The simple tools and methods used by the best collectors and dealers in the space


2021 was indeed the breakthrough year for NFTs. We've seen a huge spike in demand, especially for the generative avatar genre . The supply grew almost as fast.
For anyone interested in cool new NFT avatars, the large selection is a blessing in disguise. It's great that we have so many projects to choose from! At the same time, it's impossible to track and analyze them all in depth unless you make it your full-time job.
What is perhaps the biggest challenge of all is that the demand for the most popular projects is far outpacing the supply. This means that it is by no means guaranteed that you will be able to purchase NFTs at launch. For NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, you'll probably get into an expensive gas war, something I highly recommend not doing. you oppose , if you are new to NFT.
Therefore, your best chance to get into the most popular startups is to join a "pre-sale" of a project. The pre-sale is for the lucky few who won or have won a spot on the whitelist. These whitelists often fill up quickly or require you to work for them. So, once again, you need to find out about these new projects early .
Fortunately for you and me, we have some simple tools and shortcuts to help us. Based on my own experience and advice from experts in the field, here are the best ways to spot upcoming startups early.
NFTs launch tracking sites
There is no shortage of websites and apps dedicated to aggregating upcoming NFT launches. I have used and compared several of them over time. They all differ in terms of this how and how good present the various NFT projects as well as the information they display for each one.
These are my current favorites.
MintyScore
MintyScore shows you all the basic information about each project, along with its number of Discord members and Twitter followers. The latter are two of the most important indicators when evaluating the popularity of a new project.
But what's really interesting is his focus on community curation. You can like and dislike each project on its site and see the total. It also summarizes project performance against a series of scoring criteria in the 'MintyScore', making it really easy to find the most promising projects.
NFTCLICK
NFTCLICK is a strong runner up to MintyScore and a good add-on tool. This site also assigns an overall score to each project based on parameters such as its founder, artwork quality, and community support.
What I really like about NFTCLICK is its filtering functionality. You can choose to view projects in specific categories, such as games, music, or sports. And you can filter by art style: Pixel, 3D, hand drawn, etc.
Notable mentions
If you just want an overview of upcoming launches without all the bells and whistles, I'd recommend Rarity.tools , NextDrop and NFT Calendar . They all include NFTs on both the Ethereum and Solana blockchains. look HowRareIs , if you want a dedicated Solana NFT aggregator.
Now i could just to make a guide to the best NFT startup trackers and wrap it up right here. MintyScore and NFTCLICK will definitely take you far with relatively little effort. However, none of these sites are completely comprehensive. Also, the projects you find through these sites and apps could often be caught earlier using some of the methods below.
Discord communities
Most projects, creators, collections, and subcommunities in the NFT space handle most of their communication on Discord. This makes it a great place to learn about upcoming startups in a few different ways.
Alpha channels
Many NFT projects have so-called "alpha channels" on their Discords dedicated to people sharing insights and perspectives on the most promising new projects.
In general, you can assume that the "best" NFT projects attract the most experienced and well-connected NFT collectors and therefore provide the best recommendations and insights into upcoming NFT launches. However, you can easily find great alpha in some of the lesser known projects on the NFT Discords.
Note that you will often need to own a project's NFT to access these channels. This is an important part of the value proposition for these NFTs. If you already own some NFTs, I would simply recommend that you start spending some time in their respective alpha channels.
Cooperation on projects and gifts
New NFT projects often partner with established ones to gain attention. Such partnerships are usually announced on Discord. Additionally, these collaborations often include whitelists or other perks for lucky members of the established project's community.
Once again, not all Discords are created equal when it comes to collaboration and giveaways. And again, you can expect that the most popular, respected and valuable projects are able to provide the best partnerships.
Alpha and Community NFTs
While many NFT projects do some of the above, some have this as their primary goal. Communities like ZenAcademy , Non-Refungible Network , Metaverse HQ , Friends With Benefits and Crypto Packaged Goods are created for members to learn about NFTs and upcoming projects, get early access to new launches, and even enter contests and raffles to win free NFTs.
Such communities are often, but not always, token-related, meaning you'll need to own one of their NFTs to gain access. Some can be quite expensive and it's entirely up to you to decide whether you think it's worth it or not.
I personally own ZenAcademy Genesis NFT and I discovered many new projects and won several whitelist sweepstakes in the Discord community. One gave me access to buy 2 NFTs in the presale of Coolman's Universe , each of which is currently valued at more than 1 ETH.
Social media
Since people love to talk about what's new and exciting, it's no surprise that social media is a great place to discover upcoming NFT launches. It's Twitter the place , where projects can share updates and participants in the space can share their latest deals and opinions on new NFT projects.
In my own experience, a lot of the leads you'll get on Twitter happen pretty organically when you start following the projects you like and the people you meet and know in the space. Until then, you might want to follow the accounts of MintyScore , NFTCLICK and the other platforms mentioned above.
I also recommend following some of the top collectors and dealers sharing their opinions on Twitter, YouTube and TikTok. I've listed some of my favorites below. I'm obviously biased towards YouTube and Twitter, so you might want to do some more research on TikTok or other platforms.
- Amir Hussain in YouTube and Twitter
- BentoBoi in YouTube and Twitter
- Brett Malinowski in YouTube and Twitter
- Crypto Gorilla in YouTube and Twitter
- Crypto Vilius in YouTube and Twitter
- Donte Walker NFT in YouTube and Twitter
- James Blanc in YouTube , Twitter and TikTok
- Kosher plug in YouTube and Twitter
- NFT Nate in YouTube , Twitter and Discord
- NFT Pasta in YouTube and Twitter
- NFT Verse in YouTube and Twitter
- ryandcrypto in YouTube and Twitter
- Sebastian Georgiou in YouTube and Twitter
- The Nifty Alpha in YouTube
Of course, many of the big NFT collectors and influencers don't necessarily share every NFT project they're excited about. Thus, a good way to find out what they are up to is to see who they follow on Twitter.
The best tool I know of to help with this process is whotwi . Just search for Gary Vee, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul, or any other NFT VIP and see if they've recently started following some interesting new projects.
Final thoughts
Websites and apps like MintyScore and NFTCLICK can help us keep track of upcoming startups and automatically sort through the least promising. Spending time on Discord, Twitter and YouTube will get us even more leads.
That last word is key, though. Whenever we learn of a new project through one of these channels, it is leading role . This is not an investment recommendation. This is not financial advice in any way. And it's certainly not guaranteed 10x on your money. It's just a hint for us to do some research and learn more about potentially an interesting and noteworthy project.
Moreover, discovering and analyzing a promising new project are only the first two steps. The third is the possibility to actually purchased one of its NFTs during launch, which is perhaps a much bigger challenge.
To be guaranteed to buy one of 10,000 NFTs when there are 400,000 people competing for them, essentially must to enter the presale. Each project has its own structure and pre-sale requirements, so you should research them for each new project you are interested in.
I may do a guide on whitelists and presales in the future, with some general perspectives and tips on how to improve your chances. It's something I'm still figuring out myself. So until then, I hope the above at least helps you out find some great projects!
Originally published on https://techmoneyculture.com on February 7, 2022