This NFT Just Tripled in Value…Even Amid the Crypto Downturn

We start today with a few numbers…$1,100 to $3,080. 

That’s how much the price of a crypto project I own has jumped in the last few weeks…a nearly 3x gain. 

What’s remarkable is that this jump occurred amid a supposedly tough market for crypto. Here’s how it happened… 

It’s for an NFT project called y00ts t00b. (As a reminder: NFTs are non-fungible tokens—one-off, one-of-a-kind cryptocurrencies that look like a piece of digital art, but often represent technology companies offering real-world services to businesses and individuals.) 

I tell people to think of NFTs as similar to a share of stock for the Walt Disney company: The Disney stock certificate is fronted by art—a picture of Disney cartoon characters—yet it fundamentally represents something else, namely partial ownership of Disney’s operations.  

NFTs are similar, just in digital form. Here’s what my y00ts t00b looks like: 

Y00ts is a spin-off from an acclaimed NFT project called DeGods, which is tied to a software studio. I’ve owned my y00ts since the day they were first launched earlier this fall. I paid about $600 for it. 

Immediately, the price soared. Within minutes of their launch, these NFTs were selling for about $6,200. In the days that followed, they settled in the $3,000 to $5,000 range. 

Then, of course, like everything else, these assets were impacted by the recent crypto downturn caused by the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange. In the wake of FTX, Nervous Nellies dumped anything of value. A y00ts t00b, previously selling in the range of 180 Solana, was selling for as little as 85 Solana, or about $1,100. 

I could have exited at that point and almost doubled by initial investment. However, I was never tempted to sell… 

I’ve lived through so many market shocks in my time that I know they’re a lot like a fireworks show—a lot of loud noise, a lot of loud oohs and aahs from the crowd, and soon enough it’s over and the crowd is back to normal life. 

My y00ts today? 

As I write this, it’s worth more than 220 Solana, or about $3,080, a nearly 3x gain from its post-FTX lows, meaning I have an open gain of around 5x my initial investment…even amid the crypto downturn. 

That tells me a couple of things: 

1. The market is healing from the shock to the system, an indication that all is fine internally. 

2. The market for top-quality NFT projects is robust. When you can nearly 3x your money in a few weeks after a systemwide shock, that tells you the savvy investors—those who don’t soil their dungarees at the first hint of crisis—continue to see great value and are putting up their money to grab great projects. 

For those reasons, I remain active in the NFT market because bargains are aplenty today and quality teams continue building quality projects. I know that owning certain NFT projects now, when the prices are weak for the NFTs and for the underlying crypto, will return huge dollars (tens of thousands of dollars) when rationality exerts control once again. 

That day is coming. 

In the immediacy of the FTX collapse, cryptocurrencies and NFTs sunk as fear washed over the industry. No different, really, to what happens on Wall Street when a big shock hits all stocks, regardless of a company’s quality. But just as with Wall Street, the quality companies power through. They continue building their business, they slough off the moment, and they ultimately return to their upward trajectory as the value of their business shines through. 

In a very real sense, this moment is like the dotcom implosion 20 years ago. 

At the time, ill-informed commentators called that the beginning of the end of the internet. In fact, it was the end of the beginning.  

That financial shock ushered in the internet we have today…and it ushered in the vast wealth created by companies like Amazon, which had lost 95% of its value before going on a 42,000% surge that created millionaires from thousand-aires (a $5,000 investment in Amazon in September 2001 would be worth nearly $1.1 million as I write this, a 29% annualized return). 

It’s the same with crypto today, which to me demonstrates why this is such a fantastic moment to be a crypto buyer. 

Fantastic? Maybe that’s the wrong word. 

“Opportunistic” is better. 

Or this: This is a moment when savvy investors could potentially create generational wealth. A moment that comes along so rarely that most people either cannot see the moment for what it is, or they skip the moment altogether because they can’t imagine opportunity is hiding amid the chaos.  

I’m not skipping this moment. I’m owning the future…