How I missed a $300K NFT opportunity

Timing the NFT market with the right research and a bit courage can make you a fortune

Before telling my story, I’d like to describe NFTs briefly. NFT, short for the non-fungible token, is a blockchain-based digital asset that can be verified for ownership. Artwork, music, and in-game entities like different avatars are examples of these assets. NFTs are becoming collectibles due to their one-of-a-kind nature. 

Also, I’d like to clarify the confusion, “Are NFT and cryptocurrency the same thing?”. The answer is no. Cryptocurrency and NFT are not the same. Although both technologies are based on blockchain, the most significant difference is that a cryptocurrency is fungible, whereas an NFT is not, as its name suggests. What does it mean? It means that cryptocurrency is just like a regular currency. For instance, 1 BTC is and always will be equal to 1 BTC. However, NFTs promise unique ownership of an asset and can’t be substituted or traded with something else. 

Well, how did I start my NFT journey? 

Let me tell you where my starting point is. I became interested in NFTs after Beeple’s artwork was sold. Here, learning some details about Beeple might be helpful. Beeple is the nickname of Mike Winkelmann, a digital artist known for his NFT work. As I mentioned, one of his NFTs, Everydays: The First 5000 Days, was sold for $69 million in 2021 by Christie’s. At that time, I started to become more aware of NFTs. Sure, I was also becoming interested, but I wasn’t the only one. That’s why the NFT market has become more critical day by day. Back then, I started searching for new NFT projects. Since NFT is a recent age phenomenon, gathering knowledge and creating investment strategies were challenging for me. 

Besides, I was still remembering the 2018 bitcoin crash. Everyone was frustrated by the floating rates in 2017 and the subsequent collapse of 80% in early 2018. I also had some investments that gave me a few setbacks then. 

Back to the story, during my searches for new NFT projects, I met CryptoPunks that were trending on the NFT market. To summarize the CryptoPunks collection, I’d like to mention the basics briefly. There are 10,000 unique CryptoPunks, all of which have been made with blockchain technology, proving ownership. Each one was created using algorithms and coding, so each one is unique with some altering and rarer characteristics. 

At that time, the floor price for CryptoPunks was around $30-35K. I was sure it’d either have a tenfold jump or hit rock bottom. I’ve been thinking about investing in Cryptopunks, considering my hesitations from the hype period of 2016-2017. In the end, I decided to do it. 

Why Couldn’t I Invest in CryptoPunks?

After this point, my CryptoPunks journey didn’t go as planned. I couldn’t afford to invest $35K because of my previous experiences. Sure, I still had hope for investing, so I texted a group of friends. I knew that they had the budget and we had the joint investment opportunity. I’ve mentioned the details of CryptoPunks from the beginning of their journey. However, since they had almost no idea about NFTs, my friends were so unwilling for such an investment. Also, I can’t deny that NFT investments are always risky. Consequently, they didn’t contribute and I couldn’t get included in CryptoPunks.

You might be familiar with the end of the story. As you know from the title, I lost $300K. CryptoPunks, one of the first NFT collections that caught my eye, hit $300K! Then, I sent a screenshot to my friends as soon as I found out about CryptoPunks'out CryptoPunks' escalating prices. They were as devastated as me. 

Once again, I realized the importance of timing for the right investment and started to invest in various NFT projects. If you’re interested in the NFT world, don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter for my further NFT journey and keep in touch!