GM

Some of you have a perfect record of opening our emails. One day they will sing songs about you.

Links for the Top 25 drops are HERE.

Why I love NFT auctions (and so should you)

Here’s some feedback I’ve gotten one too many times: 

> You guys should really stop covering all these auctions, there’s no alpha there 

Putting aside the fact that Mint or Skip was never a get-rich-quick newsletter to begin with (tbh I’m not sure what it is), let’s examine this line of thinking. 

The argument goes like this: Auctions provide total price discovery, therefore there are no bargains to be had, no opportunities to find a “winner” since everything is priced in. 

And yet…some of the biggest winners over the past 12 months have come from auctions. 

Study Nodemonkes, Nakamigos, Fellowship, Richard Nadler, Art Blocks, etc. 

Pray tell, how can this be? 

It turns out that NFT mints aren’t as efficient as you might think. 

Consider a few points…

Information doesn’t reach all potential bidders

NFTs still have an incredibly fragmented ecosystem, unlike trad art where Sotheby’s and Christie’s dominate the landscape and every buyer is aware of what’s being auctioned at any given time. 

In contrast, it’s easy for NFT collectors to entirely miss an auction when their timelines are flooded with memecoin shilling and airdrop farming. 

This will eventually change when Mint or Skip achieves world domination and makes sure collectors never miss a drop again, but we’re not there yet (give us one more year). 

You never know who else is buying

NFTs aren’t rocket science – they often go up in value simply because they’re collected by the right people who are willing to shill them.  

But with an auction you never know who all the winners are until after it’s over, so how could you possibly predict the level of hype it’s going to get? 

Outputs aren’t always revealed ahead of time

This is true, especially with generative art auctions like Art Blocks, where there’s no way of perfectly predicting what the final collection will look like. In many cases, the result ends up being better than expected. 

Narratives can shift at any minute

Art appreciation evolves over time, and it’s common for collectors to reevaluate a creator’s work when a new perspective emerges or after seeing momentum in adjacent collections. 

So I think the downsides to auctions are exaggerated, and at the same time, there are many benefits to them: 

1. Fairness – everyone has a shot, even if you can’t afford it you can team up and bid as a group

2. No cringe WLs with people begging for access (they get botted anyway)

3. The artist gets paid more, instead of short-term flippers

4. Higher likelihood of finding the right collectors, because you’re avoiding the get-rich-quick crowd. 

Bottom line 

You don’t need access to insider cabals, you just need taste and conviction (and a free subscription to Mint or Skip, tell your friends). 

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

Mintify Blast Keys

Having noticed a marketplace deficiency for NFTs on the much-hyped, newly launched Blast L2, Mintify stepped up to the task with a platform launch yesterday, accompanied by this upcoming collection of keys.

Much like the Genesis Keys released on mainnet ETH last year, this Blast set enables you to earn XP when trading the fledgling chain’s digital artifacts on Mintify, which you can then exchange for various rewards on the XP Store.

One for BBs (blast believers).

Velum II by Harvey Rayner

While preparing a peculiar Bitcoin drop in chatFUKR (written about here), artist Harvey Rayner is also gearing up for a follow-up to a year-old release with Velum II.

As the successor to Velum I (a generative collection launched with Bright Moments in January 2023), it involves an evolution of the original algorithm, with seemingly more intricate outputs.

Details are lacking, but it looks like a Verse release is in the cards, including an interactive curation process and discounts for collectors of the original.

Not to mention Rayner alluded to the possibility of a third and fourth release to round out a Velum tetralogy (I just learned that word).

ODZR Pass

Bitcoin ordinals are all the rage right now with one marketplace clearly leading the charts, Magic Eden. But we’ve all seen how quickly traders’ allegiances can shift on chains like ETH.

Enter a new challenger with Ordzaar and its upcoming ODZR Pass collection. The platform was co-founded by developer Naqib Noor and started as a marketplace in May of last year, followed by a zero-fee launchpad in July.

We can expect the usual pass benefits of priority access to drops, collaboration opportunities, etc. For now, though, most details are [REDACTED].