Welcome to the ‘Rare Club Nifty Newsletter’, a curated snapshot of what matters most. We provide informative and easily digestible content about the NFT space, with one publication a week. Subscribe for free at the bottom of the article.
Includes NFT news, info on trending narratives, educational info, tips, projects to watch, occasional deep dives and more.
HEADLINER - ‘$5Bill USD monthly sales volume sets new record!’
Records are seemingly broken on a daily basis at the moment as 2022 gets off to a roaring start. OpenSea saw around $5Bill USD in sales volume across January. This is up a whopping 45% on the previous monthly high set in August 2021. And there are no signs of it slowing down as celebs, brands and consumers continue to pour into the space every day. All this and we haven’t even had the CoinbaseNFT platform launch yet. This year is gonna be huge.
For a full rundown of this story please click here.
BUZZFEED - Curated news
$1Bill worth of ETH burnt, largely due to OpenSea NFT purchases
Larva Labs controversy as founder sells 40 V1 punks, netting 240ETH
OpenSea reveals 80% of its free mints were plagiarized, spam or fakes
Warner Music plots Metaverse concerts in collaboration with Sandbox
Rolling Stone and Coinbase collaborate on an exclusive NFT drop
MAYBE SOMETHING - Upcoming drops or projects that interest us
Invisible Friends - Huge hype. Join the community and decide for yourself
KaraFuru NFT - lots of traction. Keeping an eye on it
Go down the rabbit hole: CryptoCats Reborn
Tron Wars - Dropping on 4th February
Women Of Crypto - Minting today
TALKING POINT - ‘NFT ethics - some people have your back’
Unethical behaviour pervades most parts of society to some extent. Crypto and the NFT space are no different. There are countless bad actors lurking, baiting, ready to steal your hard-earned digital assets.
Most scams involve unknown parties tricking users into inadvertently providing access to their wallets, or getting them to send funds to a wallet under false pretences. The scammers usually employ a tactic of impersonating a project team member.
However, there are others who operate in full view of the public eye. These guys are involved in scams on another level, expertly funnelling millions of dollars from unsuspecting users to their own wallets. Scams include, but are not limited to, the following:
Conceptualising an idea, fundraising, then abandoning the project (Rug pull)
Creating fake social media accounts and using them to actively promote rug pulls or other NFT scams
Founders making statements in public that contradict their actions
Insider trading (identifiable on the blockchain)
Concealing conflicts of interest when promoting projects
The list is much longer, but you get the point. It’s shocking what some people or groups of people are getting away with in the NFT space. The good news is that there’s decent people looking out for us all, and they are dedicated to speaking out against these criminals.
One such team is ‘NFT Ethics’. They provide an objective, well researched and up to date commentary on who’s scamming people and how to avoid them.
Follow them on Twitter here and set your notifications to ‘on’. You will get the latest news on which projects not to invest in and who’s been caught out.
These guys do a great job. Let’s hope they can grow their team and keep us all that bit safer.
BIG MOVERS - Collections with impressive stats from the past week
Azuki - These guys have been stealing the show for 3 weeks now, sitting atop the OS 7-day sales volume rankings. Very impressive. Volume remains very high and the project looks solid.
CloneX - Big resurgence in sales for this blue-chip collection over the past week. Up almost 400% in volume on the 7-day chart, just fractionally behind BAYC in spot number 3.
V1 Cryptopunks Wrapped - Wild floor price action saw heights of 28ETH before a retrace. This collection is certainly hitting a chord with buyers. Its legitimacy as a significant part of NFT history is being acknowledged.
Cyber Factory 2 - A partnership with the RTFKT team has seen this collection provide a 1,300% uptick in sales volume. They sell 3D virtual galleries as NFTs in which you can showcase your NFT collection. Very cool.
Killer GF - A newer entry and riding the female avatar/anime waves, this collection has seen impressive sales of over 14,000 ETH placing it 7th in the charts.
THE WATCHLIST - Projects we believe have long-term potential. DYOR
Mutant Ape Yacht Club (same as above, extension of BAYC, well established)
V1 Cryptopunks (original Cryptopunks contract, historically significant)
Meebits (same team as CryptoPunks, mass appeal, early 3D avatars)
Cool Cats NFT (very strong community, respected collection, mass appeal)
Lost Poets (created by famous artist ‘Pak’, strong community)
Parallel Alpha (gaming, TCG, strong team, incredible backers, big ambitions)
My Curio Cards (historical significance, early ETH NFT)
Prime Ape Planet (outstanding artwork, experienced team, good roadmap)
CryptoMories (unique artwork, good community, lowish entry price)
DeadFellaz (very strong community, established)
World Of Women (celebrity endorsed, one of 1st female avatar collections)
Boss Beauties (impressive marketing and immense IRL collabs)
TIP OF THE WEEK - Getting an edge on OpenSea purchases
When buying on OpenSea, most people will go to a collections main page and click the ‘Buy Now’ filter, as shown here.
In doing this, you will be shown the lowest value NFTs for that collection.
However, this main page takes a little while to update, and there’s actually a way to see new listings before they appear here.
To do this go to the main collection page and click on the ‘Activity’ tab. Then on the filter, deselect ‘Sales’ and select ‘Listings’ instead. Here is an example this.
Now, by refreshing, you can see the items that go up for sale prior to anyone who’s watching the main collection page.
If you see a really great deal, you’ll need to act fast and put a lot of gas. There are people who make a living out of sniping deals like this. Good luck.
RARE.NEWS - Updates regarding the Rare.club NFT DAO fund
This coming month will be big for Rare Club. Watch this space!
Discord is set up and you’re welcome to join
New website coming NEXT WEEK!
Next fundraise will happen THIS MONTH!
Two projects lined up for incubation: a Solana project and a launchpad
Links to our socials and website coming soon,
Thanks for reading, and see you next time
Always DYOR (do your own research). Nothing in this or any other article in this series should be construed as financial or investment advice. We do our very best to provide useful information for our readers. What you do with that information is up to you.
Remember to exercise caution within the NFT space. The community is full of amazing people, but there are unscrupulous ones too. Keep your wits about you, and act responsibly. As always, good luck.