for those who seek it.
The official Moonbirds Twitter stated that there is a “celebrity bucket” of Moonbirds that will be given away free to celebrities, athletes, and influencers to keep up hype in the media, and possibly a gentle warning to keep up the floor price by not selling below it. More utility will be heaped on those who hold their Moonbirds for the long haul. Upgraded nests will enable enhanced NFT drops and rewards.
PROOF isn’t done after Moonbirds. The next step for the group is a metaverse venture codenamed Project Highrise. Perhaps a place for the Moonbirds to hang out away from lesser NFT mortals. Judging by his Tweets, Kevin Rose and his team plan to create a token such as BAYC did with Apecoin to use as currency in their planned metaverse.
So how can you get in early on a community-driven NFT project and garner 100x gains? Well I’m not a financial advisor, and this is not financial advice, but you have to search out teams who have well-thought-out utility for their NFT. They have to have imagination and purpose, and the dream has to have feasibility. They can’t just be copycats of other successful NFT projects. It appears that only NFT projects that offer real utility to the NFT holder will be those that keep the NFT in the news. Marketing in whatever form works to keep the interest in the NFT up. It also makes sense for the project to incentivize members to want to hold the NFT and not flip. Not to say that you can’t get two, sell one for a quick profit and keep the other. Members who want to get in on the project won’t allow the NFT to lose value by selling below floor price because they believe in the team. At the time of this writing 520 BAYC holders and 839 Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) holders own Moonbirds. These are NFT holders who know how to keep a floor price up.
NFT projects focused on branding themselves with the support of a large community of people who want to buy their NFTs have shown to be miles ahead of the game. So based on this knowledge of what a successful team looks like in the NFT space; these are the steps to studying, buying, flipping, and holding NFTs.
1. Use tools to research what a few well-known and profitable NFT collections such as Moonbirds, BAYC, and MAYC holders are buying
2. Zone in on what they are buying and what you can afford to buy
3. Research the reasons they are buying those NFTs using Google, Reddit, Twitter, and Discord. Then engage with those communities on social media.
4. Avoid minting any NFT unless you see tremendous volume on the mint day and there are no free mints. It’s better to use a rarity tool and buy the desired NFT with a few rare traits (eg. from a 10,000 collection try to get below 3500).
5. Have an exit strategy of when you are going to sell, but don’t list the item just yet
6. Use an alert tool to help alert you to your sell price
7. Sell at a profit, or hold and watch the value of your NFT go up if it remains newsworthy
Finally, there are a lot of tools out there that can help you in your search for your lucrative NFT project. I’ve been using a few consistently for several weeks and they have proven invaluable in helping me rest easy at night knowing that the NFT I bought wouldn't be a rug-pull or gradually lose value because of a lack of creative and knowledgeable marketing hype. Three of them are free, and one is an affordable paid subscription. I won’t shill them here in this article because frankly, they take a bit of a learning curve to garner the insights you need to address the queries you will have.
If you want to learn more about what tools I use, and how I use them to make informed decisions on what projects I think will moon and I can afford to get into; like this article and comment, then contact me.
