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I was asked by someone in the Adam Bomb Squad community about how do I make money from NFTs. I am totally the wrong person to ask, I literally lost at least a few years of my life savings on NFTs.
If you check out flips.watch, it shows that I made 10 ETH in profit but that is definitely wrong. Because I have at least another 20 ETH of unrealised losses sitting somewhere in the corners of my wallet.
So if you want to learn how to make money from NFTs, simple, just invert me.
I did not come from a rich family, and I was born with a plastic spoon requiring me to dig myself out of debts.
So here goes, my top 10 fumble and the various reasons. And all of them hurt deep to my soul.
1. FOMO
Firstly, never ever FOMO. FOMO means “fear of missing out”. When prices are very volatile, sometimes you can feel like you are going to miss out on the hype train, like how you have missed out all the others.
So you proceed to buy the top, like I did.
I bought the top of this project called PhantaBear thinking that it is linked to my favourite singer. Guess what.
Only pain ensued. Don’t buy pumps, just don’t.
The pain is worth 5.39 Ξ + 7.023 Ξ = 12.413 Ξ , and that was the time when 1 Ξ was about 4K USD. Ouch.
This other one above is an unrealised loss. RIP 💀.
2. Diamond hands
If you love your project, don’t diamond hands it.
If I sold an NFT world at the peak at 16.57 Ξ, I might have been able to sweep 20 right now. I mean I do love this project a lot. I actually believe the team will BUIDL through this market.
Having some liquidity at hand allows me to buy back the project at regular intervals. Also diamond handing NFTs would mean less royalties for the creators.
I last checked, I still have 5 NFT worlds. RIP 💀
3. Buying “Rares”
Like I said I was born with a plastic spoon. Somehow something got into me to spend good money on “rares”.
This super cool smoke bomb is like a cultural relic in The Hundreds, it literally is on the front page of their coffee table book. This Adam Bomb also has a green badge which earned the owner a green ledger.
But since he is so rare, it also basically means that he is illiquid or “priceless”. The owner will not part with him and the buyer might not be willing to spend stupid money on him.
In short, if you need cash fast, he is worth as much as the floor.
And that is how I lost a good 3.5 Ξ on this dude.
I would not buy rares ever again unless money is free to me.
4. Projects that want to “develop a game”
There was this project Ali and Friends which was a big thing in China, and so I thought the team is in direct contact with the original artist. Gosh, how wrong was I.
The team wanted to create a game. And we all know how labour and time intensive creating games are. From there it was all downhill.
There goes 10.25 Ξ RIP 💀
5. Following “Alpha groups”
As a new entrant to this NFT market, I thought we had to learn from the OGs. So I spent good ETH on this so called “alpha group”.
Everyone there was so hyped on this project Mars Cat Voyage. I did buy at a pretty good price, but as everyone in the “alpha group” was so hyped about it, I decided to keep my position from a gain to a loss.
Seriously, make your own independent decisions on buying and selling. Most alpha groups are trash.
There goes 1.76 Ξ RIP 💀
6. Buying “art”
Wow, look at all this sick art!
Check out my gallery of lost Ξ .
I really love this one, how it tells the history of ethereum community at that point of time. Because I love it so much, I’m never ever gonna sell it. Maybe next time, try to buy at least 2 pieces so you can sell at least one to get your money back.
I call this guy the unicorn. In fact he is also hanging at my work place. I do like it quite a lot, and wouldn’t want to part with it.
This is a blockchain generated zen ring. The zen ring is special to me because it represents balance. A balance of strength and weakness. A balance of form and white space. I totally dig this kind of stuff.
But, if it can’t be sold at your valuation price, then it might as well be worth nothing.
I wouldn’t consider these art blocks losses actually since the recent airdrop of the friendship bracelet more than covers the cost of minting those.
In summary, buy at least 2 pieces. And, buy art, because there are always “connoisseurs” like me that will hoard them for no reason. But only if you have an eye for art, and that you are willing to have heaps of cash sitting around stuck in illiquid “art”.
7. Not listening to friends
I was actually around during the BAYC and MAYC mint. I was actually told repeatedly to buy it. But of course I hated the “low brow” art, and never made the leap.
I learnt the best things come from talking to people one to one, in chats and calls.
In fact I was told by a friend to buy NFT worlds over a voice call, which mooned.
So my mistake in this bear market is switching off from all these activities.
So guys, please get out there, make some connections and friends. Go talk to people! This is seriously the best alpha group and it’s free.
8. Paper hands
So after I got burned so badly. I now suffer from PTSD, and I routinely dump everything that I mint instantly. Sometimes, you have to have patience to wait for things to peak out. I can barely hold this thing for 20mins, gosh. What happened to my attention span?
9. Using centralised exchanges
This one is getting boring, but yes I did lose some good Ξ on FTX. I was only momentarily using it to bridge my Ξ between chains. Sometimes, you have to lose money to learn things the hard way.
Self custodial wallet is the way to go, if you can understand security, see below.
10. Not following twitter
I’m not a very “social media” guy, and I have loads of “unpopular opinions” as you can see. Even my investment style is often contrarian. So naturally, I would not gravitate towards any form of social media.
But, you totally should. Just by hanging out in a twitter space, you get a sense of the market. By studying the twitter posts and what people are interested in can give you a lot of information on what not to mint or buy.
Bonus: 11. Not learning wallet security properly
This is actually not mine (yet).
This poor guy got attacked by other twitter members when he already lost everything. Come on, give him a break man. What he did was only human and can happen to any of us.
Remember to keep your seed words 100% offline. And nowadays gas is low, it might be a good idea to create new wallets too.
My first gain
And since you had the patience to read all the way till the end. I will share with you what got me into the NFT space.
This cute little guy was the first ever NFT I bought in my life. Back then, I bought it completely for fun, and not expecting to do anything with him.
That was the bear market, when nobody cared about crypto, and NFTs were quite unheard of.
Shortly after that, I remembered VISA bought a super ugly cryptopunk, and the markets went berserk from there. I took quite some profit on these bastard gan punks V2, it totally blew my mind.
And from there, my degen NFT life started.
The biggest lesson to learn for me?
Buy and accumulate good projects in the bear markets, where nobody wants these silly pictures, and buy big into the floor.
I hope you learnt something from reading my sad stories. Remember none of this is financial advice, and NFTs and crypto can go to zero anytime.
And please subscribe to my newsletter to show me a little sympathy. If you sign in with your wallet, you might receive a surprise!
And this time, I will give you some gains, this article is completely free to collect. So any gain is yours to keep. Until next time!