How Do You Do, Big Brands

I want to start by adding some context.

It’s mid-December. Bitcoin is not above $100k and Ethereum keeps dipping below $4k. Everyone I talk to is exhausted and frustrated that the majors haven’t hit the cycle targets. Solana and Avalanche aren’t looking great either. The Pudgy Penguins lost a discord moderator and I think they had multiple Twitter spaces discussing it for hours??? I’m exhausted. Taxes are coming.

Confessions of a Shopaholic

When I’m exhausted, I turn to guilty pleasures. I enjoy collecting and I’m a stress shopper.

When I got into NBA Top Shot early this year, I was enthralled. It was amazing to see such a smooth implementation of NFT. Top Shot led to spending more time on OpenSea and I started buying other items.

I never really entered into Ethereum NFTs to flip the same way I did with Top Shot. It was fun to collect obscure things — and buying these more obscure items felt more exciting than collecting Top Shots which felt more “corporate”, “manufactured”, and “normie”.

I’ve been looking at Top Shot again recently, but this time I’m looking at it as a genuine collector. I want to buy all the Cavaliers moments to boost my collector score and I want to get packs so that I can flip moments to buy more players from the team I like.

Even though I haven’t been watching basketball as much this year, collecting NBA Top Shots from my favorite team feels like a simple way to relax. It’s a modern implementation of a behavior from my childhood.

What are We Doing?

I want to try to explore a few things.

• The feasibility of flipping
• Collecting from known collections

Why are We Doing This?

You don’t have to.

This is for me to think through some previously held notions and to understand how I think about buying things that make me happy, make me money, or make my life better.

I share this stuff because I have this twisted idea that getting out of my head into the world will let me move on — but usually it ends up with me going deeper down some rabbit hole. Luckily, in this case I’ve been pretty deep down these particular rabbit holes.

NFTs are Better for Collecting

I thought that NFTs would be better for collecting because you don’t have to store them and I live in a small apartment. They’re easy to keep and theoretically easy to sell. It’s easy to transfer NFTs and there are well built marketplaces that enable buyers and sellers to transact.

I’ve collected a lot of things but the one that I generally come back to is sneakers. I’ve bought tons of sneakers and they take up more space than they should considering how little I’m going out these days. I used to enjoy wearing sneakers to the office but I work remote now.

Strangely — when we went remote over a year ago, I started buying more sneakers than ever. I like to buy Nikes (usually Air Jordans) and getting the pairs I want is hard. The supply and demand is managed so that they sell out. The secondary market is expensive and filled with fakes. Even if you do get your hands on a real pair, you could end up with major quality control issues.

Flaws this bad are rare. But they happen and there’s generally at least one thing on a pair that stands out as being a flaw.

You can’t update the metadata on these things.

When I ordered a pair of sneakers from GOAT and got a pair with inconsistencies, I started looking into rep sneakers.

If you know where to look, you can get almost every major sneaker in replica form for fractions of the cost. You have to deal with less than ideal ordering process and you know that what you own is fake.

The fakes can be pretty good though…

Going down the fake Air Jordan rabbit hole was informative. It gave me deep insight to a market that I thought I understood (I’ve been buying and selling Air Jordan’s off and on for over 10 years) and it gave me insight to myself.

While Nike quality control is terrible, rep sneaker sellers will send you photos of the shoes you are going to receive before they ship them.

What did I learn about the market? There are probably so many more fakes out there than I had ever imagined.

What did I learn about myself? Wearing fakes does not make me happy.

Again, NFTs have a known chain of custody and are easily verifiable.

It’s easier to buy an NFT and know that you got the real thing. Therefore it is easier to sell an NFT because there is no doubt around whether or not the item is genuine.

Flipping NFTs is easier because of the chain of custody.

Your feasibility of flipping, however, is driven by market liquidity.

Buying Stuff People Want

Collectibles are collectible because people want them. Depending on how many collectors are interested in an item and how available that item is it becomes easier to buy and easier to sell.

If you participated in the NFT market over the past year, you know this is a big game of hot potato.

Collections can pump and run up the price quickly. They can also dump and disappear into obscurity.

Market liquidity in NFT can be time based — a flurry of activity can drive the price up and will capture new entrants while giving holders an exit opportunity. These flurries can occur multiple times but sometimes they stop.

I think it’s fair to assert that buying normie stuff is a lower risk when it comes to market liquidity than obscure collections. Your local Foot Locker does more unit volume than a boutique like Flight Club.

Much of what gets sold at Foot Locker is not a collector item. But almost every Saturday a new Air Jordan release sells out.

I can’t help but see Air Jordan’s and low tier collectible NFTs on Ethereum in a similar light.

Similarities:

• Air Jordan retail price (~$200) is not that dissimilar to an NFT mint around .05 at a $4000 ETH.
• There is generally a secondary market.
• They’re collector items. You don’t need them.
• It’s fun to buy them.
• It can be profitable to speculate on them.
• There are emotional experiences that can include joy, regret, guilt, and attachment.

Differences:

• Air Jordans lose value once worn or used.
• NFTs value can increase through ownership. Wearing an NFT as a pfp can actually increase the value, it can get it “out there”.
• NFTs can’t get damaged!
• NFTs don’t suffer from quality control issues.

This brings me back to NBA Top Shot. My confidence to buy a Top Shot with the understanding that I can later sell it will always be higher than my confidence when buying an obscure item such as a Wicked Cranium, a Fang Gang, etc.

Budweiser launch Budverse Cans. Facebook become Meta. There were Macy’s Parade NFTs on Thanksgiving. Pepsi tweeted “fren”. Normie NFTs are coming, whether the furries like it or not.

Much of the “old guard” of NFT (those that have been here for 10 months lol), is frustrated that big brands are releasing NFTs. Personally, I think it’s a waste of time to get upset that adoption is occurring (when that’s what many wanted in the first place), but people are upset. Or at least acting like it. I’ve spent enough time on ct to start to say “psyops” but I genuinely believe that those communicating distaste about big brands entering the NFT space are being theatrical for engagement or are so exhausted and frustrated with how the market is playing out that they want more time to try to make it.

Tropo is a master at engagement farming. And he’s been around a long time.

I made a good amount of money this year playing hot potato. It wasn’t something I planned on doing but it worked. I got sick and annoyed listening to people talk about “diamond hands” and “paper hands” and being “in it for the art”. I got burned trading ERC20s in 2017 off of whitepapers and I knew these road maps were unlikely to be executed on.

At the same time, I learned from 2017 and I executed better this time. I had a successful run flipping NFTs but for now the market looks like it’s dried up and I’m exhausted.

The concepts that require my time and allow me to achieve maximum outcomes no longer include analyzing the best NFT collections or hunting for the next flip.

So Now What?

I’m back to collecting things I like simply because I like them.

When I started to go deep on sneakers again last year, I played with the idea of getting back into flipping. I was coping with the reality of quarantine by going back to collecting something I loved. Every time the sneakers showed up though, I wore them and removed and likelihood of selling them. I accepted that I was simply buying them for myself, and it made the whole experience more enjoyable.

When I first got into Top Shot I was looking for flips. I got into Top Shot at the top — I often buy tops and sell bottoms. I suck at trading. Using Top Shot to try to make money sucked. Buying moments that I like, however, is enjoyable.

I’ve started using GOAT Storage when ordering sneakers on the secondary market. I can order the shoes, have them verified, and them held in with GOAT. So much for self-custody. This lets me cool off after buying the sneakers and gives me time to determine if I want to sell them from GOAT or have them shipped to me. I still feel that slight gamble with authenticity but GOAT has a return policy if I ever felt the need to dispute something.

I know this is jumbled and convoluted — but I’m excited to be getting back into some simple, easy collectibles. Known collections are a good bet because normies like me will buy them.

I think that Big Brands coming is good. There might be some growing pains but there’s a whole new meta to play. There’s always somewhere in the market to make money.

If you don’t want to play that new meta, if you’re exhausted like me. Try to relax. I’ve got some Cool Grey 11s on their way to GOAT Storage and that makes me happy.