Thread by @quirk_bear

10 Uncomfortable Truths About The Jpeg Game You Probably Don't Want To Hear...(But Should)

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1/

🖼TRUTH # 1: We Are *Not* All Gonna Make It

#WAGMI has become a popular meme in this space, but the reality is, it's 100% bullshit. You are playing a zero-sum game.

Act accordingly, or get rekted.

2/ The jpegs are like a modified version of (3,3) which is a bastardization of game theory, designed to provide exit liquidity for those with inside info

Your saving grace here is buying projects w/ strong teams & communities who consistently deliver additional value to holders

3/ Many will buy the wrong ones & ride them to zero. Many will lose their assets to scams, rugs, or lost pks. Many will buy the top, sell the bottom and never come back.

I know lots of people who bought $BTC in Dec 2017 and sold during the bear, never to buy in again.

4/ The best we can do, is educate and support each other as much as possible, while being realistic about:

✅ The game we are playing
✅ Our level of risk tolerance
✅ Our time horizon
✅ Our IRL liquidity needs

5/

🖼TRUTH # 2. That Influencoor Is NOT Your Friend

In fact, they couldn't care less about your bags as long as you play your part in buying theirs.

No matter how much #wagmi, and toxic positivity gets spewn from an influencoor's twitter account, you have to realize -

6/ ...they are NOT here to help you get rich. Most are here to enrich themselves.

And a lot of their money is made by buying into projects early, shilling them to you as "the next X", and then dumping them on your face.

7/

🖼TRUTH # 3: "Utility" Is Still A Meme (For Now)

Forcing fake supply shocks by letting you stake your nft for a useless ponzinomic token, is not real utility.

It's just the new evolution of food farms circa late 2020 on BSC.

https://twitter.com/kmoney_69/status/1514653194105724959

8/ And until someone invents a use-case more valuable than dumping them for eth, farm tokens will keep going to zero.

Breeding mechanisms only work if the new assets being created have value in the eyes of the market.

9/ Without continuous demand, these are worthless too, and most will go to zero along with the ponzu token used to create them.

The state of "p2e" right now is... weird.

10/ No one has yet solved the 2 major problems - which happen to be the most important ones when it comes to "P2E" gaming:

Fun + Sustainability

The only true "utility" I see right now for the jpegs are flex, community, and airdrops.

11/ (Remember this the next time you look at a "v2 Roadmap")

It's ok though - because (as cliché as it is) we really are still early.

And slowly but surely, mechanisms of actual utility are being created.

12/ Resources being built to become the rails for NFT money markets.

@upshothq just raised $22mm to further their NFT pricing models R&D, and expand their analytics offerings.

https://twitter.com/UpshotHQ/status/1514666553899466757

The faster teams move, the closer we get to NFT financialization

13/ Another "real" utility I'm seeing, is Gated Access to things like membership sites, SaaS, IRL events (apefest, veecon, a movie with Tai), but we're still obv nowhere near "mass adoption" with it.

I think most use cases for the actual tech, have not even been invented yet

14/

🖼TRUTH # 4: You're Involved In Too Many Projects

With new projects launching literally every day in this space, it can be tough not to be seduced into buying the next "Shiny Object" climbing the @icy_tools charts

But wait - you're low on liquidity cause you already aped

15/ into the last 5 you saw doing the same.

So you scramble to liquidate some of those (likely at a loss due to low volume), to jump into this new thing, which "could be the next X"

Then - like clockwork - the volume starts to die off. Fuck. You bought the local top

16/ Before you know it, your OS page is littered with a 50 diff projects sitting at .02, with no volume.

And you're staring at the screen disgusted - wondering where all your precious ETH went.

Listen - I get it. You "missed" all the so-called blue chips so far, and you're

17/ trying to be early to the next one.

But real organic growth can take time. Sometimes months 📆. Shout to @punk9059 for the graph.

Which requires patience, & conviction (not to mention luck 🍀)

Most times, hopping on the next trending project because it's "cheap", thinking

18/ "if these can just get to 1eth, I'll be rich", is a NGMI strategy.

Projects that've made it through the initial launch phase, built a solid foundation & community, and are positioned for growth may be higher entry, but offer less risk.

Think about it - how many projects

19/ actually get to 1eth and stay/grow from there?

In the @icy_tools top 100 for the past 30 days, 92 of top traded projects have < 1eth floors.

92%!

Will some of them get there (and beyond)? Of course.

But that 8% number illustrates why

20/ "spraying and praying" your ETH into 50 different .04-.1 projects, instead of aping with conviction into a few quality ones, is a pretty good way to get rekt.

You can't effectively monitor 10+ projects + macro market trends (and tbh - why would you want to try?)

21/

🖼TRUTH # 5: You're Not Involved *Enough* In The Good Projects You're In

Community is the foundation of high quality projects. If your participation in the community consists of dropping into the Discord once a week, asking "wen lambo?"

You're doing it wrong.

22/ Just because you're not an artist, builder, etc. doesn't mean you don't have any value to add.

Some of the strongest community members in @quirkiesnft are not creators - they are simply present, engaged, and supportive of the team and community.

Now - on the flip-side -

23/ If you DO have creative skills, and are not using them to help add value to your community and the project as a whole, you should ask yourself "why not?"

I'm not a very creative person, and I can't code. But that didn't stop me from building welcomtoquirksville.com

24/ for the #Quirkies community. I simply asked a developer friend for some help, and we hacked it together in about 2 days.

The goal was to add value to the community. We didn't get paid for it, nor did we want/expect to

I bet you have resources you haven't even thought of.

25/ The more you use those resources (even if it's just your time) to add value to your community, the more fun, engaging, and valuable it becomes to be a member.

And you and I both know what happens after that 🚀📈

26/

🖼TRUTH # 6: There Is A Fine Line Between "Raiding" And Spamming

Like it or not, raids work. I have a rule that I only invest in projects whose communities run a POR™️ algorithm (Proof of Raid).

Twitter's algo is a beast. It's the most effective (free) marketing weapon you

27/ could ever want for an #NFTCommunity.

Gaining outside exposure to the art, vibe, and engagement level of a project, is crucial to its survival.

But there is a right way, and a spam way.

Early on in #Quirkies we made it clear that we would only raid twitter posts that

28/

a.) Asked for it (posts like "just sold X, what floor shd I sweep?")

b.) Are relevant to #Quirkies (like welcoming new members, etc)

Posting links to your project unsolicited in the comments of unrelated posts, it's not raiding - it's spam

https://twitter.com/ZeeJenkinz/status/1511550572494827524

29/ Quality projects don't need you comment-spamming unrelated posts for exposure.

It makes you look annoying and desperate, and reflects poorly on the project as a whole.

But when you do decide to raid the right way, you also can't half-ass it. Here's an effective protocol:

30a/

🚨 THIS IS NOT THE END OF THE THREAD. CLICK "SHOW REPLIES" BELOW TO CONTINUE READING

(I don't know why twitter does this. it's dumb. hopefully elon will fix it. 🤔)

30b/ The Art Of Raid: its not just about "liking a tweet"

For max algo-juice, you'll want to

👉 Like
👉 Retweet
👉 Comment with a piece from the collection
👉 Use hashtag (like #quirkieslovequirkies)
👉 Like every relevant comment on the post
👉 Reply to comments

31/ This may sound "icky" to some. 🤷‍♂️

But it works. And can be incredibly powerful. Raids alone, can cause a collection's value to skyrocket in a very short period of time...

🚨 But be warned --

32/ As powerful as the POR™️ algorithm is, it's not nearly enough to cause organic and sustained growth of a project all on it's own...

You've seen plenty of projects flood twitter & pamp 5x, only to crash violently 📉 soon after.

Hype alone - is hollow.

The reality is -

33/

🖼TRUTH # 7: A LOT of Shit Has To Go Right For A Project To Even Survive Its First 6 Months - Let Alone Take You To Valhalla

We have come upon a phase of the game where the barrier of entry is low, and getting lower every day.

34/ Anyone can launch a pfp project

👉 buy @fiverr art
👉 fork contract
👉 manufacture hype

And they do!

I bet your feed is flooded with more launches, WL opps, raffles, mints, and shills every day. Mine is too.

35/ All projects will wind up in 1 of 3 categories:

💀 Hard/soft rug
🪨 Gets traction, but never quite makes it "over the hump". Community loses interest, floor bleeds out
📈 Grows organically, team delivers, community strengthens, becomes a legit "blue-chip" prospect, moons.

36/ Most will wind up in the first 2 categories.

Because many NFT creators are not experienced founders.

They don't know how to design a project that's built to last. Some are not even trying - just in it for a cash grab💰

The same thing happened back in the 2017 ico shitshow

37/ People who had no business starting a business raised MMs off of a whitepaper and an idea.

We saw how that ended. 📉

NFT projects, are businesses. The teams you back should understand this, and treat it like one. Not only driving revenue, but providing value to holders.

38/ In defi, the liquidity is only as sticky as the incentive-to-risk ratio allows it to be.

With NFTs, the mechanism is different, but the result is very much the same. Just replace "liquidity" with "attention".

39/ People only have a certain amount of bandwidth, time, and attention.

The projects that provide the best incentives to hold, will win the ongoing attention of the market.

Not just team deliverables, but the overall value of being a part of the community too.

40/

🖼TRUTH # 8: All Those Shitty Derivatives In Your Wallet Are Going To 0 (if they haven't already)

Derivs can be good and bad. imo they're good for the OG project, but -EV for buyers/traders.

There are very few (if any?) pure deriv projects that survive past the 1st pamp

41/ If your wallet is filled with doodlepunkmferkevinzukis, you are probably NGMI.

Even quality derivatives typically wind up just bleeding out after the initial "excitement" wears off.

42/ I'm bullish teams with original content and IP. Teams who are innovating while modeling successful aspects of projects before them.

It's why I'm so bullish on @quirkiesnft.

Because founder @SyntribosStable truly gets it.

43/ He is not building for the next 6 months - he is building for the next 10 years.

He's building a foundation now, that could one day turn #Qurkies into a global brand.

One that won't just penetrate the surf/skate/streetwear culture, but shape, & evolve it into the future.

44/ Bet on teams with a long term vision. Ape responsibly, but with conviction. And most importantly - be patient.

These markets are irrational. Floors can drop 50% in a day. Did the fundamentals change? If not, these are buying opportunities.

Stink-bids during low volume = 🤑

45/

🖼TRUTH # 9: The First Project That Triggers A Market Meta Almost Always Does Better Than The Next 5,634 Copycats

Similar to the above item, but with a few key differences.

First, if you don't know what a "meta" is, read this 🔥 by @cobie: cobie.substack.com/p/trading-the-…

46/ Some examples of meta-triggering #NFTprojects I've noticed, are:

@AzukiOfficial - triggered the anime meta
@worldofwomennft - #WomenInNFTs
@wolfdotgame - P2E
@0xIreneDao - simp culture
@gh0stlygh0sts - omnichain nfts

These projects may not have been first of their kind, but

47/ it was them who became the catalysts that popularized certain narratives within the space.

Similar projects then quickly follow, and people who "missed out" on the first one throw eth at the new ones, thinking they will perform like the originals.

SPOILER: most do not.

48/

🖼 TRUTH # 10: Your Jpeg Bags Are Probably Too Heavy

No one can see the future of what will happen in this space.

Embracing uncertainty is table-stakes when you're playing a game that's still in its "Wild West" phase.

49/ Could it all go to zero tomorrow? Probably not.

But let's be real here. We're trading $300k monkey jpgs. You should at least be protecting your downside.

I'm guilty of never having enough of my bankroll in liquid ETH and/or stables

I just love the jpgs. 🖼

50/ And if Sheriff Gary 👮‍♂️ wakes up tmrw, decides they are securities & files an injunction for OS to halt operations, I'm just as fucked as you will prob be.

(laugh it up, but realize there is a non-zero chance of this happening someday) I mean just look at the guy ffs.

51/ So, lately I've been trying to re-balance my bags to improve my liquid asset to jpeg ratio. (mainly eth)

If you have more than 90% of your roll in illiquid jpegs, maybe consider this too.

Of course the gainz aren't as chunky, but neither is the risk.

52/ I hope you enjoyed this thread. If you want more, follow @quirk_bear. These are just my opinions. They could be wrong.

Alfa Drop 1: if you retweet the first post with the tag #quirkieslovequirkies you might get some more followers

I love you.

- RB ❤️

Link to first post:

https://twitter.com/quirk_bear/status/1518006120362651648

53/ Alfa Drop 2: If you've been living under a rock, and don't know what #Quirkies are, check out welcometoquirksville.com