Christopher Manessis, Chief Investment Officer at Moonchain Capital, has a few tips for those who are eager to break into the NFT market, what to look for and where to start.
Can you explain to us the basics of what an NFT is?
An NFT is a token or cryptoasset secured by a blockchain with unique traits or characteristics that distinguish themselves from each other. In most cases, NFTs are tokens with images, videos, and other metadata attached to them.
What advice would you offer to anyone wanting to being investing into the NFT market and what are the pitfalls to watch out for?
Like any investment, always do your own research and fully understand what you are investing in before doing so. Do not buy an NFT because an influencer or person told you to. If you are buying an NFT for its artistic properties, buy the NFT because you love the art, so you enjoy it regardless of its return on investment. NFT marketplaces are far less liquid than traditional crypto markets so trading NFTs for quick profit is ill-advised. In most cases, spending time in the community chats of an NFT will give you great insight into the quality of the project. Don’t invest in anything you are not prepared to completely lose. Investing in NFTs can be highly lucrative, but its important newcomers are aware of the risks.
Is there a right time ever to cash out, and how do you inform this choice?
This entirely depends on your financial situation. If you have invested in an NFT that has returned life-changing money, then it’s wise to take some profit and improve your living conditions. That said, if you don’t need the money, be patient, get involved with the community and stay for the long run. Selling too early is just as detrimental as selling too late.
Which platforms best inform your investments in this space and are there any individuals we should be listening to or following?
Twitter is the go-to place for all things crypto; you get breaking news, opinions, research, and so much more. I also spend a great deal of time on Discord in community channels of the NFT projects I invest in. It’s always good to see what the community is thinking and how transparent and communicative the team are. For new entrants into the NFT space, I would definitely recommend the following accounts on Twitter: @CozomoMedici, @Vince_Van_Dough, @SOLBigBrain, @Bardstocks, @goldkittywagmi.
Gaming-related projects draw a wide appeal – will this remain consistent do you think?
Yes, I think so. Primarily because gaming is fun and easy to understand. We have also only scratched the surface with crypto gaming and are starting to see really cool concepts being launched. Move to earn is extremely interesting and uses crypto and gamification to incentivize users to walk more and be fitter. We are also seeing the first AAA standard games being developed and launching in Q4 of this year, like Aurory and Nyan Heroes. I strongly believe pioneers like these games will showcase to the gaming community that crypto games can be fun to play and rewarding at the same time.
Can we invest in NFTs if we don’t own crypto and if not, where should we be setting up a beginner’s wallet?
Yes, of course, there are a few NFT platforms like Niftify, Opensea, and Coinbase that provide credit card gateways to make it easy to purchase NFTs. But most of the liquidity and trading of NFTs today is denominated in ETH and SOL so setting up a crypto wallet and needing crypto becomes necessary at a certain point. For individuals looking to invest seriously into NFTs, I would recommend using two wallets, one hot wallet for minting and connecting to marketplaces and a second cold wallet that only interacts with the hot wallet for storing your NFT collection. Using Coinbase and Metamask both work well for ETH hot wallets, and Phantom for a Solana hot wallet. Then I recommend using Ledger for a cold wallet.
Moonchain Capital focuses on NFTs, NFT platforms, and gaming. How have you seen this market grow over the last year and where do you predict it will go next?
We have seen exponential growth in NFT activity over the past 24 months and I believe we are still very early. NFTs have so many utilities beyond membership, artistic, and speculative. NFTs have a wide range of commercial and industrial utilities such as title deeds in land registry systems, fraud-proof ticketing, and provenance tracking. We believe every business one day, big and small, will utilize NFTs as part of their operations, to drive revenue, and engage with their users. We are also very bullish on crypto video games and expect this segment of the industry to onboard hundreds of millions of users.
In partnership with DIFC-licenced investment house, Audacia Capital you are launching a crypto/web3/metaverse-themed fund to enable investors to get broad exposure to this incredibly exciting space. Can you expand on this at this stage?
I can’t comment much on this at the moment, but it is incredibly exciting. Yes, our goal is to set up a regulated structure that will enable investors to get broad exposure to games, NFTs, NFT infrastructure, and the open-metaverse. Until the structure is fully launched and compliant, we have been inviting select investors to tag alongside our investments – one recently being Niftify, an NFT as a platform service enabling anyone to create and sell NFTs on their domain – like a Shopify for NFTs.
What has been your best NFT investment to date?
I was lucky enough to get into a few great NFT projects that have provided an excellent return. These NFTS have all been SOL-based NFTs usually linked to the games I have invested in, but notably Aurory, Nyan Heroes, and Genopets have all done exceptionally well. It’s important to highlight that I have had some disastrous NFT investments, but I like the art, so I still enjoy owning them.
Disclaimer: Nothing mentioned here should be taken as a solicitation to trade or a recommendation of a specific trade.
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