My First NFT Disaster

My First NFT Disaster

My entry into the world of NFTs (just three weeks ago) was shepherded by someone who’s had his fair share of success in this colorful space. Advice from my friend is worth its weight in gold, and it’s always been just a text away. He’s willing to offer insight any time of day – his experience has been a tool I’ve absorbed and tried to emulate.

Today I went rogue. I dismissed every piece of advice and every instinct anyone with even modest success would listen to. I minted three Kepler’s Civil Society NFTs (Kedu’s) only moments after hearing of their existence.

Scrolling Twitter, I saw a tweet from someone I believe to have some credibility in the NFT space mention a minting that commenced in five minutes. Having missed the Hundred’s Adam Bomb minting earlier in the day, I had roughly .24 ETH liquidity in my account and an itch to burn a hole in my digital wallet. A quick look at the webpage, and there was a facade of legitimacy. Cool art, well-articulated roadmap, and a dev team with accessible Twitter accounts.

Time, however, was against me. Instead of taking a deep look into what I was spending my hard-earned money on, I linked my wallet and minted three Kedu’s. It sold out in about a half hour, and the devs announced the reveal was being moved up to as close to instant as possible.

The first NFTs revealed in Discord were met with lackluster response, with some bordering on pure contempt for the artwork on common variants. Switching back and forth from OpenSea to Discord, listings were a race to the bottom, and then the real hits came. Two traits were immediately discovered that sent the Discord into total anarchy.

One trait, called “Adolf” put a small mustache on your Kedu. A second trait of note is another face variant called “Epstein”, in reference to the … never mind, you know who it references. Suddenly, the discussions, turned into a Halo 2 lobby on Xbox 360. Complete and utter chaos, with people arguing whether this was offensive, or if people are too easily offended.

Almost immediately following these reveals and the controversial traits, the floor price hit true rock bottom. I saw several listed for 0 ETH less than two hours after mint. Somewhere between 25-100 were listed for virtually nothing, 0.0009 – 0.001.

Calls for the dev team to speak up were met with responses that they’d gone to bed after a long day’s work. Hopelessness and anger were in more supply than common Kedu’s on the OpenSea market.

“Controversy sells” is a phrase I saw on the discord, but controversy isn’t why I, or many, came here. It reflects a PFP I’d be embarrassed to adorn my social media, and even seeing them in my wallet makes me ashamed to be holding them.

In this whole disaster, I learned basically everything my more experienced friends cautioned me against. But I guess I needed to go through it myself firsthand. It’s my first (probably of many) battle scars in my NFT journey.

Before entering this space, a sense of community was romanticized to me. Since joining I’ve experienced this camaraderie firsthand. What I bought into this Friday was something I never want to be a part of again. It doesn’t matter what your art looks like, or how rare your NFT variant is, if the community is this toxic, it’s dead on arrival.

Edit: The devs announced they would amend “Adolf” and “BLM” into new traits, beginning the process of drawing them immediately since writing this. While they’re busy trying to save the project, and I wish I with them the best, I hope to sell my three holdings and put this project in the past.

Disclaimer: This article is not financial advice. The NFT and Cryptocurrency markets are very volatile. Please don’t invest what you can’t afford to lose. Always do your own research before investing.