We have adopted a minting approach for our Time Machine Collection at a very early stage of the project and we decided the share our thoughts behind it, and why we think how this approach can benefit both the project and the investors.

DISCLAIMER: This is not the approach we would recommend for all projects.

Time Machine Collection

The Time Machine collection is an NFT collection with 4000 supply and 3 different tiers, 300 Gold, 1000 Silver and 2700 Black. A Time Machine is revealed instantly after the mint and its quality is deterministic based on when the token is minted: The first 300 being Gold, the next 1000 being Silver and the last 2700 being Black. Higher tier Time Machines are deterministically better than lower tier Time Machines.

Minting Phases

We are expecting these 6 phases during the mint:

1. Gold Time Machines are minting
2. Gold Time Machines are sold out, Silver Time Machines not selling yet
3. Silver Time Machines are minting
4. Silver Time Machines are sold out, Black Time Machines not selling yet
5. Black Time Machines are minting
6. Black Time Machines are sold out

We decided to start the minting process before we think we have the demand to sell out the whole collection instantly, or in other words get through all 6 phases instantly.

For the minting to move from one phase to the next one, there has to be more demand. For example, from phase 3 to phase 4, we need to create demand for people to mint Silver Time Machines. From phase 4 to phase 5, we need to create demand to drive up the prices of the Silver/Gold Time Machines so that Black Time Machine can be worth the mint price.

How We Think This Approach Benefits Investors

• Given that the mint process starts at an early stage of the project, investors can enter the project with investment early before the project has reached the demand to sell out the whole collection. This gives early investors more rewards, compared to the scenario where early supporters and later supports get to mint at the same time and are rewarded the same.
• When the project creates more demand and moves from one phase to another, the value of the NFTs they hold are guaranteed to increase. We remove the factors (e.g. the unrevealing process) that may affect the holders negatively.
• The project using this approach will only be rewarded with the amount of minting revenues proportional to the demand or the progress of the project, which gives the project more motivation to execute on the roadmap and to create the promised utilities. If a project has to launch/mint at a stage with higher demand, then the team has to spend more time on the marketing, and sometimes only spend time on marketing before they execute on the promised roadmap/utilities.

How We Think This Approach Benefits Projects

• When investors are minting the Time Machines, they are making more conscious investment decisions and less about hoping to get a high value trait by chance. This would allow the project to acquire more investors who actually invest in the future growth of the project and less investors with gambling motivations.
• As the minting process starts at an early stage, the demand and the supply would both be relatively low and the floor price would be relatively stable. And the fact that the project has more longer term investors is another reason that would keep the floor price more stable.

The Disadvantages and Potential Improvements

There are definitely disadvantages of this approach:

1. As the minting process starts at an early stage of the project, the minting price likely has to be affordable to attract early investors. If the minting price keeps the same for the whole collection, then the project may not receive enough investment or reward. Potentially, the minting price can increase with the token number (assuming higher token numbers are minted later) so that the project can be rewarded more at later stage. Alternatively, the team can hold a considerable amount of the tokens so that they can be rewarded with the token value growth as well.
2. This may not be suitable for projects that require a large amount of attention simultaneously to succeed given that the mint starts early without a lot of attention.

Conclusion

We are sharing our thoughts and opinions, hoping to benefit the whole Web3 community. We firmly believe that the Web3 community growing rapidly, is a result of lots of people actively adopting new approaches and the whole Web3 community learn from them.

If you enjoy reading and think it helps in any way, please shoot us a message and that can mean a lot to us!