Thread by @ColonyChaos

The first 7 weeks. I learned a lot about #cnfts this last weeks. #cnftcreator

First, I had no idea where to price my pieces, and I must say, the collectible space, and 10k avatar MLM ponzi, albeit fun, created unrealistic pricing expectations for me.
I got incredibly lucky day1

with @JorgePascoal18 immediately pouncing multiple pieces without question of which platform I was selling it on. It turns out he's a frequent collector of pieces and loves supporting local artists.

The question came out - where to buy, what marketplaces are good etc.

I was minting, and still am, with the great team at @nftmakerio. In the beginning this caused quite a bit of frustration, in terms of understanding how everything works and clicks together. My biggest regret was setting a 2.5% royalty initially, which means, if I need to

change this, I'll probably need to switch policy IDs - I mean, it's inevitable as it closes somewhere in 2023 anyway - I just wanted something tangible I could test and run and work with. The team at NFT Maker Pro have been indefatigable in their answer of questions and also at

swatting all of the bug reports I made about the interface vs API, empty metadata mint fixes etc. They're always responsive, and multiple times the fixes were same day, and the team is appreciative of feedback. I cannot wait for their DEX to launch.

So, on to marketplaces...

As someone that loves working technology, tokhun.io had immediate appeal, as it just worked.

I discovered beta.pergamon.app two weeks later, and found it mindblowing that you can have accountless (wallet based) on-chain stored...

auctions. I'm still frequently using the platform, and I've had some collectors use the platform. I wish a lot of success to it, and it's friendly creator @kiriakosKappa.

I learned that 2nd price auctions are good to range a price fast, a good idea for collectors, and what I

appreciate as well, was that I could focus on my art, and just mint pieces there as I was done.

Which brings me to #whentomint #CNFTs

For a 1on1 artist, there's a real ground cost to minting a piece. Getting the piece minted, and on a marketplace like tokhun or auctionhouse

like Pergamon's Agora, costs approx 4.5 ADA and then another 2-6 ADA for transfer, transaction costs, and smart contract costs.

So most pieces, for me, at least, has a base cost of 1) my time and effort and cost of pens and materials and 2) 10 ADA.

Of course I wanted to minimise the risk of a piece being minted, but unsold, and this is why I tried the pricelist option (direct wallet pay in - via an @nftmakerio wallet). This just works, sometimes. People seem to like platforms, and just posting a wallet address doesn't

necessarily bring eyeballs, or window shopping buyers/new collectors. I had some success nonetheless, and sold some direct pieces merely from showing my art.

The abomination: next, I tried give aways. A couple of bigger artists, seem to be against this. I decided I'm here to try things, and reached out to some people that resonated with my message i.e. I donate 10% of sales (not profits) to maps.org

They support psychedelic studies in scientific environments and does this in a more structured way than Timothy Leary that created chaos colonies and fast closure of doors on the scientific exploration front, at least to a certain extent. No judgement here, he was a legend.

Oh, I was going on about give aways. So @psyadapool resonated with me, and we discussed some potential options for a piece that would match our shared interests. We ran this for a week or so, prior to a drop I organised with 10 pieces, my followers skyrocketed.

Correlation problems aside, I appreciate that we might have like-minded audience resonance. And I see that as a big success.

Prior to that though, I ran a straight up give away, and this, in my opinion was messy, I had a ton of accounts, which I only say later, that was merely run by people participating in give aways. From my perspective here, you gain traction (follows), but not real interest.

This is empty numbering, number go up, these accounts have limited interaction with either the artist, or the art, or the community, and typically on their profiles, it's a scroll of only give aways. What I've learned from this is that there's massive economic dissimilarity in

the world (this was obvious before), but that I want eyeballs that are interested in my pixel messages. Not individuals looking for a quick buck, for whatever their personal histories and reasons.

The shitty side of NFTs - marketers start spamming, discord pressure mounts, you get pulled into the void of social.

Spammers approach and circle your posts, both good morning posts, and anything mentioning an actual wallet name. Hard lessons, you DO NOT want to expose your

collectors to people suggesting they support multiple #cardano wallets via some dodgy as fuck google forms, support page. Lesson learned. Wallet names are taboo, or spaced (to counter searchability). The hope is here that people are 1) already staking, and 2) not via an exchange

wallet.

Ok, the coffee really kicked in. I've lost count of the number of posts. So, the shitty side, let's flip that.

I've had an INCREDIBLE amount of inspiration from artists, I lost complete nights to the opposite of doomscrolling. SO MUCH NFT ART,NFT ART,NFT ART,NFT ART.

Sleep is important, on Wednesday, I removed Twitter from my phone, and got back to just pure pieces, and digitising some pieces from the archive.

https://twitter.com/ColonyChaos/status/1464220644690829318?s=20

I'm still twitching, from that requirement for a quickscroll, a quick dopamine hit, a quick piece of

distracting inspiration, but no, I'll contain my time, and engage with artists and how their art affects me, that's where you build community, that's where you make friends. For the forseeable future, I'll keep digitising

https://twitter.com/ColonyChaos/status/1463966002815905801?s=20

and ...

potentially waiting for @ArtifctApp to launch, for a larger series that I'm planning to launch. They seem to focus on the user experience, and I like visually what they've done up to now.

I've met some great #CNFTCommunity members along the way.

@Poetonic_Art was a fellow auctioneer on beta.pergamon.app and approachable about #cnft topics

Tweet limit - no more plus button. Please share with #cnftcreators you think might find this useful.

ah, I can keep going.

From @ilham_nft and @AirgoneFr's interaction I learned to find "drop your NFT" superthreads. They area relentless on these, yet also directly support other's art.

And, leading up to Wednesday, I did this a lot of mornings and evenings before sleep.

I've learnt that most 1on1 artists are super approachable and DM questions about process or method are not only welcomed but also actively engaged with. I'm a full on @CederKing fanboy that considered selling my car to buy a polyfractal. Approachable creators create community.

This is what I'm staying for. The NFT community is much larger than the #CNFTCommunity and what I like as that we're pixel maxis, community maxis, a truer, chain agnostic decentralisation.

Thanks for all the support and chats so far everyone.

Ah Discord - I somehow got the feeling from some initial collectors, that Discord is a big thing, but learned, that DM twitter is enough, at least for my use case. I've met some artists that have community managers and Discord traction people, and at this stage, I don't see it.🧐

At least, not for myself.

I've been asked about utility, and gaming, and roadmaps etc. I am not creating securities here (things you can profit from, in the expectation of the work of others).

I'm a fan of all innovation in the space, yet the shear amount of speculation

will FOMO a lot of people into large multi-level marketing avatar ponzi-esque schemes of loss. Already some largely generative projects are run as hype based factories, and on the upside, I'm glad #cardano can just tweak some parameters, and accomodate this. However, people that

don't pull rares, sell sub-mint collectibles, and sweepers find their prey. I guess game like economics, to those that subscribe to it. As long as you're having fun, and not putting in more than you're willing to gamble.

I'm excited about the technology, and launched some subfile NFT items, that was fun. I like shipping some planning sketches with the original. @SpectrumPool spoiler alerted this :) I know I know, once minted, things aren't really a secret anymore.

https://twitter.com/SpectrumPool/status/1461713220469772303?s=20

But I liked the approach, and I will most likely drop more subfile surprises to future collectors. The secret part could probably be better handled, if direct wallet minting processes are done.

Last week I tried a multi-asset auction on @pergamon_app

https://twitter.com/SpectrumPool/status/1461448812854132739?s=20

That was fun. I think there is a lot of room for growth on Pergamon, looking forward to seeing it gain more traction, and functionality.

Ok, tretar time, I'll be BACH, oh wait, not a classical musician. badumtsssssss.

@threadreaderapp unroll

For those that disagree with the above statements about it being pure speculation and ponzi, I'll just leave this here. A screenshot from my least favourite marketplace.