The Queen’s Gamble : Part 1
Just like gambling, NFTs are great fun, until they’re not…
My background is business, it’s where I thrive. No matter what I do, I am always looking for efficiency, logic, calculated risk, process and development. Give me a big picture and I will see all the tiny pieces that are needed to get there. I am also a pragmatist, and I like to fully enjoy the good moments when they happen. So here I was, in March, a mish mash of ‘believing in what is happening today, because I want it to be’ and a growing awareness that there was a severe lack of these business aspects present which are essential to longevity and sustainability
I’ve never been averse to risk, but I’m not reckless either…
When I was first introduced to NFTs in July 2021, it was a concept that I just couldn’t get my head around — people buy jpegs for silly amounts of money and then someone else would spend a bigger amount of silly money and so on? Not to mention the art on some of them was utter shite! Sounded like a bit of a gamble to me
But something was drawing me in, my inquisitive mind wanted to know what I was missing…
So I took time, I read, I watched videos, I learned and I asked lots of questions. LOTS! I looked at rocks, scissors and punks. Punks, they were a hot topic, and two solid chains that I was invested in launched their Cryptopunks derivatives. We minted VeChain VPunks and we bought a couple of Solana SolPunks on the secondary market. It felt like we were off to a good start
Right, now I’m interested. And this is way more fun than looking at market caps…
We started looking into projects and what made each different to the next — remember, a year ago there was no real demand for, or expectation of, utility. It was really about the art, the community and the potential of future historical relevance. We also had our eye on Degen Ape Academy, who were set to be the first really big NFT on Solana
In early August, Berlin and I were ready to mint our Degen Apes and wow, what a clusterf**k that turned out to be! Friday night mint went horribly wrong and we were then pretty much glued to our screens for 48 hours waiting to see what would happen. They survived and we managed to mint 11 Degen Apes between us at $240 each, or 6 Solana, while some people were unable to mint any. We had no idea at the time, but this was to be our first great NFT buy!
It’s not all that easy…
I sold a few of my apes for $15,000 each and had no trouble reinvesting it. My collection of 15 NFTs was now at a little over 100. But, like many others, I learned tough lessons along the way. Dodging scams and rugs is near impossible, but they only force us to be more vigilant and preemptive. I made a few mistakes. Mistakes that still stare at me from long forgotten wallets. I entered giveaways, I met new people and I learned. But for a long while, nothing as good as DAA came our way again
Until we found Moon Ape Laboratory…
The art was mind blowing, the roadmap looked solid and the community was pumping. Like hard, 24/7! We bought a couple of pre-reveal Genesis Moon Apes and we set our alarms for mint. It was so nice to be excited about a mint again — there’s nothing like a sell out reveal of great artwork!
My addiction was cemented that day…
This was it. This was my project. The one I was all in on. I started selling anything and everything I had to buy more Moon Apes. The rest of my Degen Apes got sold and I pretty much abandoned every other community I usually spent time in. Moon Apes took over my crypto life
And then the game started…
Omg the game! We spent hours and hours and hours strategising over how to maximise our loot bag mints. Transferring apes to multiple wallets. Spending insane amounts of gas in staking and moving stuff around. But we felt clever. We felt like we were getting to use our brains to make our money work for us! Then pets came and we got to play some more. And Cola (wen airdrop), the rules changed a little and we had to rethink, play harder
Something was brewing in the lab, and it didn’t smell good…!
Part 2: Independence Day
Website: moonapelab.io
Twitter: @moonapelab
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/moonapelab
Whitepaper: https://moonbased.gitbook.io/moon-ape-laboratory/
