The Dark Side of the (NFT) Moon
Tags: Nft, Nft Marketplace, Gambling, Addiction

TLDR: NGMI

So earlier this year my friend introduced me to NBA Top Shots. A magical world of imaginary cards, that live on the internet. “It’s the new baseball cards” he said “you can trade with anyone, anywhere, and the packs are so fun to open, it’s going to be big”. He was right, they are big, huge in fact. They may even be worth more than the NBA itself based on a recent valuation of 2.6 billion dollars. Little did I know I would be here 6 months later having lost 1/3 of the savings I took years to build, while my doctor faxes across a recommendation that I attend a gambling addiction group.

So here’s the thing. NFT (Non Fungible Token) land has absolutely exploded. The growth of wallets and action on the leading NFT Marketplace OpenSea has seen 3 billion dollars of sale volume in August it has nearly eclipsed the ‘real’ marketplace behemoth eBay. In this ever growing lush forest of money, there are people everywhere telling you just how much they made. Follow the ‘right’ people on Twitter and you will think this is a game you absolutely cannot lose.

A man’s resignation letter (due to pursuing his NFT dream) sold for over $54,000. A simple picture of a Column in the NY Times was purchased for $560,000 the interested parties stated that they bid simply to ‘show support for the NFT space’. Article after article, tweet after tweet, created a stratospheric rise and euphoric entry conditions.

However, this has not been the case for me, and I am sure many other more quiet individuals, and since my first purchase on OpenSea on (22 days ago) I have lost nearly 80% of my cryptocurrency entering a violently volatile game I had no idea I was even playing.

I started small, with a purchase of just 0.08 ETH ($250) it sold a day later for 0.12 ($375). I couldn’t believe it the money I had just made with a few clicks and waiting a few hours was more than I would have made working for the entire time in between. “Oh yeah, that project is hot” my friend would say, “it will keep going”. And it did, the floor (meaning lowest priced item of any available) of the project rose before my eyes to 0.2 ETH ($540). Well, I thought, this has to be a bubble right? So if it is a bubble, I need to get in and out, before it pops. I joined the Discord community for CryptoPunks, waited to see what they talked about and saw my opening.

“Stani is buying Sergs!” (Stani Kulechov, the creator of Aave)

“Sergs pumping!”

“Sergs to 5 ETH soon!”

“#sergsummer”

CryptoSergs. An item with a small cap of only 1,100 items. A 50%+ spread of owners (a good sign in the space). Stani, it seems, wouldn’t stop buying, he bought 60 and just seemed to keep going, the CryptoPunks were buying. I panicked and having seen a project from 0.8 to 2 ETH in a matter of minutes I tried to grab the lightning bolt. I grabbed all my ETH. Threw it into my digital wallet and purchased the item for 3.5 ETH ($13,200) after seeing it at 0.8 ETH merely minutes before, I believed this was my shot and I too soon would sell my resignation letter and bathe in my pools of ETH.

I made this decision in 5 minutes. I had saved, researched and dollar cost averaged into this Ethereum for 2 years. And I spent it in 5 minutes. I have never gambled, never been to a casino. I had checked the OpenSea site close to 5,000 times in the past 20 days. I thought I understood how the game worked.

What happened next, I could never have predicted. The floor (the price of the lowest item) froze… then fell. It fell so fast I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had mine listed at 4 ETH. Next thing, someone listed at 3.8… then 3.5. Oh no! I lowered my price. 3.4 ETH. I could make this out just taking a little hit.

3 ETH.

2.8 ETH.

2 ETH.

1.5 ETH.

I went numb. I reduced my price to 1.2 ETH and got out while I still had something. After the OpenSea and artist fees. I was left with approximately 1.1 ETH.

I checked back into the CryptoPunks Discord.

NGMI (not going to make it)

My pain, was nothing to those in the space. These people who have seen their values skyrocket, and plummet don’t feel pain watching moves like these. It’s implied the ‘NFT game’ is fairly simple, but it is more aligned with trading stocks with 100x leverage after an Elon Musk tweet.

Yet, it was the writer of the above comment (DappPunk) who suggested I write this article to share my experience to save, or console others in a similar situation (for example this seller yesterday saw their Damien Hirst piece sell for $20 instead of 20 ETH in a common OpenSea scam). It’s easy to see these big losses and assume it’s some millionaire on the other side, but it wasn’t, it was me.

One of my Paintings (FYI: There are not 10,000 variants of this with different fins and water colour)

I made a collection of my art to recoup my losses, made a Discord for those who lose like me to lick their wounds and discuss their big fails. There is just me in there now. But when this bubble pops, and it will. There will be more. Let’s share in the pain together. I have promised to never buy an NFT item again. If you want to, make sure it is a piece you want to keep forever, or money you are happy to not see again. Just be ready for the ride.

TLDR: NGMI.

Your journey starts here.

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