NFT God Newsletter 10/6: Yuga Announces Community Council, Animoca Loves Cool Cats, Renga Goes Haywire

The Daily Alpha 10/6- Happy Thursday everyone! On the 11 year anniversary of Steve Jobs’s death I want to start off this newsletter with a quote of his I heard years ago that has totally transformed the way I think about the world. I for sure do not have this account or platform without the mindset shift that happened when I digested this:

I think we have it programmed into our brains that everything around us was created by geniuses and we have no power to shift the paradigm. The truth is the way things are was created by people most likely less smart than us. Shifting your mindset and approaching every situation with a curiosity and hunger to poke holes will change the way you experience life. When I started this Twitter account/newsletter last December I saw a gap in the Web 3 market. I saw a need for a more analytical approach to growth and content outside memes. I decided to poke a hole there and try something new. I have no training in writing or content creation. I saw a hole in the market and I poked it. My challenge to you this week: everything you consume and experience, just think about how you could change it. How you can improve it. The way you experience your day to day will shift. Have any Steve Jobs quotes that mean something to you? Comment below and tell me all about it. Feedback, questions, or just want to start a conversation? Hit reply or shoot me an email [email protected]. Anyway, onto the alpha:

Contents:

1️⃣ Latest Twitter Thread

2️⃣ 1% Better Every Day

3️⃣ NFT Stories of the Week

4️⃣ Email of the Week

5️⃣ Favorite Tweets

Latest Twitter Thread:

1% Better Every Day: Delayed Gratification

This week’s “1% Better Every Day” spotlight is on a principle I live my life by that I think is absolutely critical for success: delayed gratification. The reason why I think it’s particularly important for the Web 3 space is we are still in the beginning stages of this marathon. As we run this race there is going to be a million opportunities for you to chase short term highs. To cash out early and damage your brand. 99% of the space has a short term mindset even though we are in inning 1 of a 9 inning game. The 1% that delays gratification will reap the most rewards.

Highly recommend reading the book “Richer, Wiser, Happier” by William Green. The book largely talks about the relationship between happiness, money, and investing. The book really dives into this principle of delayed gratification. Here are some quotes that stuck out to me:

The ability to hold out for big rewards is essential in all walks of life. It’s only more critical if you are pursuing greatness in a new space like Web 3. So how does one make that mindset shift to avoid shorter term fixes and temptations? It’s purely a skill set. You need to train yourself:

• Less phone time. Resist the instant gratification of social media

• Less instant gratification from substances. Put yourself in less situations where this could be a temptation

• Resist the easy gratification from unhealthy foods

• Delay the gratification from impulse buying things you don’t need. Whether they are clothes, electronics, or NFT’s.

This principle becomes increasingly important if you’re building a brand or platform. For myself, once I reached 10,000 followers I started getting no less than 15 DM’s a day asking me to sell out and start promoting brands on my Twitter timeline. Taking this short term high would have damaged my brand and stunted my growth. By saying no to all of these cheap sell out opportunities I’m able to build towards a bigger vision.

Challenge to you this week: resist one temptation. One thing that provides you instant gratification. Learn to tell yourself no. The benefits from learning this skill will pay dividends in every aspect of your life.

Today's News:

🔥 Yuga Forms the Community Council

🔥 Animoca Invests in Cool Cats

🔥 Renga Pumps All Week

BAYC ANNOUNCES THE COMMUNITY COUNCIL

Yuga Labs announced this week that they were forming a new BAYC Community Council. The announcement site says the intention of this council is to represent the club at large and provide an avenue for new perspectives. The council will be collecting feedback from the community, working with members on commercial projects and meetups, and just generally be a liaison from the community to the founders. The council includes Josh Ong, Sera, Laura Rod, and several other notable names.

While I think it’s fantastic that Yuga is promoting from within the community, and I have a deep respect for everyone on the council, in Web 3 I think it has been established the best representatives of the founders are the founders themselves. The game has definitely changed over the last 10 or so months. While remaining silent for large periods of time then releasing updates out of nowhere worked in 2021, I believe the playbook has changed in 2022. Communities and people outside the community want to see their founders get involved. You look at Y00ts and the work Frank did. For a month straight he attended every NFT Twitter Space he could, had constant updates through his Twitter and blog, and was always in his community. He delegated tasks appropriately so he can afford the time to open up lines of communication. This led to Y00ts being a high volume project even in a bear market. Any of the 4 Yuga founders mixing it up with the Web 3 community I believe would greatly expand the reach the brand has, more-so than simply promoting some community members from within. In Web 3 if you’re not gaining attention you’re losing attention. While forming a community council is an interesting first step, I’d really like to see the 4 founders be the brand ambassadors they are trying to create.

ANIMOCA INVESTS BIG INTO COOL CATS

Cool Cats Group announced this week they have secured a strategic investment from famed metaverse company Animoca Brands. Animoca has invested in many popular Web 3 companies and brands like Yuga Labs and Sandbox. Much of the work Animoca does involves translating these native Web 3 brands into gaming experiences. They’ve also worked on the gamefi side as well, building out tokens like the SAND token for Sandbox. The goal of this partnership is to further expand Cool Cats’s gaming offerings and turn them into a global NFT brand.

Cool Cats has made it clear up to this point they plan on going big into the play-and-earn direction, so this strategic investment makes a ton of sense. The challenge Animoca will have is repairing some missteps up to this point by Cool Cats. Earlier this year Cool Cats minted the Cool Pets, the central NFT for a new ‘Tamagotchi’ like gaming experience. The issue was is the game was a total flop. Many eggs went unhatched because not many people found the gaming experience enjoyable. Because of this flop, the $MILK token also took a hit and is now down 99% since its peak. This is the risk when you turn into a gamefi brand. You’re not just creating a game, you also have to balance a delicate economy. If one asset in the ecosystem loses value, it can create a cascading effect to the other assets. As you saw with Cool Cats, the MILK token tanked, leading to the Pets tanking, leading to the Cats tanking. It’s not as simple as releasing an NFT and a token.

I’m interested to see how Animoca approaches this. In my mind the best route is starting a new ecosystem around the Cat. The Pet focused game didn’t work out, and it would be incredibly difficult returning value to that Milk token. The good news is Animoca is well connected, and if they can take advantage of these new connections between Cool Cats and the other Animoca metaverse brands, they could potentially pull off interesting new P2E concepts. The important thing here is it’s not good enough just to create a game. It needs to be an enjoyable game. In the NFT space we have yet to see a project fully recover from a major pull back. But the Cool Cats team and Animoca surely have the resources and connections now to make a big attempt.

RENGA PUMPS ALL WEEK

The NFT market story of the week this week was undoubtedly Renga. A PFP collection from famous artist Dirty Robot. Renga hovered at .4 ETH post mint before eventually climbing all the way up to 3 ETH at its peak this week. Debate spread all over Web 3 media this week if this pump could last in a market like the one we are currently experiencing. Hype is 90% of the driver behind NFT floor prices, and Renga without a doubt had the most hype of any project this week.

There’s no question the art behind this project is fantastic. Possibly a top 3 PFP art project alongside Azuki and Doodles. If you are looking to buy for the art, then that’s great, you’re getting really good art. I’ve always said if the art speaks to you the price movements don’t matter quite as much. The thing is, if you are looking to make a buck but haven’t bought yet, what would be the point of buying Renga at this moment in time? No new information has come out. You know everything there is to know up to this point. Since the information hasn’t changed, why would you buy now after the price has run up rather than a week ago? If you feel the urge to buy now but didn’t feel that same emotion a week ago, you are probably feeling FOMO and just trying to chase a pump. Nobody has ever made money chasing a pump. I’m not here to give financial advice but chasing pumps doesn’t work in a bull market, and it most certainly won’t work in a bear market. If you’re truly looking to buy at this price point do some deep reflection. Are you buying because you love the art, or are you just letting emotion take over? If it’s the latter, odds are you won’t walk away from this trade happy.

Email of the Week

Last week I recommended a fantastic book called “Show Your Work”. The book primarily focuses on how to create content in the social media age. The main message is one of the best ways to generate content is to simply share your learning process. You don’t need to be a professional at anything, all you need to do is be learning something and share how you learn it. For me I’ve been learning about NFT’s and self-improvement, so I tweet about everything I learn. This week I got an email from Sabrina, a fellow content creator looking to find her voice:

I think this is an excellent question a lot of content creators face early on. I’m interested in all of these subjects, what should I create content around? If you’re early on and have a small audience, that’s the time to experiment and find your voice. If you have many different passions, you need to find a cross section between your passions. For me, I love Web 3, investing, self improvement, sports, technology, fitness and health. If I were to write about all 7 of those things, I’d probably alienate portions of my audience. But what I discovered early on as I was writing, there is a really interesting cross section between Web 3 and self improvement. Once I discovered how compelling those 2 subjects were together, I leaned all the way in.

Here’s my action plan for you if you’re newer to content creation- make a list of all your passions and what you’re learning about. Think about interesting ways to combine them. You’ll never be the biggest expert in one area, but if you can be proficient in 2 or more areas, you have something special. The sweet spot is finding multiple areas that tie together. Start experimenting with your content and those cross sections. When you have a small audience, you can experiment as much as you want. Then have honest reflection about what is and isn’t working. That’s how you make strides towards finding your own unique voice.

Tweets of the Week

Thank you so much to everyone who’s replied to my tweets or emailed me this week! Look forward to hearing from more of you soon! Take care and have an excellent weekend!