The Truth About Crypto Packaged Goods: POP

One of the most talked about and hyped NFT mints of the year went down this week as the team from Crypto Packaged Goods released their 2nd collection titled “POP”. The Genesis collection for CPG launched in September 2021 and quickly gained traction in the NFT space as the premiere community for Web 3 entrepreneurs, coders, marketers, and overall “builders”. Crypto Packaged Goods was founded by Chris Cantino and his wife Jaime Schmidt, two very successful consumer goods entrepreneurs and investors. The vision was simple and unique in the NFT space- build a community of web 3 builders and allow them to network and create great products. Provide resources, information through chats and webinars, and incubate ideas. The plan for POP specifically was to finally scale that vision up to the masses. Unfortunately the first week was filled with confusion and big questions. Let’s walk through how this confusion came to be and why POP and the Crypto Packaged Goods ecosystem has a chance of creating something truly special in the future.

Chris Cantino’s vision was to build a community of the top creative and entrepreneurial minds in Web 3. This vision confused many holders after the mint. Let’s talk about why. Pre-mint the marketing around this project created an incredible amount of noise across social media. The marketing started with the Genesis Pass. The Genesis Pass attracted massive names across Web 3. AJ Vaynerchuk, Randi Zuckerburg, and many other influential names in the industry picked up a pass. Between the low supply and the huge names, the floor price got past 25+ ETH. Through those connections POP partnered with some of the biggest projects across all NFT’s to create their allow list. This drove an incredible amount of buzz across NFT investors. On top of that the mint price was 3 ETH, a figure only matched by some of the biggest projects in the space. People who knew absolutely nothing about the history of CPG were fighting to get an allow list spot in order to pick up this hyped pass. Come mint day 2777 POP passes were released to an allow list that consisted of a lot of people just looking to get into a hyped project.

Here’s the challenge though- this isn’t your run of the mill NFT community where you discuss floor prices on derivatives and pray for a quick flip. This is a community designed for builders looking to engage and network with others. The value doesn’t come from a ponzi coin or memes, it comes from getting access to an environment that spurs production and growth. The value comes from being around like minded individuals who want to engage and listen to some of the brightest minds in the space. If you come into this project with an idea you’re building, you will meet people and get resources that will help you build that idea. This is incredibly valuable utility to a subsection of the Web 3 community. Unfortunately due to the top tier marketing campaign, many users who actually minted didn’t fall into this subsection. To add to that confusion even more, the community is hosted on Telegram, outside the comfort zone for most in the NFT space. This confusion led to minters selling out of the project simply because they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into. Selling pressure in a low volume environment led to a quick drop in prices. A quick drop in prices caused impatient people, for which there are many in NFT’s, to panic, cause FUD, then add more selling pressure.

Here’s the thing though, this kind of confusion and short term fear does not change the vision of the project. A vision which is entirely unique and quite frankly needed in the Web 3 space. This is a vision that provides the resources, information, and networking needed to be successful not only in NFT’s but in business as a whole. While the market for people looking to learn from top creatives and business people, as well as engage heavily with a community is small, it is still an unaddressed market. Web 3 allows for the democratization of technology, infrastructure, and information. This is a community built to support that democratization.

So the question becomes is this project for you? Is it worth an investment? The price action up to this point has been extremely volatile as holders who did not understand the project file out and new holders file in. As I said before, any kind of selling pressure in a low volume environment like the one we’re in will cause a tremendous amount of negative pressure on the price. I believe as people file in and out of the project the ones that the community is built for will stay, and everyone else will leave. Slowly a core audience will become super sticky and grow. Because of the niche nature of the project, this process may take a very long time. If self improvement is important to you and are willing to engage heavily in a project, you will probably get way more value out of this collection than just the ETH appreciation. If you’re looking for a passive investment you can flip, you will probably be left confused and impatient like others.

Regardless if this community is appropriate for you or not, it’s hard to deny this kind of unique vision is good for the space. Up until now most community passes solely served the purpose of providing a venue to discuss floor prices. In the future I strongly believe token gated communities for every kind of niche and market will be created. As more diverse personalities and ideologies enter the space there will be a growing demand to have venues to host different types of conversations. Whether POP is appropriate for you or not is up to you. The lesson to be learned here is you need to do a lot of research before just entering a project. As more and more niche communities get created, it’s going to require a lot more due diligence before making a big investment. Not every project will be built for each individual investor. Which in my opinion, will be massive for growing and expanding the space.

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