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Welcome to the 13 people who joined yesterday.

Breaking news: we're introducing a new segment called Hot Takes.

So send us your spiciest NFT opinions. We'll pick a few and respond in a newsletter soon.

In today’s edition:

• Please don't buy these

• We updated our rankings – a lot

• Plus, new drops we found

More info on Mint/Watch lists HERE.

Please don't buy these

There’s a Nietzsche line you may have heard of that goes:

People wrongly assume the quote is about confronting some darkness within ourselves, but scholars show he’s more likely referring to NFTs between 2021-2023.

I’m speaking from experience.

You see, every morning we serve you a hot plate of upcoming NFTs that we find interesting, innovative, entertaining – an assortment of digital artifacts that make us feel a certain kind of way.

But what doesn’t get shown, what stays in the kitchen bin, are all the ghoulish drops that make up the Skip pile.

For every NFT that gets highlighted, there are 100 others that we reject unceremoniously.

This includes everything from your garden variety ponzi, to your low-effort celeb cash grab, to the 519th Milady derivative, and everything in between.

This hidden world of Awful NFTs can break a man – we’ve had interns quit after mere hours of peeking into this hellish underbelly, choosing instead to travel the world as a vagabond seeking inner peace. This stuff has literally ended marriages (ok that hasn’t happened, yet).

We love it here though. Today I want to share a bit about what we’ve learned over the course of reviewing thousands of drops. Specifically, those features that most shitty drops tend to have in common.

So without further ado, here’s a list of common red flags:

Having no team pages or socials

The team is by far the most important factor we consider with any new drop. So nothing makes us run faster than checking out a project’s website and realizing that they don’t even have a team page.

Or, in some cases, they’ll have a team section but the founder profiles all have pseudonyms and don’t link anywhere, like this one.

You can safely assume that 99/100 of these will be straight-up rugs from Fiverr factories still trying to trick a few degens at the margins. Stay away.

When the art looks like this

“Art is all subjective bro, beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Yeah, not too sure about that.

Look, anyone who was around in 2021 fell for 1 or 2 of these Fiverr collections. We won’t hold that against you, it was a different time and you were young and stupid.

But it’s 2023, buying one now is akin to falling for Nigerian Prince chain mail. You know better.

When they’re a celeb that found out about NFTs 3 hours ago

AKA the Soulja Boy rule.

When they show up on pay-to-play rarity sites

Some of these were respected websites during the early NFT boom, but, I’m sorry, what happened to them? It’s clear they’re now surviving solely by cutting deals with F-tier projects to get them on their upcoming calendar list.

The end result is a Who’s Who of mints you wouldn’t wish upon your enemies.

Socials are sus

Some things you just hate to see:

1. No shared followers

2. Unrealistically high follower counts

3. Obvious botted replies and retweets

Pro-tip: use twitter blue checks as a preliminary filter for bots. It’s not perfect, but if you see 300 quote retweets and literally 100% of them are from accounts without blue checks then it starts to feel fishy.

By the way – we’re still in the stage where it’s fairly easy to eyeball bots. But that won’t always be reliable, maybe not even a few months from now. So expect a game of cat and mouse here.

They don’t understand supply and demand

Nothing kills a project, even good ones, faster than ridiculous supply or price demands.

I know it’s hard to compute a Fair Market Value for your 3D Cryptodickbutt derivative, but founders really have to stay on top of current market conditions to make sure they don’t wildly overestimate pricing.

Greed is the root of all evil, and all hidden folders too.

Keyword salads

The average NFT founder thinks that if they can’t answer the “Why” or “How” for their project, they should just lean on any of the web3 keywords du jour.

In 2021 this meant every PFP promising to buy land in barren metaverses like Decentraland or Sandbox. Today this also includes tokens, staking, airdrop claims, and Bitcoin expansions.

Partnering with Guns-For-Hire

There are websites, giveaway accounts, and degen threadbois known for shilling trash projects in exchange for WLs. I won’t name any names, but you’ll know them when you see them.

I get that it’s tough to get attention on your drop, but partnering with this crew might be even worse.

And if you can’t find any buyers without them then you should be asking yourself some deeper questions.

—

There you have it. A sample of red flags picked up over the years.

Now heed my warning: do not bring shame upon your ancestors by burning money on shitty NFTs.

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

Buttons by Jan Robert Leegte

Dutch artist Jan Robert Leegte, whose work dates back to the 90s, is releasing his next collection, Buttons, with Verse.

The 256-piece collection is selling through a 5-day ranked auction that started today at 1 PM EDT.

If you enjoyed Leegte’s previous Art Blocks releases, such as JPEG, then this one might be for you.

Starbucks Odyssey Airdrop Stamp

Starbucks recently announced their next NFT as part of their Odyssey program.

They’re going to airdrop the limited-edition stamp NFTs exclusively to people who hold at least one stamp from the existing collection and have completed at least 2 in-app “Journeys” or missions.

Visit their website for details. Only available to U.S. residents.

✨ Added to Watch List ✨

THE MINT LIST

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

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

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

4. 10KTF PFP. Drop from a team that includes Yuga and Beeple.

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

6. Dimensionals - EVE. Free gaming PFP from doxxed studio.

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

8. Escape by Iskra Velitchkova. Tonic drop from popular gen artist.

9. 6529 Meme Card by Jack Butcher. Two big NFT names team up.

10. Glacier Dreams by Refik Anadol. AI art from the MoMA exhibitor.