Thread by @swombat

NFT Project mints. Either they're hyped, and the floor takes off, people flip, the project lives...or it's dead in the water and not worth looking at.

Right?

No. There's another way. Let's talk about slow mints and why they make waaaaaaaaay more sense for most NFT projects.

👇

First of all, what's the problem with hyped mints?

Well, the biggest thing is: they attract mostly flippers and other short term traders. Those kinds of investors have no loyalty to the project whatsoever. They mint, flip, and on to the next thing.

The frenzy of activity from a hyped mint can make it look like the project is headed for great things, but what actually happens in practice is there's a pump, the project touches some silly price, and then it *always* comes crashing back down to reality.

Often that crash happens post-reveal. The alternative scenario, which is getting more frequent, is that it happens even sooner, and flippers get out a day or more before the reveal.

And what's the project left with at that point?

The hangover of a crashed, hyped mint is that the project is left with a pile of disgruntled, underwater investors who would rather not think about this car crash of a project than bring their passion to it.

Imagine how the ppl who bought Meka for 8E felt about when it crashed.

So let's look at an alternative: the deliberately slow mint.

What does that mean? It means structuring your mint process to guarantee that it can't "mint out in 5s" like hyped projects. It means planning, internally and publicly, for a mint process that will last for months.

Why would you do such thing?

Slow mint brings certain powerful benefits.

First of all, it actively repels short-term flippers. Why is that a good thing? Surely they drive activity, make the market more liquid, etc?

Let's look at the club model to see how they are harmful.

As per my thread about club PFP projects some time ago (

https://twitter.com/swombat/status/1460218482130395138

), the club project will sink or swim based on whether they manage to attract enough "ideal members" initially that the club is worth joining after mint. That's the pink area in that graph.

If the minting dynamic actively repels flippers, and takes more time, then it is likely that it will attract more of those ideal members. So the proportion will shift to have more pink and less yellow.

Those pink members are what makes the club succeed.

https://twitter.com/swombat/status/1460218819306303492

So actively repelling flippers and giving ideal members more time to find the project is a good thing, at least for clubs, and likely for other project types too.

So how do you go about it?

https://twitter.com/swombat/status/1460219080993091588

First of all: if you're going to implement a slow mint, commit to it.

Don't try to do it both ways... "We're ok with a slow mint... but you better mint quick because HYYYYPE"... does not work.

Try to have both => get neither.

Commit to it publicly and actively resist the temptation to hype your own project. Take a more relaxed attitude.

"We will mint out when we mint out. We're committed for the long run either way. Only buy this project if you see the long-term future we see too."

That means that internally you need to not be financially dependent on the mint succeeding for your day to day expenses. If you need the mint to sell out to pay your rent... you can't do a slow mint. (and probably can't do a fast mint either, but that's another matter)

You can and should also actively put in place measures to slow down the mint.

The best example I've seen of this has been @crypto_coven . Back when there weren't many ppl in the Discord, they had a process by which ppl became "first witches" who got access to the pre-sale.

It was pretty chill. Just get to L1, and you become a "first witch". You can then mint 3x in the presale. The presale was open for over a month, and there were way fewer presale spots than the 10k of the project. So it was guaranteed not to sell out during presale. For a month+.

Even during the public sale, they didn't allow first witches to mint again, or anyone to mint more than 3x (other than using multiple wallets). This was consistent with their "we're not in a rush to mint out" mindset.

As a result, @crypto_coven has started its life with a strong core of committed members that bought in when there was no hype.

Then some influencers noticed the project and it minted out overnight. Afaik this was not through any action of the founders.

Some of those later minters were more pump and dump flippers than long term fans, and that was ok, because by then @crypto_coven had enough core members to have a robust culture that would withstand the assault.

By the way, if you enjoy this thread, there's more like it at swombat.io - and I would appreciate if you could retweet this thread rather than just liking the posts, thank you! :-) Maybe it will help more projects do this right.

So now @crypto_coven (disclaimer: I minted 3 during presale and am still holding them) has this core set of fans and the club dynamic will do its thing over the long term, I believe.

That wouldn't have happened with a hyped mint.

By the way, another downside of hyped mints? They are very hard to pull off, especially during a bear market (which we're at). I sit in @Llamaverse_ with other investors and we watch the new mints like a hawk, waiting to see if the mint picks up. If it doesn't, we don't mint.

This minting Mexican standoff is an awful situation for a project to be in. They can't really do much about it, and if it doesn't work, the project will be marked as a failure from the get go, and is unlikely to get another shot at the hype machine.

So, back to slow mints:
- they repel flippers
- they give more time to ideal members to find the project
- they help the culture of the project solidify before the masses pour in
- they make the project stronger long term
- they are less risky

So why doesn't everyone do them?

The cynic in me wants to say: because most projects are just trying to make a quick buck and dgaf about long-term sustainability. But I think that's unfair. I think a lot of projects are copying the hyped mint because it gets a lot of attention.

TL;DR: Unless you are *really good* at managing the hype *AND* lucky, a hyped mint will probably leave you with a failed project.

Even if you get it right, it will leave you with a project full of disgruntled investors in the red.

If your project is long term, try slow mints.

Oh I almost forgot:

gm & gl :-)