GM

Welcome to Mint or Skip – if this hit your inbox today it means you survived this week’s Thanos Snap (more on this later).

Today’s Edition

• Changes to the way our WL works

• HUGE update for Reddit avatars

• Our updated NFT rankings

More info on the Mint/Watch lists here. 

WE WERE ATTACKED BY BOTS

I sent this question to chatgpt this morning, and here’s what I got:

I respectfully disagree.

Want to know the actual fastest way to ruin a party? Just announce that you’re launching an NFT, or worse, an NFT with an active WL.

We learned this firsthand after our subscriber base 5x’d in the 24hrs after announcing our NFT and referral program on Monday.

No, the world didn’t suddenly wake up to our eloquent writings about sacred JPEGs. The vast majority of these new subscribers, as you might expect, were bots.

It’s weird seeing “alpha” about your NFT spread in real-time. First, I saw our announcement pop up in several alpha chats, even ones I’m personally in.

Then it showed up in Twitter DM’s from people seeking WL allocations for their communities

And finally, all the bot farms turned their attention to us like the eye of Sauron - and the hordes followed.

So obviously we need a quick fix. We can’t have all these bots taking the WL and premium NFTs.

The problem is, there isn’t a perfect way to separate bots from real accounts.

Bots are clever. Many use real-looking email addresses and can even accept a double opt-in email and show realistic open rates.

But we do know one thing. The vast majority of our subscribers before the March 20 announcement are likely to be actual readers, they were here before we were cool.

So when we start counting all the referrals for the WL and premium NFT, we’re going to give them preferred status.

Here’s how it’ll work:

Likewise, preference for the 100 free NFTs will go to pre-march 20 subs who reach 20 referrals.

Any leftover NFTs will go to post-March 20 subs that hit 20 referrals, in the order that they reached this tier. Make sense?

“What are my chances if I subscribed after March 20?” 

Still pretty good, we think.

We had about 5k subs prior to March 20, so it wasn’t a huge group to begin with. And only a small percentage of these readers will take the effort to hit 5 referrals, let alone 20.

Last thing: We deleted a bunch of new subscribers that obviously resembled bots.

No one wants to Thanos Snap their own email list, but we had to. Otherwise our open rate would tank, which could affect our inbox health score with overlords like Gmail.

If you got accidentally deleted in the process don’t worry you can re-sub at any point for free. Sorry for the bumpy ride.

In conclusion:

• OG humans: you get VIP access to the WL

• New humans: welcome to the fam, you can still get WL

• New bots: GTFO

HUGE UPDATE ON REDDIT AVATARS

Context

We got two mega-updates from Reddit this week:

First update: Several artists this week claimed to be working on NFT avatars for Reddit’s Gen 3 series.

In total 37 artists have been confirmed, making it the largest series to date.

No word on a mint date yet, BUT there will be a Twitter space on March 28 where artists will be “revealing some alpha about Gen 3”.

Best guess: we’re most likely looking at an April launch.

Second update: Reddit’s CEO announced that they’re building an NFT marketplace where people will be able to “create and sell” avatars in-app.

Our Take

Reddit is the most underrated story in NFTs today.

Let’s recap what Reddit has built in less than 12 months:

• $100M NFT market cap (makes it a top 20 pfp)

• 8M wallets (vs 2.6m for ALL of opensea)

• 2M wallets with multiple avatars

• Artists have been paid +$1M

That’s huge – it’s easily the biggest NFT ecosystem in terms of actual humans.

And yet - Reddit still flies under the radar. The amount of attention Reddit gets from NFT collectors doesn’t come close to what you’ll see for typical “blue chip” PFPs like Azuki, Bored Apes, DeGods or Moonbirds.

Why are people fading it?

A couple of reasons come to mind.

No “utility”.

Reddit avatars are just…avatars. No fancy tokenomics, no airdrops, no staking – it’s missing all the usual sugary toppings that degens are used to seeing.

That doesn’t mean people don’t get value out of them. Collectors who buy avatars like to actually show them off on Reddit itself, similar to how Fortnite players get enjoyment from showing off their own in-game avatars.

But this is a form of utility that 2021-2022 NFT collectors don’t quite appreciate.

Low secondary volume.

“Sure millions of people are minting Reddit avatars, but no one actually trades them.”

This one is true, secondary market liquidity is very low with only $14M in lifetime volume.

But this is going to change with Reddit’s marketplace.

To illustrate, let me show you what it takes to:

Mint a Reddit avatar

Trade a Reddit avatar

How to Mint a Reddit Avatar

1. Set up an in-app wallet

2. Select the avatar in the reddit shop

Done. Everything happens in-app and is 100% newbie friendly.

How to sell/ trade a Reddit avatar

1. Download metamask

2. Import your reddit wallet

3. Set up an Opensea profile

4. Buy WETH and MATIC on polygon

5. Purchase an avatar through OS

Wait what? The learning curve here is insane compared to minting.

But it gets worse.

This is what the reddit shop looks like right now:

Notice something? Every single avatar is SOLD OUT.

It's been like this for months.

This means the ONLY way to get a premium avatar is to go through the steps I just laid out.

Oh you saw a cool looking cone avatar on reddit and now you want one too?

Better clear your schedule to learn about crypto wallets, the polygon network, token exchanges, OS bidding, all in one go.

No wonder people aren’t bothering to trade these. Here’s a common reaction to learning what it takes to sell an avatar:

Reddit’s NFT marketplace would make trading 100x easier.

Now, there is some debate whether this first version will have p2p trading.

I personally think so based on the CEO's statement that the marketplace will let people:

But I can see diff interpretations — watch for yourself and let me know what you think.

Assuming we get in-app trading, I would expect:

1. Gen 1-3 avatar demand increasing

2. Sub-reddits launching PFPs and some doing really well

3. Creators making millions selling custom avatars

Bottom line:

We’re bullish on Gen 3 avatars with or without a marketplace (they’ll probably sell out in minutes).

And there’s no denying that in-app trading would transform Reddit into the most obvious path to mainstream adoption for NFTs today.

SHARE US WITH FRIENDS AND GET REWARDS

THE MINT LIST

Coming Soon: deep dives on www.mintorskip.com.

1. Project Animus. RTFKT's biggest launch since Clone-x.

2. FewoWorld. New PFP by Fewocious, a rising star in the art world.

3. Ether. Anime PFP collection by viii, an artist with a cult following.

4. Reddit Series 3. Third NFT drop from the massive social site.

5. Moonbirds Mythics. The fourth collection in the Proof ecosystem.

6. Symbiogenesis. Square Enix's upcoming gaming NFT.

7. Iron Paw Gang. The latest drop from Random Character Collective.

8. Fellowship Show 1. Curated collection from Rope Rainisto.

9. Garbage Friends. New PFP from the creator of Invisible Friends.

10. Spirit Key Avatars. Customizable PFP collection from DenDekaDen.