I have been able to achieve satisfactory results as an NFT investor thanks to my participation in ICL (Ikehaya Crypto Currency Lab), so today I would like to talk about the appeal of ICL.

Disclaimer: I was appointed as a communication manager in ICL in Jan. 2023.

The alpha group communities are important to expand market size in the NFT space. Within alpha groups, information about various NFT projects is shared and investors make decisions and trades based on it.

However, due to the small size of the Japanese market and lagging behind compared to other countries, until recently there was no community in Japan that could be called an NFT alpha group.

In 2022, the Japanese NFT market has grown significantly: large projects such as CNP (Crypto Ninja Partners), which consistently appear in OpenSea's rankings, have emerged from Japan.

In response to this trend, Ikehaya, the founder of NinjaDAO, one of the largest NFT communities in Japan, and the marketing manager of CNP, the largest NFT project in Japan, decided to open an NFT alpha channel in his ICL (Ikehaya Virtual Currency Lab), where DeFi and blockchain games had been mainly shared until then.

ICL (Ikehaya Crypto Currency Lab) - The Largest NFT Alpha Group in Japan

In 2021, Ikehaya established the ICL (Ikehaya Crypto Currency Lab) for its members to learn and share about DeFi and blockchain games. When I joined the company in December 2021, ICL was a community dedicated to DeFi and blockchain games.

In ICL, questions like beginners are prohibited (for security reasons), and I remember being very nervous when I first asked a question.

Back then, there was only one channel about NFT, but now ICL is a community for NFT investors. A lot has changed. The exchange of information about DeFi continues, but most of the new posts are about NFTs.

After the change in direction to NFT, ICL has grown rapidly, and every time Ikehaya or Shuhei mentions ICL on podcasts or Twitter, the number of members increases at a tremendous rate every day.

Currently, there are approximately 3,100 members, and a lively exchange of information is taking place.

The NFT-related channels that any member of ICL can access are the Japanese NFT Channel, the non-Japanese NFT Channel and several individual NFT Project Channels.

Individual NFT Project Channels allow project founders and investors to communicate more intensively than they would on their personal servers.

*Please note that even though there is an English chat channel in ICL, but it is a community that communicates in Japanese.

The Founder of ICL: Ikehaya

Ikehaya is a Japanese influencer who has over 350,000 Twitter followers.

He is known as the founder of NinjaDAO and the main marketer of the CryptoNinja Partners (CNP) project, the largest NFT community in Japan with over 65,000 members.CNP is the #1 NFT project in Japan.

He is a cryptocurrency enthusiast and has extensive knowledge in DeFi, blockchain games. And he is very familiar with marketing and investing in NFT. He also owns CryptoPunks and BAYC.

The benefits of ICL

The rich of NFT collectors in the alpha channel

In addition to the above-mentioned channels, there are two "alpha channels" that are accessed only by certain NFT holders: alpha-Diamond and alpha-Standard.

The criteria for joining each are as follows.

[α-Diamond]
・CryptoNinja NFT
・CryptoNinja Partners (10 or more)

[α-Standard]Those who hold 1 or more NFTs from each of the following collections (The BIG-3 in Japanese NFT market):

・CryptoNinja Partners
・Aopanda Party
・Live Like A Cat

Notes : Alpha Channel is ICL’s own service and has nothing to do with the operation of the above-mentioned and target NFT collections.
The target collection and possession conditions may be changed without notice.

Alpha-Diamond has about 300 and Alpha-Standard has about 1,000 members.

Some of the richest people bought over 200 CNPs on the secondary market. some had a budget of over 10 ETH in their wallets before the LLAC sale. That's a lot of money!

Allowlist distribution of good projects

ICL is a community where members can share information about NFT and DeFi and support each other.

While this is a great attraction in itself, assigning AL/WL is another attraction for its members.

Below is just part of examples of ALs that have been allocated through raffles in the past.

All of them have a low initial price, but they are all leading NFT programs in Japan!

[Examples of past AL distributions]
*Some of them are distributed only for alpha members

・CNP（0.001ETH）
・CNPJ（0.001ETH）
・WAFUKU GEN（0.001ETH）
・Tokyo Alternative Girls（0.002ETH）
・KAMIYO -神代- （0.001ETH）
・NounishCNP（0.003ETH）
・めたばっち Metabatch（0.001ETH）
・SKB — ShikibuWorld（0.001ETH）
・Live Like A Cat（0.001ETH）
・YogaPetz

Members with alpha-standard roles will be granted the AL of XANA PENPENZ.  
(This information is available as of January 16, 2023. It may end without notice).

Please note that this information has been tweeted by founder ikehaya and is included in this article, but public information within ICL is normally prohibited.

NFT [HOUOU - Phoenix] for members will be distributed

The attraction of ICL is not only in the AL distribution (lottery) of other programs.

They plan to distribute the Full-on-chain NFT [HOUOU - Phoenix] for free to ICL members around spring/summer 2023.

This is an NFT that is positioned as a member badge, but we are sticking to the details of it and developing it.

HOUOU is pixel art, but they are also considering a mechanism to evolve it from egg to chick to adult bird!

The art was created byもなこ元二段and the engineer isむなかた san, the team is so extravagant you'll want one for that!

Focusing on Overseas Expansion

At this time, the majority of ICL's members are Japanese, and most channels exchange information in Japanese.

However, the number of members from outside of Japan is increasing day by day.

ICL has just recently appointed me as the English-speaking Community Manager. This means that ICL is looking to expand overseas.

ICL is currently the largest NFT Alpha Group in Japan, and will soon become the largest community in the world.

ICL's Theme - Fostering and Expanding Gachiho (HOLDing) Culture

Some of you who have already joined may have noticed that ICL has actually changed the name of its Discord community to "ICL Gachiho".

Gachiho in Japanese means "HODLing".

In 2023, ICL's theme is "Cultivating and expanding the culture of Gachiho in the domestic NFT market".

One of ICL's missions is to support the Japanese NFT market and increase the number of believers who believe that Gachiho will lead to the growth of NFT projects in Japan.

In fact, the members who have acquired the above mentioned AL, are still in Gachiho and they are earning several ETH in unrealized profits.

Gachiho culture is spreading abroad

Gachiho is a uniquely Japanese culture, but that doesn't mean it's unacceptable abroad.

One of the few projects abroad that promotes Gachiho is memeland, an NFT project run by the so-called meme media 9GAG, which has been a huge success in all three series (Genesis, Captainz and Potatoz).

In January 2023, memeland founders 9gagceo and ICL Ikehaya held an AMA (Ask Me Anything: an open question session) in the Twitter space!

During that conversation, information was also exchanged on the common theme of "gachiho" (HODLing in English). The recording is still available, so please take a listen. (At the time of writing, it has been viewed by a whopping 7,000 people!)

How to Join ICL

So, how can you join such a popular ICL?

It used to be that to join ICL, you had to attend Ikehaya's free DeFi Talk newsletter for a certain amount of time. Now they have widened the doors and more people can join.

The joining fee is JPY 98,000. There are no other fees, such as annual membership fees. You only need to pay once.

JPY 98,000 is too expensive! That's what I thought at first.

But because of the knowledge, information and AL I gained by attending ICL, I feel I have fully repaid the money. (Not just the unrealized profits, but the profits I actually gained).

However, please don't join for profit. ICL is a community for information exchange and socializing. Also, NFT is a risky asset. No one can say that you will always make money.

I would be very happy if more and more people read this article, like and enjoy NFT!

Steps to join ICL

1. Click on the **link for purchase ICL membership **

2. Enter your email address and Discord ID.

Make sure you copy and paste your Discord ID!You can copy and paste your Discord ID from your Discord Profile by clicking on it.

3.Check the content and click 「申込む」。

4. Enter your credit card information and click「支払う」。

5. After confirming your payment, a link to the ICL Discord community will be sent to the email address you entered, you can join from there, and you're done!

I hope this article and ICL will make your NFT life more enjoyable. thank you very much.

You can join ICL from the ink below!

Please note that this article relates to personal experience only and is not investment advice. Any investments or memberships should be made at your own risk and judgment.

Even though there is an English chat channel in ICL, but it is a community that communicates in Japanese.