Thread by @sainteclectic

Today this account quietly made it past 5,000 followers! It's a tiny milestone but one that I'm very grateful for, thank you all!🙏

To celebrate I wanted to reflect on this journey and how far we've all come in the NFT space.

For today, a brief history of Solana NFTs.🧵👇

In April I began hearing about Eth NFTs. I was skeptical at the time (especially given how high prices had run) so I decided to look for alternatives on Solana

The first NFT I minted was a @SolariansNFT for the reasonable price of 5◎

I was so excited... then the market crashed

The May crash sucked the air out of cryptoland. People were liquidated and portfolio values halved.

Yet there were stirrings and embers of hope: as the market recovered in July I noticed mentions of a project involving beautifully rendered 3D ape NFTs...

On August 14th @DegenApeAcademy was launched. Demand was overwhelming, servers were overloaded and the launch was delayed

The anticipation was insane with thousands of people hanging on every word of the dev's discord instructions

@monoliff is typing... the stuff of nightmares

The Solana price experienced a strong run up that coincided with DAA's launch. Excitement was high and the hype was real,

Solana's technology and speed establishing itself as a viable blockchain for NFTs and it led to a Sol price re-rate.

But that wasn't the only project...

A few weeks earlier a small team of developers put together a collection of pixel monkeys for 2◎ each. The mint process was manual with buyers having to send ◎ to the team and trust that they'd receive their NFT the next day.

If you kept the faith you were handsomely rewarded with @SolanaMBS's floor now 275@ (138x).

Since then some Monkey holders (@jemmmyjemm @0xCelon and a few others) formed MonkeDAO with thousands of monkey holders building a tight-knit community and sharing alpha on a daily basis.

In case you missed it the sale of the #1 monkey last week for 13,027◎ (US$2m and a 6513x return) set tongues wagging and eyes peering at the Sol blockchain.

Not bad for a project where for 24 hours after sending their ◎ people thought they got rugged...

Then there was @thugbirdz. A collection of 3333 tough, collectible birds. They too had a difficult launch (see thread) but have since rewarded holders with a 33-100x return (1◎-3◎ mint price) thanks to the community-first approach of founder @0x_thug.

@SollamasNFT launched around this time for 3◎ and again ran into problems with its mint: some accounts were sent extra llamas, some receiving less.

In the week that followed these cute llamas saw themselves put to the sword and replaced by gravestones, RIP⚰️

@AuroryProject launched and also had issues. With incredible backing and beautiful art demand for the project was HUGE. Many who clicked missed out while others managed to mint for 1◎

The experience was inconsistent at best which was the norm at the time for Solana NFT launches

Perhaps more unfortunate were those that clicked scam links in the discord chat that wasn't slowed and had their wallets cleaned out.

Many lessons were learned that day.

But since then Aurory done well, recently announcing a TSM FTX partnership.

So what do all these first wave of NFT projects have in common?

All of them had failures of some kind.

All of them launched at a time where the NFT infrastructure was still being built out. No blueprint. No candy machine mint. But they still succeeded.

We are still early.

Since then @redacted_j and @baalazamon's work has led to the Solana 'candy machine' code which enables smooth mints and set the stage for great projects such as @galacticgeckosg @SolsteadsNFT among many others

All this born from the fire of early lessons

(Don't @ me, I know there are many other great projects out there that have launched well and developed strong communities but I can't possibly fit all in a 280-char tweet)

Of course there have been other low points:
- @TheBearGangNFT launching a 10◎ 2nd mint and offending its entire community
- Cash grab launches @PunksOnSolana & @BoldBadgers
- Fake projects @Solanapes @Sol_blocks manufacturing outrage (see thread)

And who could forget the less than stellar behavior of early mover @SolanartNFT? (shout out to @MilstGuga @hoaktrades @MattSolana @secretPANDA007 for helping to unravel the threads).

A personal highlight for me was having my last Sol NFT update thread quote tweeted by @aeyakovenko.

When I excitedly shared this with my friend he said he knew how I felt b/c @VitalikButerin once quote tweeted his.

Looks like NFTs aren't the only flex😅

Ultimately for me - and I hope you too - this journey has been a very rewarding one.

By simply engaging in NFTs most of us have learned so much and now taken up side professions as speculators, dealers of fine art 🧐🎩 and also anthropologists studying communities.

In the last two months I've met many like-minded people and made countless friends that I'm so excited to engage with on a daily basis.

5,000 followers, wow!

This is a huge thank you to you all for reading and for your friendship :)

Current mood? Gratitude. 🙏

Thanks to all the members of @DegenDao, @MonkeDAO, @thugDAO @jemmmyjemm @0xCelon @MilstGuga @CryptoMagellan @0x1dad @vladtoni @0x_thug @CamTuff_ @degen7777 @SollyTheSolApe @degen_inc @DegenArmstrong @DigitalxMisfits @SolanaLegend @derellnft @C0inMatrix and many more!

@EndoNFT @C0inMatrix @RealCryptotem @munkionpluto @blocmatesdotcom @McManager
@Kartoffel @thugbirdz @pablocorrea @blokculture
@gmoneyNFT @BoardApes @jmt_nft @kidfromcruces @jakeudell @TheDeadstockOG @boredgentleman @CapetainTrippy