Founder "dies" during mint while Valhalla gets 16,373 bids

Welcome to the Exit Liquidity newsletter, the place to stay up to date on the ridiculous things that happen in the Crypto, NFTs & Web3. If you are looking to join the community check out the AlphaMint Discord where all the degens gather to chat in the dojo.

If you have any doubts or uncertainty about the markets (stocks, Crypto, or NFTs) there is one thing that you can be certain of, Valhalla is going to be a monster when it comes to demand and sales volume. Well, there's that and one other thing, the 0% royalty debate will always rage on. The timeline was filled this weekend with people rehashing royalties, murmurs about comeback projects (Pixelmon and 0N1 Force) and one of the more unique strategies used to try and rug a project with claims of a founder dying during mint. Yes, that really happened and it even gave life to a derivative project (pun intended).

Honestly, we are kind of tired of the royalty debate. I think everyone agrees that one of the best things to come out of Web3 and NFTs was giving the earning power back to artists. It's what differentiates us from Web2 companies and platforms. We also know that businesses need to stay competitive and when Magic Eden announced they were moving to optional royalties it wasn't too shocking. The Solana marketplaces are more cutthroat to artists then the Ethereum marketplaces currently are. Magic Eden claims this was the only way to stay competitive, but they definitely lost a lot of goodwill with the space. So does this confirm the theory of Frank from DeGods knowing ahead of time and milking that easy PR by going to 0%?

If the space doesn't become overly saturated with royalty free or optional royalty marketplaces, they will either transition to very small fees like crypto marketplaces or worse, subscription models. The market will decide, but until we can implement royalties on a contract level, it's only gets worse for artists and creators.

All eyes were on the Valhalla presale this weekend. Ending on Sunday, October 16th, 2022, the presale received a total of 16,373 bids. These bids vary in size from 5 to 25 NFTs per bid. We did some basic napkin math when it closed on Sunday and if we only use the minimum 5 bids totaling 1.25 ETH per bid, it was roughly 20,466.25 ETH ($26,538,586.38 USD) committed to the presale. During a bear market with most project floors going down and overall volume trending down as well, it's insane to see this amount of demand and ETH being thrown at one project. There is no question that Valhalla will rival the Moonbirds and Otherside drops. Many are predicting that secondary opens around 5 ETH and quickly shoots up to double digits on day one.

While we wait for the Valhalla mint, we have to wonder what this would look like if we were in peak 2022 bull market. Euphoria off the charts and people aping into projects without a care in the world since everything goes up. Lately there's been a lot of hopium and positive sentiment in the form of, "If you are in NFTs right now, you are early." But what does that actually look like in numbers? We were tired of hearing it and wanted to visualize it for ourselves. So naturally, we're sharing it with all of you as well because maybe you would like an eye opening perspective as well.

Compared to the popular social networks and largest Crypto exchanges, NFT marketplaces like OpenSea are barely a blip on the radar when it comes to monthly active users.

We should note, there are a few caveats with this chart. First, we cherry picked the OpenSea number. We used the OpenSea all time highest active monthly user count at slightly under 540K users. That number is still incredibly small compared to the other user counts. Second, the chart does zero justice to show how massive Facebook's 2.9B monthly user count actually is. Without modifying the Y-axis as shown, the OpenSea figure wouldn't even be visible compared to TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook's numbers. Lastly, we considered using the total number of wallets that have ever owned an NFT for the chart. However, between how many burner wallets we may or may not have between the Exit Liquidity crew alone, we decided against this stat as it's probably a pretty poor representation of actual users. RIP multiple wallets during the recent free mint NFT meta.

You might think that comparing active users from OpenSea to TikTok or Facebook is an apples to oranges comparison. In their current form you are absolutely right, but it's really only meant to show how few users there are on OpenSea and in NFTs. This figures help us illustrate and show everyone how early we all are when you compare it to the apps and websites you use daily. Could you imagine what OpenSea and NFTs would look like with 100M users? You thought the website crashed and was pure shit during the last bull  market, imagine it with 100x the users. Also here's a fun thought, what do you think the floor on Bored Apes would be if NFTs had 100M MAUs?

With Meta, Twitter and Reddit rolling out NFT integrations on their platforms, it's only natural that more people will discover NFTs through them. If OpenSea and the overall NFT market can pinch off even 1% of Facebook's MAUs we're looking at 30-50M users compared to the couple hundred thousand we see now. The next bull cycle will add many new comers eager to buy. We also speculate that it will be less volatile as more companies offering better systems will enter the space and users will be able to learn from our mistakes without having to experience the steep learning curve. Whether it be more safety measures in place or content creators sharing their hard learned lessons on YouTube, the next wave of NFT collectors and traders will be hungry and ready.

The real question to ask yourself is how can you capitalize on being early? Being early is great, but don't waste the opportunity. The most obvious opportunities are to invest into projects you think will be around in 3-5 years. Expand the timeline and think long term. You might instantly think blue-chips as they are seasoned and have a sliver of safety priced in as well. We know not everyone is willing to risk as much or has the liquidity to lock up for years on end, so the another option is to spend this time researching projects. Try to vet projects as best as you can. You can also follow projects without having to invest as well. Many are going to be building during this bear market and you can watch as they do before signing a single transaction.

If you are looking to keep risk low, you can always grind whitelists and hit the applications hard (we also have a list of applications for upcoming projects below, make sure you are staying up to date on those!). This allows you to stay plugged in and keep liquidity tight. You can choose to only swing at home runs and pick guaranteed winners or at least get in as low as possible at mint. One of the most overlooked trading strategies is to aim for those small, consistent wins. You might not be able to tweet about your moonshot flips, but consistent 0.1 ETH wins can net you the equivalent of many people's annual 9-5, corporate salary.

Along with the 'we're early' talk, you might have seen many people say, "The bear market is for building." And they're not wrong. What does this mean for you? Does it mean you should go start a NFT project? Probably not, but there are many things you can build. An easy way to get started is to contribute to an existing project that you're already invested in. One of many ideas is to write a Twitter thread explaining why you like or invested into the project. You can detail the reasons why others should as well. You can include the project's community by getting help or ideas to build out your thesis. For all you know, your research could even lead to you realizing that it's not a good investment which could also make a solid thread. It's a win-win for you.

Lastly, one of the most important things you can build right now is your network. With most of the tire kickers and people chasing quick profits gone, the remaining people you see or interact with in Discords or on Twitter are still grinding in the bear market. It's great time to build relationships that will last until the next bull market. You never know what kind of opportunities these relationships can lead to in the future.

Whatever you choose to do, do it with conviction and purpose. People can tell when you're being authentic and when you're full of shit.

Crypto

• MetaMask is bringing instant Bank-To-Crypto options for US based users

• Mango DAO pays hacker $47M and doesn't press charges

• Mastercard to bring crypto trading capabilities to banks. We remember it was only a few years ago they were banning customers from even purchasing crypto

• Ethereum developers can now test on the new “Shandong” testnet. The Shanghai upgrade is projected to happen in 2023

NFTs

• Azuki introduces Physical Backed Tokens (PBTs), an open source token standard tying a physical item to a digital token on the Ethereum blockchain

• OpenSea is temporarily making Solana collections ineligible for Top and Trending on the website homepage

• Solid guide to the Vee Friends NFT project

• Konami has announced plans to launch a platform for trading in-game NFTs

• DigiDaigaku Heroes revealed on Friday

• Pixelmon launches Affinity Training

• Toys "R" Us announces NFTs project that will be on the Solana network

• Tim Ferriss, entrepreneur and podcaster, launches Project 555

Upcoming project applications:

• Xore

• Dark Labs

• Graycraft

• Arties

• Coliseum

• KPR (we added this one in to the last newsletter, but we are adding again so you do not miss it)

We have no affiliations with any of these projects. Please DYOR on each project and for extra safety, do not connect your main wallet or any cold storage device to any website that requires you to sign a transaction.

If you have any other applications you want to share with the Exit Liquidity readers, let us know! We'd love to be able to offer more opportunities for subscribers!

Web3

• What are CC0 NFTs, and why are they important?

• A house was bought and sold as an NFT. Holding the NFT gives you legal ownership of the actual house in South Carolina. The company that made it happen is @Roofstock and you can view the traits on OpenSea

• Huge list of Web3 tools and websites by @JavierAng_

• Zeneca announces 30 Days of NFTs. A project that helps onboard new users

• Solving the Web3 Identity Crisis by @ohhshiny

Disclaimer: The Exit Liquidity Newsletter is meant to be an informational and entertaining way to share interesting things found in and around the Crypto, NFT and Web3 space. Nothing in this newsletter should be taken as the contributor's, Exit Liquidity's or AlphaMint's personal opinion or views. Nothing in this newsletter constitutes as professional and/or financial advice. Cryptocurrencies and crypto-related assets can be extremely risky investments, invest at your own risk.

Forever hodling your favorite influencer’s bag: @R2Degen @DRTYMLK @dripcult

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Exit Liquidity is an AlphaMint project.