How To NFT (Guest Article By WDWP #17)

Oct 7, 2022 | Guest Articles

Today we have a special guest article written by Wolf Den Wolf Pup (WDWP) #17

If you are interested in learning about Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) but have no idea where to begin, then this article might be for you.

In this article, WDWP #17 shares some of their experience within the NFT world to help decrease some of the mystery, while helping investors to hopefully not make common beginner mistakes that could end up rather costly.

If you enjoyed this article and want to see more, be sure to share and tag the author @MaleksWorlds and @TheGuardianAcad on Twitter to let us know!

THE MOST USEFUL TIPS TO FINDING PROJECTS WITH POTENTIAL TO “FLIP” OR “HOLD”.

This document is shared for educational purposes ONLY. Contents in here should NOT be considered FINANCIAL ADVICE.

Table of Contents

Can you get lucky?

We have seen this many many times over and over again. “Noobs” making solid TRADES and in some cases making THOUSANDS of dollars with a few “flips”. Is everyone guaranteed the same? ABSOLUTELY NOT! And if you thought that was the case, you need to IMMEDIATELY change your perspective.

There are two sides to “flipping” or “holding” NFTs:

1- Pure Luck: You see people DEGENNING into projects and get lucky when these unheard of projects “MOON”.

2- Skills and Attention to the Right Details: Unlike “luck” this is something that you can pick up by learning a few tricks here and there. If you choose to use this data, understand that it can vary from one project to another & it’s important that you consider the project’s mission, team, and community especially if you choose to hold long term.

In reality, no one can show you “How to get lucky” like our degen friends. HOWEVER, you can engineer your own luck by following certain strategies and methods that prove to show real value.

This document is going to break down some of those “strategies” I personally use to engineer my luck when it comes to NFTs.

To “Flip” or not to flip, that’s the question!

The first and most important thing I need to recognize is “Do I flip this, or do I hold this?”. If I hold an NFT that people are “flipping” I might wait a long time before I can see any profit. So unless my intention is to “HOLD” for a longer period of time, then this would not always be an ideal entry for me.

So before I start looking at projects and start making decisions, I ask myself a few questions:

Does my timeframe align with the project’s timeframe? If I am looking for a return on profit within 2 months, and the project’s main utility isn’t going to be delivered for 6 months, then my timeframe is not aligning with the project’s timeframe. Therefore this would not be a good “match”.
Do I need to “FOMO”? LITERALLY NEVER. You never “need” to fomo. You may “want” to fomo, but that doesn’t mean that you need to. In fact, sometimes if you don’t fomo, you end up getting a better entry. For example projects with ALOT OF PRE-MINT HYPE. I literally stay away from those launches. As people fomo, others will find an exit. This is where I can take advantage of the “dip’’. The dip isn’t guaranteed, but it’s better to miss on a dip, than to buy the top and have to sell at a lower price from purchase. Anyone can tell you that’s not a good strategy.
What is my margin of profit and where should I exit? If you don’t pre-determine this, there’s a high probability you will rekt yourself. I usually know both “my entry price and my exit price”. Now, If I see potential on the project AFTER my exit, then I can re-strategize and use specific data I find on the different platforms to make an informed decision on “when I should re-enter.”

So how do you find this data? Now you are asking the right questions.

Let me show you a few tricks.

The Cavemen found the tools that helped them to make a wheel

If it worked for the caveman, it will most likely work for you too.

There are a lot of unique and cool tools and softwares you can use to find data on NFT collections. This data can help you determine a lot of useful information like:

How many NFTs are listed
How many NFTs are listed below/above a specific point of entry
How rare are the items i’m looking to pick
How rare are some of the traits I’m holding
How much is being traded within a specific timeframe
And A LOT MORE useful data.

This data should be important to you for two reasons, and TWO REASON ONLY:

👉When to enter.

👉When to exit.

If you start letting the data get into your decision making outside of these two reasons, you will make mistakes. Because at the end of the day, data can be manipulated. So expose yourself to the data, but be smart and logical with your decisions & reasons.

What tools did the caveman use to make the wheel?

While you can find some useful data on OpenSea, there are multiple platforms that provide very detailed data where you can connect your wallet and get data based on what you own. Its purpose is to provide you with easy to read data rather than checking EtherScan where not everyone knows how to read blockchain transactions.

There are 10s of these platforms but I am only going to share the TWO I personally use.

THE OG: OPENSEA:

https://opensea.io/

Arguably the most recognized platform for NFTs. Definitely the one with the most volume.

You can still find good data on here that can help you make better decisions. But unlike the other platforms, the info you will get here is limited (which is probably a good thing since you don’t want to be always exposed to data)

Key areas to look at are:

Total volume
Floor price
Best offer
How much is listed from the entire collection
How many unique owners is there (different wallets)

I will break down each area and give a brief example (scenario) on how I would personally use these numbers

*** For the sake of recognition, i am going to use BAYC (Bored Ape Yacht Club) as our example here

1) The first thing I usually look at are both the name of the collection and the developer (owner)

As you can see above, BAYC is VERIFIED by OpenSea. Verification is usually a good sign, however people speculate on “how to get verified”. While the volume is important, I’ve seen projects with less than 200 ETH verified and some with more than 3.3K (Genuine Undead) still not verified. So don’t speculate on the reasons, but know that it’s usually a good sign and people see verified projects as a “good investment”

2) After I checked what the project’s name is, and who is the developer/artist/owner, I now jump to the socials and contract. You can view this on the right side of the page.

Ideally you are looking for a project where you can communicate with the team & the community. If I don’t see the socials listed, that usually turns me off.

Note: there was a trend at some point where degen projects had no socials and used it for marketing purposes (NO DISCORD. NO WEBSITE), but you would be taking a massive risk with something like this. There is usually an “OG” chat outside of all the socials. THIS IS INVITATION ONLY by the rules of the degens. So unless you know someone in there that can invite you in, and you own some of those assets, then you’re probably not going to get access.

3) The next part is where it gets really fun. The numbers shared on OpenSea’s projects page mean more than you think. Let’s talk about each one

Total Volume: This represents how much had been traded so far out of this specific collection. If the project is on Ethereum chain, then the volume traded in $ETH. For example BAYC has traded 669k $ETH since its launch in April 2021. If the project is on Solana, then the number would represent the volume traded in $SOL.

Ideally you want a higher number in volume traded. The higher the number is, the higher the buyer’s intent. Meaning people want to trade this asset. But then again, If the project is a month old for example, and the total volume traded is 2 $ETH, then this shows that people are not interested in trading this asset.

👉Higher : shows strength (considering the time frame of how long its been listed)

👉Lower : shows weakness (considering the time frame of how long its been listed)

Floor Price: This number represents the cheapest seller request in this specific collection. Keep in mind when someone is trying to sell, and wants to sell their item fast, they usually ask less for their asset than the cheapest current floor price. What this does is that it keeps dropping the floor price.

So unless there is a high volume of buyers, and the buyer intent is balanced with the seller intent, then the floor will continue to drop and that takes projects to “ZERO” > This is something important to keep in mind. You should not be looking at the asset as “it’s a great deal” unless you know there’s a similar if not HIGHER percentage of buyer intent.

Best Offer: This number represents the best (cheapest) offer on an asset for this collection. For example BAYC Floor price is 82 $ETH. Someone has offered 75 $ETH for an asset in this specific collection.

When buying the floor price, you are technically buying the “market price”. Best offer is similar to “Spot and Limit Buys”. If a buyer is not willing to pay the floor price, then they will put up an offer. This could be accepted by the seller, or rejected.

Listed: This percentage represents how much from the ENTIRE collection is listed for “SALE”. The lower this number is, the higher my bullish metre is.

If there is a high percentage of “SELLERS” listing their item, this shows a high number of seller intent. Ideally you want more “BUYERS” than “SELLERS”, this will help the floor price go up, which will help the assets value to go up in the entire collection.

The opposite is what you don’t want. If there are more listings, and more sellers than buyers, then the floor price will continue to drop given that people will mostly list their items “cheaper than the floor price”. As this continues, the floor price will continue to drop

Unique Owners: This number represents how many “different owners” there are. Or different wallets there are. You want this number to be “higher”. It shows that the collection is distributed amongst a high number of holders. And that means less “whales”, and more individual owners. That’s very ideal knowing that people with a larger number of items are most likely to sell some of their items which results in the floor price dropping.

PRO TIP

You need to keep in mind that the floor price is usually for “less rare” items. You can isolate specific traits in a collection to see how “bullish people” are on that trait. So even if the item itself isn’t a rare item, but has a trait that people are bullish on, you’ll see that traits floor price different from the entire collection.

Example: Cross Earring Trait in BAYC

Even though the floor price of the collection is 82.49 $ETH, the floor price for this specific trait is 150 $ETH. That is a massive difference. Some traits people are bullish on more than others. If you identify those traits at an early stage, and people continue to be bullish on that specific trait, you could possibly hit “jackpot”

THE SWEEPER: GEM.XYZ

https://www.gem.xyz/

While OpenSea is a great place to look at trading data, some platforms offer more convenient tools to use as a buyer or seller. Gem.xyz is one of my favourites. I use it for “sweeping”, and to identify the rarity of each asset. There is a ton of more information you can also find on this platform, so let’s break down some of the better tools to use.

This is how the platform looks like. I’ve circled all the areas that I might possibly want to look at when logging on and searching for projects.

Connect Wallet: Self explanatory. Connect your wallet and this will allow you to see a few options.

My Profile: where you check your own items from your wallet. You can use this if you want to see more data about your assets or its collection.

My Rewards: GEM will reward you for purchasing items through their platform or through their partners platform

Disconnect: To disconnect your wallet

Trending: This is a cool feature you can use. It shows you all the projects that are currently “trending”. These projects trend based on searches & volume.

You can categorize them for the past 24H, 7 days, and 30 days. You can also find the volume within that time period you choose, the highest price increase within the time frame, floor price, owners, and total supply

Sweeps: This shows you the latest “Sweep”. Sweeping is picking up multiple items at once. When you are trading a popular asset, sweeping helps pick up items faster than other users.It also allows you to pick more than one item at once saving you time and clicks.

You can categorize them based on different time frames. It shows you how many items were picked up from a specific project. What is the value of the sweep? How much refunded if refunded (when there’s someone else with a faster transaction picking up the same item as you, the item goes to the faster transaction offer, and the other person gets a refund.

As you can see in the image, you are able to choose multiple items and can categorize the collection by specific traits. This was you can collect more of your favourite traits and buy them all at once removing the risk of another transaction from another person going through before you get the item

Mints: This shows what is currently being minted on the blockchain (keep in mind there’s no way to tell if these projects are legit. I personally avoid mints from undoxed projects. The risk is higher than the gain)

You can also use this feature to watch your favourite upcoming projects mint. Identify how many people are buying. Who is buying large quantities. How many holders and unique wallets are there? And even the trend line of purchases.

Filters: Filters are great to use if you know what you are looking for. Whether you have a specific price range, rarity or trait. You can use the filters to help you narrow down the collection so it can show you what you are only interested in rather than scrolling through the entire collection

Price Range: Use this filter to identify anything within your price range

Marketplace: This will show you all the items listed on a specific marketplace. You have 4 that are on Gem.xyz: OpenSea, X2Y2, Sudoswap, and LooksRare

Trait Count: Some collections have anywhere between 1–10 traits. Usually the lower this train number is, the rarer the asset

Properties: These are your assets, properties and traits. You can filter based on a specific trait you are interested in .

Analytics: You can get some really great data to help you determine how “bullish” the community is on these projects. This data can change with time, so it’s important that you stay “up to date” especially if you are holding your asset for a longer term. This could help you see an opportunity to sell high and rebuy again at lower.

Let’s break down some of this data and what they mean

We can take a look from both GEM.XYZ & OpenSea.

Listings Across Different Price Range & Rank Range

Price Range: This graph on the GEM Analytics page shows you the number of items listed, and at which price range most are listed. For this example, you can see that close to 1200 items are listed BELOW 1 ETH. (You can also change the price per to a lower number to give you more accurate data) It also shows you which platform has the most listings. In this case, its OpenSea (that’s the usual case, but not always)

Rank Range: This is how I determine how bullish the community is on the project. Based on the ranks, if I don’t see many rare items listed that’s a bullish sign. I also consider how much the item is listed for. For example if you look at ranks 1000, it seems like the average price for these items are 1 ETH. Which is unusually high for a newer collection (this is 2 months old).

OpenSea Activity: It’s a little different on OpenSea. But just as useful information.

The first thing I look at is Sales. If multiple items are being purchased within the same hour, and that trend continues all day, that shows me that people are really interested in this project that you have 10+ buyers every hour. This is usually based on the hype. The more hyped the project is within a timeframe, the more buys you will see within the hour/day.

The 90 Day average kind of shows you what you can expect from the price. For example a 2 months old project here with an average of 0.1 ETH over 90 days, that’s really bullish. Especially considering this was a free mint.

Another activity to watch for is “Listings”. Ideally you want less listings to be able to recognize the project as “bullish”. It will also show you how often items are being listed. If I see a lot of items being listed in a small time frame, that is concerning. This is when I go on twitter and try to find out why many people are dumping their assets. Same goes for the buys. If I see a lot of buys, that usually is some sort of bullish news that made the community bullish

When to ‘flip” & When to “hold”

Based on everything mentioned in this document, you can now figure out what is best to do for a project you are looking into. Trading and investing are not similar. If you are trying to invest, but you behave like a trader, you will probably get rekt. If you are trading, but you act like a holder, you will probably get rekt. It is important that you behave as you are supposed to.

When do I “flip”?(You can add your own rules here based on all the info we’ve shared in this document)

Here are some of the things I look for that helps me decide that this asset is great for flipping:

High volume of buys in a short period (ex. 20 buys in one minute)
Floor is gradually picking up & increasing during a short period
Total volume of collection is low, but with a high buyer intent (be close to twitter communities to see the demand of buys, and check on OpenSea activity)
Not too many unique wallets (owners)
People are buying floors and list them as the floor increases.

When do I “Hold”? (You can add your own rules here based on all the info we’ve shared in this document)

Here are some of the things I look for that helps me decide that this asset is great for Holding:

Doxed owners
Project has a roadmap and its achievable
High percentage of owners/holders
Not many items are listed
Active community that stays active
More people are buying rares and not listing them

It’s definitely about preference too. I wouldn’t invest in something long term if I don’t like it. As for trading, it really doesn’t matter what they are “building”. As long as the community is active on social media, and the numbers show a strong buyer intent, I can enter and exit with profit without having to understand what the project is about.

Hope this was all helpful,

Wolf Den Wolf Pup #17 MaleksWorlds