28 Comments
Jan 20, 2021Liked by Jonathan Bales

This is really interesting. I buy into the value of digital assets in video games and digital art that someone creates, but I’m having trouble wrapping my head around the value of owning a sports video. What does ownership really mean here when you didn’t create the video yourself and it’s not unique and is reproducible? What am I missing here in understand this? Thanks!

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author

Agreed-upon value similar to that of a traditional sports card, without the hassle of the card needing to exist physically.

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I concur, a video is a poor example of an NFT as I can take the same portion of the video and release it as an NFT too.

It's not specific enough, like a digital Baseball card for example...

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Jan 15, 2021Liked by Jonathan Bales

How about nfl and mlb??

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author

Nothing as of now. NBA license was quite expensive from what I hear

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I hope they expand to those next. Would love to see that.

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Jan 15, 2021Liked by Jonathan Bales

Ok, I can get into the younger generation preferring digital assets, but is it the younger generation creating the market for these digital assets? Are the 30+ year olds with disposable income driving this market? If a main reason to invest in digital is due to the younger gen drivng demand and market, won't they need to be able to participate? I just bought a pack of 3 cards for $10 bucks on nbatopshot. I think of myself at 10-15 yrs old collecting cards. I wouldn't have been able to afford much. Seems high for a 10 yr old to build a collection. Seems like they are already being priced out.

I can see how you will make money on this by being an early adopter even if it doesn't reach expected potential growth. Is it a sustainable way for the younger gen to participate, collect and have fun? 10 year olds don't have ETH.

PS - I'm old and do hold and look at my cards. Playing acey deucey with friends for cards. That's what it's about!

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author

Traditional cards not driven by kids, either. When I say younger generation, I mean 20s, and yes, many of those people who got into btc do have money. There are also very cheap moments on the market, and I suspect those will see a huge bump from the average collector

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I'm wondering about this exact thing -- affordability. My hope is that the mobile game gives a way or a reason for young people to aspire to collect and hold these moments as assets. Otherwise you have a market driven by speculators and not collectors, and I don't think that's the healthiest way for this to grow!

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Jan 16, 2021Liked by Jonathan Bales

I totally agree, I bought the luka Doncic three pointer game winner against the clippers last year. Great article and thanks for sharing!!! Sanjay Biswas

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Jonathan,

This is an amazing article and you’re a very talented and funny writer. I’m confident you’ll look back on this in ten years and think “Wow I was really, really right.”

I too learned my lesson when I dismissed crypto as something stupid i did not understand. This time, when something like TopShot is popular and doesn’t make sense to me and my initial reaction is to dismiss it, I’m diving in and learning more.

My favorite parts of your article:

“You have to be okay being wrong and being thought a moron. If you’re not okay with people thinking you’re an idiot—sometimes because you make giant mistakes and sometimes because they’re the morons not seeing what’s obvious to you—you can’t achieve unconventional success.”

“It’s so easy to write off what’s different or what we don’t naturally understand as silly, but it’s exactly those things we don’t naturally understand or agree with—yet are popular—that we should spend the most time figuring out.”

“The fact that there’s a movement toward things similar to digital art—and digital art itself over the past 6-12 months—and my natural inclination is to dismiss it should be even more reason to be bullish, similar to the idea of Bitcoin years ago, as people initially writing it off is what allows for the big payoffs that accompany being first.”

“Why do these things need to exist in physical form? The answer: they don’t. Gold is to Bitcoin as physical trading cards are to NFTs.”

“My strategy thus far has been to buy and sell as a way to learn the platform, reinvesting all of the proceeds into more moments. My thinking is that it gives me more opportunities to find value as I collect data and learn, hopefully accumulating better and better assets along the way. Outside of purchasing the Ja moment, which we plan to hold, I’ve found this superior to buying and holding because, frankly, I just didn’t know what I was doing in the beginning. The buy, sell, reinvest strategy sort of de-risks my portfolio without limiting the upside.”

“ —I totally understand the initial reaction of “I don’t get it” or “this seems stupid.” But guess what? There’s a whole generation of young, smart people who’ve grown up in a fundamentally different way from me and you, so whether or not we “get” the future is irrelevant to how it will transpire.”

“My prediction is that over the coming years we’ll see the consensus shift on digital items, from “these are worthless and not real” to “this is the best way to prove ownership, scarcity, and authenticity.”

Thank you!!!!

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author

Thanks for this message, man. Really appreciate you reading.

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You can recognize the value of digital assets while recognizing that the value of these digital cards is being over accelerated by influencers turning quick profits. If you have 1/4 of the Ja card you’ve achieved max upside for probably no downside by covering your share with the cards you’ve flipped while pushing viability. Well played.

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Is there a framework issue with panini blockchain that makes you uninterested in it as opposed to topshot?

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Good question! I’d like to hear others take on this as well. I have both Top Shot and Panini blockchain cards. Top Shot has been on fire and they’ve done a great job of promoting their product. Panini however, as far as I tell, is crickets. Where’s the promotion and excitement about their product? I haven’t seen it. I would love to see the kind of action and prices with Panini blockchain cards that Top Shot is getting.

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author

Feels like a traditional card company that rushed out a blockchain product. There’s no liquidity and it seems no real direction for where it’s going.

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Re-reading this 3+ years later. It holds up. I refer to this post as my degen-Bible. This thing changed my life. I rode the ups (and downs) of TS and finally got into opensea and eth NFTs. Minted a bored ape etc. Thank you for your curiousity and putting this out there, JB. Hope to thank you in person someday.

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> I’m interested in sports trading cards from two perspectives: as “fine art” at the high end and as a “player stock market” across the entire industry.

How could trading cards become a stock market? With stocks you are buying equity in a company and a share of a organization's cashflow, shares of a company's debt that generate fixed return, etc. While they could be compared to the art market, I don't think there's any way you can compare them to securities markets.

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I’m into Crypto but I will pass NFt’s simply because they don’t make sense and sound to me like Doge. It would make sense to say an original Art piece created by an Artist can be sold online with a Digital record and only used as a means to validate authenticity of any art. But if a tweet can be sold as an Nft for $3 M and then? Anything then can have value. This format can only work if only a limited amount of acceptable art is developed and sold and accepted as holding value. But there needs to be an more than just anything as long it has a name behind it. What stops George Clooney from getting a pic of his dog poop and puts it up as a piece of Art for a cool $10 ? Nfts are doge on steroids

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This is not even remotely similar to crypto. I am an artists, and this is a joke amongst artists. Please explain to me how your typical modern artist is going to figure out what an NFT is, how to mint one, or how to navigate any of this nonsense? Modern art is moving towards a more DIY avenue for artists. This type of thing puts power squarely in the hands of companies that can facilitate the creation/selling of NFTs and artists are absolutely not interested in going back down that path.

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I rolled my eyes at the beginning of this article because I would've agreed with your grandfather back in 2011 and completely disagree with you in 2021. Seems like you're just way off, again. Crypto has a lot of very real uses. NFTs do not. NFT art is entertainment at best, and it's a boring, arduous form of one. Digital art is a stand-in for the real thing unless the artwork actually somehow benefits in a genuine way from being digital. What can I do with the NFT art that I wouldn't be able to do with a digital copy of the same thing? Nothing. People who've band-wagoned onto this crypto craze over the last decade seem to fail to realize that the real value of cryptocurrency comes from the black market. Your crypto is worth money because people can use it to buy illegal stuff, anonymously. Thats why it's valuable. The most valuable one is the most secure/quickest/most widely accepted one. If it becomes more popular than government backed currency, then it'll simply be worth what it's worth simply because it's the easy thing to use. NFT's don't mean anything at all to anybody. So tired of reading "tech" articles like this.

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Do you have a process that lead you to identify that Ja moment as a good value at your purchase price of $35k? I have been following Topshot and dabbling myself. However, I constantly find myself struggling with evaluate the market for certain moments. Would love to hear a bit more about your thoughts process there.

Thanks,

Tom

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You spend $35,000 and hope to sell it off to a greater fool for a profit. Nothing but modern day Tulip Mania base on the greater fool theory. NFTs are not Bitcoin. You can use a fraction of a Bitcoin for goods and services. What can NFTs do for you if no greater fool is willing to buy it off of you?

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TULIPS MANIA 🌷

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