First, Happy New Year, and I hope your January has gone well! What did your New Year's celebration look like this year?

 

Thank you. Happy new year to you too! This year, I kept it pretty quiet. Went out with a few friends to eat at a restaurant at night then came back and just hopped on some video games with old friends that usually can't get on due to work. It was pretty fun.

 

 

 

 

Sounds like a relaxing way to start 2023. As you look ahead to the rest of the year, do you have any hopes, resolutions, and/or goals for the new year?

 

Yeah, took the opportunity in early January to outline goals and resolutions that I plan to sustain and achieve this year. I used to read a lot of books which stopped when I started doing NFTs so reading 10-20 pages per day is a goal I've put forward as well as instead of listening to music when doing cardio, I put on a podcast. Small steps go a great way. I've also researched and plan to introduce intermittent fasting whilst I'm cutting to see if I gauge any results from doing so (16-hour no eating, 8-hour eating windows). Lastly, which ties into NFTs a little, is creating my own productivity system, writing every idea, and thought I have down whenever I have it to free up space in my head for more important things than trying to remember something. Outside of improving mentally, I have goals for physical achievement such as numbers to try to hit at the end of the year at the gym and restarting Brazilian Jiu Jitsu as I stopped when covid hit and want to resume again. I've set a goal for myself for this year in terms of NFTs and money-making whereby if I reach a certain amount of profit, I get to purchase a vehicle I have been looking at for the past few months. I played NFTs quite safely last year so having a profit target a bit exaggerated for this market will motivate me to make bigger plays, especially with the capital I have available. That being said, I've also got a resolution to not fomo into things and accept once I've missed an entry, I move on as I lost a bit of money last year jumping into projects by trying to get in once it had already gone up x% in one day.

 

 

 

 

That’s an incredible plan. I love the fullness of it as it encompasses mental, emotional, and physical well-being. So much in there to explore, but maybe you can start by taking us back and telling us how you entered crypto and NFTs?

 

Sure, I entered the Crypto space around 2016 where I began DCA'ing into Bitcoin passively. Continued to do so up until 2020. I didn't sell at any point and still haven't to this date. I probably would've made a lot more selling and re-entering but I saw it as a long-term play. I came across Bitcoin and Crypto after listening to Andreas Antonopoulos appear on a JRE podcast discussing what Bitcoin is and why it's going to be around for years on end. As I was still in full-time education up until April 2021, my brother mostly handled the crypto investment side of things until I graduated with a Marketing Management degree from university. I always felt whilst being at university, I was wasting my potential. Despite being in great profits from Bitcoin investments, we agreed that it's a long-term investment and we'd treat it as if it didn't exist. Therefore, I had to figure out ways to make money. I had multiple failed start-ups and tried reselling sneakers, PS5s, tickets, etc. but it was all too slow and inconsistent. I then tried my hand at altcoin trading/investing and stock trading in January 2021 which went well initially but once Crypto crashed in April 2021, I was pretty much back to square 1 and had to get a 9-5 job to cover living expenses. However, in July 2021, in this resell group I was in, someone posted a parallel card flip they did in the success channel netting them 80k in profit. This sparked my interest and coincidentally, I had listened to Gary Vee on a podcast that same week talking about how NFTs are the future so I dived into research. I dug around and with a friend in a crypto trading group I was in, I purchased my first NFT on August 1st, 2021 which was a Mooncat. This was closely followed by minting Jenkins the Valet which was a nightmare to do. I made nice profits immediately but it wasn't generational wealth so I DM'd the guy who sold the Parallel card for 80 ETH about where he found the information about the drop, as most of the calendar mints I was going for were bricks and low-level scams. He then introduced me to Metaverse HQ which was .4 ETH at the time and the rest was history. I found out about BAYC in MVHQ and after racking up small profits flipping throughout August, stuff like the infamous VOXIE and VOX gas wars, I purchased a BAYC for 21.5 ETH which was a big risk for me but ended up being totally worth it.

 

 

 

 

Love this and can relate, my brother and I also jumped into some early crypto investments. After finding your way into MVHQ, I’m curious, what is it that has kept you in MVHQ for so long?

 

At first, MVHQ was the only place that existed for NFT alpha. There was no other group like it that had the best NFT traders in one place discussing drops and strategies. When I first joined myself, there were so many channels and I was overwhelmed. Everyone hung out in general chat and I recall lots of very popular traders/influencers now just degen-trading stuff in there. The chat used to move 100mph and I'd read every message to make sure I didn't miss anything. I discovered Art Blocks through MVHQ and shortly after, JJ and Conor created a VC for the AB drops which I joined but never talked. This began gaining popularity which eventually moved on to becoming the VC that MVHQ is famous for today. I'd have MVHQ VC on for hours on end to make sure I didn't miss anything if someone shouted a call etc. It's the main reason I made like 15 ETH on the Ravi Vora drop called out by JJ just monitoring the Opensea activity feed before any tools existed. As the NFT space evolved, I joined other groups like Origins, Underground, and many more but kept MVHQ as my main hub. If it wasn't for MVHQ, I wouldn't nearly be as successful as I would've been in NFTs and even today, despite other groups being more active at times, the threads in here have golden information, and the people still talking in voice hangout chat today are very good traders whom I always listen to for info/calls.

 

 

 

 

In your goals, you mention how you fomo'd into some projects and would like to accept when you've missed an entry. Can you talk more about that, this idea of 'acceptance', and how you hope to grow in this area?

 

Sure, recent events in the NFT market can highlight when you should accept you've missed an entry. A lot of the blue chips such as Azuki, Pudgy Penguins, etc. were sat at low prices throughout November and December. That was the time to enter and accumulate, whilst volume was low. Fast forward to now, you see a lot of people entering these projects at 2x their floor price from what it was last month. This can result in easy ETH gains should the floor continue to move upwards but the risk-to-reward ratio is off for me in that position. The idea of acceptance is you've missed an entry, move on to the next move or accumulate some ETH to buy these projects during the next 'lull' period. This is easier said than done as I must admit, recent projects pumping without me having any exposure did frustrate me as I underestimated the amount of ETH left on the sidelines for large projects hence causing me to miss out on passive ETH gains. I hope to grow by accumulating in the future myself at reasonable prices, which I think I'll have a chance to do given the economy that we're currently in.

 

 

 

 

So many of us are guilty of jumping in too late, like you say, rather than accepting that the moment has passed and looking forward. So, when that pressure increases and you want to jump in, what are some things you do or have in place that help you?

I look at how much the NFT has gone up in the last few hours/days, who has bought and why I didn't enter earlier, by asking these questions, you can get a clearer picture of where the NFT may be heading. I use a lot of risk management when it comes to my NFT plays and would advise everyone reading to do the same. There were multiple occasions where a mint has occurred, gone up around .2 ETH and I'd buy in, only to be left selling for a .1 loss days later. Another thing that keeps me sane and away from FOMO is just knowing that there are multiple plays you can make every day that can earn you money via NFTs. Often, I tried to make sure I was in every play which caused a lot of mindless buying during the bull run. Had I curated my plays and focused on 1-2 projects per day, I likely would've made a lot more ETH. Lastly, minters have the lowest R/R in a project so once they see signs of volume fading or they're in the profit zone, they don't hesitate to dump on secondary buyers and move on to the next one. This is why I tend to focus and go hard on minting as opposed to secondary plays that pop up every day.

 

 

 

 

This sounds like a solid mindset and set of practices that will keep you disciplined and out of trouble.

 

Why don’t we change it up a bit? I’m going to list some projects and you react with one word…the first word that comes to mind: 

 

Mooncat - Historic 

Parallel - Oversaturated 

CryptoDickButts - Hilarious 

Otherdeeds - Patience 

Lil Kamis - Overdone 

Lazy Lions - Nostalgic 

Oxya Origins - Iconic 

VeeFriends - Inception 

Trump Trading Cards - Memes

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk and sharing with us your journey up to now.  Anything else you would like to say or leave us with?

 

Just a reminder to anyone reading that if you continue to grind in the space and not get disheartened by missed opportunities or fumbled bags, you're going to come out on top.