Thread by @jonboybeats

With the introduction of Crafting, I think Top Shot has now set up the runway for almost every moment to be categorized into one of 5 buckets.

I’ll attempt to do my best at explaining what these are, and how each one has its own distinct value

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1. Moments that are valuable as a Collectible, even w/o additional utility

This is the smallest bucket of the five, and I would assume that over a longterm lens these are the moments that most closely mirror the cardboard market. As such, almost all of these moments have badges

Not every badge will have equal value. If a Bismack Biyombo rookie card doesn’t have value, there’s a good chance his TSD won’t either. However, for the stars and fan favorites, these are popular

This is the bucket I’ve tried to consolidate my account into over the last month

2. Moments that are valuable for Trade Ticket or Collector Score utility

These are the floor commons. And this is a pretty large bucket. As of now, S2 is for CS and S3 is for Trade Tickets. Over the past few weeks we’ve seen the deflationary impacts of Trade Tickets

Based on Roham’s Spaces, it sounds like we will potentially see some more use cases for Trade Tickets over the next few months. Collector Score will ebb and flow, but it will be important and S2s are always going to be the most efficient way to get there

3. Moments that are valuable for the Gamification aspects on TS

I like to think of these as the lowest entry point moments for a multitude of different tiers/categories/sets. As long as @vinylsneverdie keeps spinning that wheel, the low entry moments are going to have value

Some people value them for purposes of completing challenges and other gamification type aspects as a way to generate some passive income/rewards. Others like to speculate and play a little game theory when they win big if certain moments hit. All of it is centered around gaming

4. Moments that are valuable due to the provenance and scarcity associated with NFTs

These are typically going to be the high end legendary moments. Not necessarily differentiated by anything but scarcity. Right now, this bucket of moments is probably taking it the hardest.

Unfortunately, due to some of the hairy decision making in recent months, the average “whale” NFT collector who would value this scarcity has more or less appeared to move on from the platform. There’s other scarce NFT projects with more parabolic upside available

This bucket is going to take the longest to crawl back. Ultimately the double digit mint counts are a positive and if the platform wins out, you expect that these win out too. It’s going to take a lot of organic demand since propping up value on illiquid moments only does so much

5. Moments that are valuable because they provide access to Level Up

I’ll caveat this with saying right now, we know next to nothing about crafting/burning/locking/stacking/whatever. However, there’s a real opportunity for it to provide value to the most risky (IMO) moments

In my opinion, the mid-tier moments are the most risky moments from a long term standpoint, because they don’t stick out.

Where it’s the 7.5k or 9999 base moments or the middle of the pack rares or other commons. Many of these won’t standout when looking back 5 years from now

This is where Crafting comes in! Imagine being able to turn in two Ja Morant MGLEs from S3 to be able to get access to the S4 MGLE. This would appeal to a number of people who would just roll their collections over to the newest version of the moments they love the most

It also helps cut down on the worry that some of these moments would get lost in the shuffle. Maybe it’s not the 2:1 Ja Morant ratio, but instead anyone can turn in five S3 MGLEs and you randomly get one S4 MGLE. Whatever doesn’t get claimed just goes into the next pack drop

This would inherently allow the people to pick the ones they value least from the past, and turn them in for something they value more in the present. There’s plenty more iterations of the crafting I mentioned above, that allow hardcore collectors of players, teams, and sets…

…the ability to use their collections to keep chasing the thing they love to collect. They could view it as free rolling since it’s already sunk cost on the platform, and it would appeal to a lot of people just like buying packs with trade tickets does. Tons of possibilities

Circling back to the somewhat bold statement I made at the beginning, as I’m sure not every single moment falls into one of these buckets.

However, hopefully this thread helps open your eyes to some potential ways to start viewing the different categories on the platform

The more you understand where things in your collection derive value from the better you can leverage situations to improve that value

I’m sure a lot of the things I mentioned are more longterm dynamics, however sometimes it pays to try and think about where this thing is headed