Whaleshark interview: buy 210,000 pieces of NFT's whale teach you how to invest NFT

Whale Shark's NFT Collectors Playbook

Originally written by Jeff Wilser

Compile: 0x13, beat BlockBeats

Are you going to buy some NFT for fun? Or are you already thinking about investing in NFT? Or maybe even though you still can't understand how a digital picture could sell for $69 million, you're still open to it, and you've done your homework and decided that the rewards of investing in NFT outweigh the risks? Or is it that you don't feel bad about losing the money so you just leave it at that?

Disclaimer: None of the following is intended as investment advice. Investing in NFT or any crypto project comes with all kinds of risks that could cost you everything you own. Please proceed with caution.

In this strange new world of NFT, you need a guide to guide you.

Introduction of WhaleShark

Whaleshark is actually the pseudonym of the man, a 38-year-old from the UK who lives in Hong Kong and has 210,000 NFTs worth mentioning. His NFT collection may rank first in the world by value, or second or third, but he is confident it will rank in the top five, and he readily accepted an independent audit by Nonfungible.com.

Whaleshark is very interested in helping newcomers to the NFT space. He helped Paris Hilton. "I just helped Paris and her fiance, Carter Reum, get on the big ship of NFT and help them understand it a little bit more," Whaleshark says. "She's very enthusiastic, very excited, and she already knows a lot about NFT." (Paris Hilton recently announced on Twitter that she's "ready to work in NFT.")

You may be asking, "What if I'm not an important person?" Never mind, Whaleshark will help you too. Whaleshark has formed a community dedicated to the NFT space, called "Whale," whose Discord group has grown to over 10,000 people and has launched a $Whale social token with a diluted market capitalization of $265 million. The token is backed by the value of Whale's vault and is designed to allow people to invest in NFT without spending millions of dollars. (In a previous post on Medium, Whaleshark said he had donated a portion of his $WHALE token to charity.)

"I always wanted to be an art collector because I love art." "But I was afraid to go into traditional art collections because the barriers to entry were so high." He found the traditional art world intimidating and opaque, and the people who entered it more or less snobbish. But the realm of "crypto art" is within his grasp.

When I first spoke to Whaleshark a few weeks ago, I wanted to get his perspective on the entire NFT space. Now I want to be a little bit more specific. What advice would Whaleshark give to a large number of "NFT-curious" potential investors who are hungry for some guidance?

Whaleshark shares some good news and some bad news for these potential NFT collectors. The bad news: He thinks "99.99 percent" of current NFT projects will fail. So, maybe you shouldn't Max out your credit card to buy a pixel photo.

So what's the good news? "I think it's definitely not too late to get into the NFT space," he says. Whaleshark believes there are still plenty of investment opportunities for even beginners to get involved. Whaleshark offers some sensible, pragmatic advice (such as a detailed Twitter follow list) that will help anyone who wants to work in the NFT space get up and running, frame their investment decisions, and ensure that their digital collections are not defrauded.

Jeff: Suppose a person wants to start investing in NFT. What should he do first?

WhaleShark:First, he should understand what NFTs are and how they are changing the way digital assets are owned and managed. You can watch some videos on YouTube that give a brief introduction to NFT, including what NFT is, how to use MetaMask, how to mint coins, how to buy them, etc.

Jeff: So let's move on. Let's say this person has the basics. What's the next step?

WhaleShark:The second thing is to make sure he or she uses Twitter. The common social platform in the crypto field and DeFi field is Telegram, but the main front in the NFT field is Twitter. Please start using Twitter and follow the great collectors, famous creators and some famous projects.

Jeff: What accounts do you focus on?

WhaleShark:There are several types. The first category is informational: Nonfungible.com, L'Atelier, DCL Blogger, and Andrew Steinwold. It depends on what you are interested in, but you should also pay attention to the major projects such as Gods Unchained, MakersPlace, Known Origin, Super Rare, Nifty Gateway, Sandbox, Crypto Voxels, Decentraland.

Then there are some famous artists, be sure to keep an eye out for artists like Trevor Jones, Pak, and Xcopy. I mean, they're not only tweeting about their own artwork, but they're tweeting about health in the NFT field because they're so integrated into the ecosystem. Then, on the collector side, be sure to look at things like Moca, Pranksy, myself... Gary Vee, Jamie Burke, people like that.

If you pay attention to them and actually read what they post on a daily basis, you'll soon get involved in the NFT space.

Jeff: After following these Twitter accounts in the NFT space, what's the next step?

WhaleShark:I think you should listen to some NFT podcasts, so you can listen to them while you're working. I highly recommend Andersen Steinwold's "Zima Red", Nonfungerbils' "Nonfungerbils" and "The Matthew and Rizzle Show".

DCL Blogger also has a podcast and YouTube channel. And "The First Mint," a fantastic podcast about The NBA's Top Shot, is very informative, often to The point and very objective. And Jamie Burke's Outlier Ventures.

Jeff: Do you need to join any Discord groups?

WhaleShark:Basically, joining the two largest NFT Discord groups in this space will help you a lot. The largest of these is Whale, which currently has over 10,700 members. The other group is TokenSmart.

Jeff: So if someone says, "OK, I understand NFT 100% now, I want to collect, I want to invest. What can I do to make money? What is the smart thing to do?" I don't think it's as simple as "just buy what you think is cool", is it?

WhaleShark:As I've already said on Twitter, it's important to keep in mind that 99.99% of NFT projects that exist today will not be commercially viable when mainstream resources flood in. So, as you said, people really need to be very careful about investing in NFT, and really analyze what they're trying to do in NFT and what they're trying to collect.

Now I think you can divide them into two groups: true collectors, who collect things because they really like them; The second group are investors, who may accumulate things they like for a long time, but they also want to make money in the long run. But I think the most important thing about collecting is "if I don't love it, I won't collect it".

Jeff: So let's set aside the "collector" for a moment, and just as an "investor", what are the strategies that you often use to evaluate an NFT project?

WhaleShark:In one project, I first looked to see if I could draw parallels between traditional and digital collectibles. I want to make sure that digital collectibles have a history, and that physical collectibles are also going up in value.

Jeff: Interesting. Can you give me an example?

WhaleShark:For example, there has been a lot of hype about sneakers over the last few years. This makes me very bullish on digital sneakers that can be worn in Metaverse, such as RTFKT. Turning to digital sports collectible cards, the field is also making a comeback in the traditional world. Digital collectible cards can be held by me for 10, 20, 50 or even 100 years, and their value will continue to escalate. Therefore, the NBA Top Shot brings traditional collectibles into the digital realm, which makes me very optimistic about it.

DJ 3lau, aka Justin Blau, on Randall Island in New York City. (Brian Killian/Getty Images)

Jeff: I see. What's the second thing you're going to do?

WhaleShark:The second thing is the team. A great idea can be dragged down by a bad team, but a bad idea can be lifted up by a great team. Whenever I invest in a project, I take a close look at the founder and team to see if they have the expertise, professionalism, track record, and ability to move the project in the right direction.

Jeff: And the third thing?

WhaleShark:The third thing is the nature and quality of NFT. I think some people take a shortcut with their work, they just link the 2D work, there is nothing special about it. I don't usually invest in these things.

You can really look forward to seeing some of the highest quality projects that realize the full potential of digital canvases and bring collectibles into the digital age. Again, we're going to see a lot of mainstream projects coming into this space, and only the really high quality projects are going to be successful.

Jeff: In your opinion, what projects have fully realized the potential of digital canvases?

WhaleShark:The most famous example is probably the NBA Top Shot. Instead of taking a 2D player card, scanning it and not sending it out, the team created it in 3D. And these works also include all the information about that Moment, and they don't just use a static image, they tokenize a video.

Jeff: What else do you focus on?

WhaleShark:The last thing I care about before investing is money, which a lot of people don't care about. In short, I like to invest in projects that have strong investor backing and a strong funding pipeline.

In the NFT space, a project rises and falls very quickly. Projects that have the capital to survive a bear market thrive in a bull market, and once the company goes bust, it's really over.

But I've found that projects with deep pockets and the ability to remain resilient throughout the bear market are the ones most likely to not only survive the bear market, but also build a large fan base.

Jeff: Which categories of NFT are you particularly bullish on?

WhaleShark:I always believed that crypto art would be the first to explode. And I've been promoting it on Twitter for the past two years. So once people have crypto art or digital art, I believe then people will look for places to display that digital art.

Now, everyone can display it on their own screen, and everyone uses three to seven screens a day, but it's still limited, right?

Jeff: Staring at art on a mobile phone is not ideal.

WhaleShark:You're still limited to those screens. People who collect 10 pieces of art, 20 pieces of art, 100 pieces of art, they want to have a place to display their entire collection. As far as I know, the only place that can do that today is Metaverse. So I think we need to be ready for the Metaverse space to thrive. It's going to grow very, very fast. My main bet is Cryptovoxels, because there are a lot of artists who naturally like the platform because it's easy to use, and I think Metaverse is the next place to go.

Jeff: What other types of NFT do you think could stand out?

WhaleShark:Music NFT. It took crypto art two or three years to create this highway, this path to tokenization and commercialization. All music NFT has to do now is get on the highway that's already built and speed to the finish line. That's why I bid $3.5 million on 3LAU's first NFT album, because it's historic. It was the first tokenized NFT album. I think the music NFT will be able to break through.

Jeff: When you buy an NFT as an investment, how long do you expect the return period to be? A year? Five years? 20 years?

WhaleShark:I am looking for things that I will never need to sell once I invest. I'm looking for assets that I can hold for the rest of my life and continue to grow in value. For example, if my grandfather had started buying soccer cards in the 1920s, I would have a collection worth millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars today. That's what I'm really looking for.

Jeff: Let's talk about security. Given the size of your collection, what do you do to protect yourself from being hacked?

WhaleShark:I think safety is the most important. If you want to be a collector in this field, you have to follow strict security procedures.

The first step is to store your NFT in a cold wallet. It's easier to put NFT in a hot wallet like your MetaMask or a hosted wallet provided by the platform, but I still pull everything out and put it in a cold wallet.

Jeff: How should I keep a cold wallet properly?

WhaleShark:Make sure you store your cold wallet in a very safe place. I keep copies of multiple cold wallets in safes in various places around the world. It is also important to ensure that the private key never touches any digital communication device, or even the Internet.

Then cut the private keys you copied on paper with a pen into pieces and spread them out in multiple safes. I may be paranoid, but when your collection is potentially worth $300 million, it's probably the safest thing to do.

You know, if your private key is stolen, those NFTs are not yours.

Jeff: Whenever I hear about an investment opportunity, it's always too late (not necessarily in the NFT sector, but also in the financial sector). In other words, if even a yokel like me gets it, the real bull market is over.   I suspect there are a lot of other people in the same situation, the smart people have made their money and left, the rest of the "stupid" is still piling in. What do you think about that?

WhaleShark:That's a good question. The first thing I want to say is that I don't think it's too late to invest in the NFT space. I have two reasons. The first is what I mentioned earlier, 99.99% of projects fail, which means that new projects are going to come into the mainstream. By keeping your ears open and eyes glued to Twitter, I think people will be able to tell which of these new projects will thrive in the mainstream.

The second reason has to do with digital art. Sotheby's and Christie's have said that digital art is here for the long haul; They see great potential in NFT. The big question now is which of these visual artists will land at auction. When you look at crypto art, there are only a handful of artists who can sell for astronomical prices. So if you can figure out which of the current digital art artists will be selling at these two auction houses, investing in their art now will pay off in the future.

I definitely don't think it's too late, but it takes a lot of research and analysis to understand which of these artists will go mainstream.

Jeff: OK, one last question, and I'm sure it's a question you hear a lot. But I'm curious. You said 99.99% of NFT projects are likely to fail, but you still have 210,000 NFTs. What do you think of this?

WhaleShark:(Laughter) That's a great question. You're the first person to ask me that.

Jeff: I mean, I know you already have the answer!

WhaleShark:I analyze deeply, and when I look at a project and I analyze it and I only understand 0.1% or 0.01% of it, I dig deeper.

Jeff: What exactly does that mean?

WhaleShark:I'm going to really dig into it. So far, I've been very lucky to invest in the right projects at the right time. The 210,000 NFT may be spread over (less than) 20 projects.

Jeff: Wow!

Whaleshark: I would say that most of my NFT is spread over 15 projects. When I find a good project, I try to buy all the valuable NFT in that project. I find this is the best way to do it, although it may put you at greater risk. But when I see a great project, a great team, a great idea, and there's a lot of money behind it, I'm All In. Not literally, "All In." I mean, I do very deep research and investment.

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