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Bumped into someone who knew me yesterday and they posted this today. This was fun I love meeting readers!

In today’s edition:

• Why I’m still here

• New Top 25

• 4 fresh drops

Links for the Top 25 drops are HERE.

Did you know?

We have a premium pass that gives you access to a directory of every drop we cover, complete with detailed information on how to get on every whitelist (including those underrated ones that aren’t already full).

And for those curatooors out there, you can get free NFTs just by finding drops that end up on the Mint or Watch list.

Lastly, hang with me and the MoS team in a private discord with weekly voice chats. The vibes are great.

Would you like to be featured in Mint or Skip like the above ☝️ ?

Why I’m still here

We got our weekly NFTs are Dead article this morning.

This time it comes from Rolling Stone:

Notice how they seem to be gleefully celebrating the situation.

Ironic given that they sold their own six-figure NFT drop just a year ago with BAYC, who they now seem to refer to in this article as ugly cartoon apes – but I digress.

Of course, no one in 2023 should care about what Rolling Stone thinks.

But it has been open season on NFTs for a while now, and there’s grave dancing around every corner these days.

And I know, O Dearly Beloved, that this can take a toll.

Virtually everyone in the space has, at some point this year, asked themselves

Should I leave?

Is this a waste of time?

Today I want to help answer those questions for you – with perhaps a contrarian take:

I actually think this might be The Best Time to be paying attention to NFTs.

gasp

Let me explain.

Social Arbitrage 101

You can think of the internet as a big metropolis. You have a downtown, an uptown, a shopping district, the area with great Korean food, the sketchy alleyways, etc.

Each neighborhood is constantly producing its own culture, and trends emerge.

And people make a lot of money by capitalizing on these trends early (before anyone realizes what’s happening).

In most cases, the winners were already living in these neighborhoods – the outsiders are always late.

This is called social arbitrage. It’s investing time or money in a behavioral shift that you see before others.

Some examples:

1. Copying the Mr. Beast formula early on and gaining success

2. Buying Gamestop in 2021 because you saw WSB buzzing

3. Setting up an NPC stream right after seeing Pinkydoll doing ice cream so good

4. Selling a new kids toy because you saw a TikTok go viral with it

The ideal kind of social arbitrage is information that is hidden, has the potential to scale and can be monetized.

TikTok has amazing scale, but it’s not hidden (there were a million NPC streams within days of Pinkydoll going viral).

Some categories are hidden, but won’t really scale (think Yodeling guides, I guess).

And others can’t be monetized by an average person (think trends in space exploration).

But there’s one corner of the internet, currently considered a Forbidden Fruit by many, which hits all three requirements.

The NFT (and web3) opportunity

The biggest social arbitrage in 2023 is being onchain.

Why?

First, there’s almost no competition

We’re down to maybe 20,000-50,000 active participants in NFTs today.

You can fit everyone – traders, builders, influencers, artists etc. – in your average NFL stadium and still have leftover seats.

This means it’s much easier to get into quality projects today that would’ve been impossible to access two years ago.

As someone who still has night terrors from the six-month-long WL grind fests in the days of old, being able to walk up to a project on mint day, take out my wallet, and just buy something…feels amazing.

Then, there are the prices

It’s a buyers’ market. Thanks to the lack of demand, mint prices have had nowhere to go but down.

We’re seeing a trend towards free and cheap NFTs, and collectors are demanding more from anyone who tries to charge a premium.

This is a huge difference from two years ago when even the most uncreative Fiverr projects could ask for thousands of dollars.

And it means you’re able to take more risks on new ideas without breaking the bank.

Finally, there’s the experimentation

A time traveler leaving Earth in June 2021 and teleporting to June 2022 would find a virtually unchanged meta: overhyped 10k roadmap NFTs with mid art and unclear utility.

The amount of money made from PFPs meant creatives had huge opportunity costs for trying anything else, and experimentation suffered.

Today builders and collectors are more open to new experiments, and as a result, the opportunities are more diverse than ever before.

And unlike other platforms, your ability to monetize your intuitions in web3 is unparalleled.

Think this one weird narrative has legs? You can make a move immediately.

Bottom line

The benefit of sticking around is that you get first dibs on new narratives.

friend.tech is a great example. This is an app that came out of nowhere, yet was paying out six figures to some early adopters within 30 days.

There will be many such cases in the coming years. And coupled with lower mint costs and lower competition, there’s huge asymmetric upside to simply participating.

Your good friends at Mint or Skip will be here along the way, highlighting narratives that we think are worth paying attention to.

Here’s to the future.

NOTE: These drops are lightly curated. Our only requirement is that they have recognizable founders. As usual, DYOR. To learn more go here.

Ringers #962: The LACMA Iterations by Dmitri Cherniak

Always wanted a Ringer but could never justify spending an SUV’s worth of cash for one? This might be your shot.

Renowned generative artist and creator of $6M geese Dmitri Cherniak teams up with Avant Arte for this print + NFT release featuring a new derivative of his iconic 2021 collection, with proceeds benefitting LACMA.

The deal seems good to me. Just don’t expect to flip an open edition three seconds after minting.

✨ Added to Top 25 ✨

Wallet Wars

High-stakes Space Invaders. That’s it. That’s the tweet.

Wallet Wars is an upcoming Animoca-backed game by BalthazarDAO. Based on the iconic 70’s arcade shooter, players will compete for various prizes including stablecoins, physicals and NFTs.

According to a September 7th Twitter space, there will be two kinds of NFTs in the first mint. One will offer refer-to-earn opportunities, but details are still scant.

Ephemeral Visions: Exploring Transience through Art

Vincent Van Dough’s Art Of This Millenium gallery (a.k.a. AOTM) will soon host a digital art auction centered on the ephemerality of life – a concept your Dear Writer is familiar with, given the average lifespan of my posts.

It will showcase 18 artists that most art enthusiasts should recognize, with various genres to fit many tastes.

TOKYO BEAST – BEAST NFT

A cyberpunk-themed multimedia project that starts with a game set in 2123 Tokyo where robots are everyday companions.

In a recent 1-hour livestream with Polygon, the team explained the game’s staking, gacha, betting and tournament mechanics, which also feature an upcoming $TBZ token. Notably, a ton of mentions to investments, value and profit were made during the stream (please look away Mr. Gensler).

Japanese gaming projects keep gaining ground this year, but this one might be a bit too 2021-flavored for me. More details on Medium.