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I’ve tried to write this piece three times this week.

The problem is, every time I come back to it, Bitcoin seems to have cracked open another can of Red Bull and formed another cup-and-handle pattern.

That, in itself, says something.

Over the last few months, so many people have messaged me saying, “The bottom will be October.” The thesis was built around the now-famous four-year cycle chart, suggesting Bitcoin’s low would come exactly 365 days after the previous cycle’s high.

No way, José.

It’s a truism in Crypto that if everyone thinks one thing, you probably want to start looking the other way. Or, as Chris Burniske would say: “If there’s a feeling of euphoria in either direction, you want to take the opposing view on that bet.”

He foresaw the October 10th, 2025 crash because he could see people loading up on leverage and playing the four-year cycle framework. Meanwhile, we were all fixated, like dopamine-fuelled crack addicts, on the M2 money supply chart that Bitcoin was literally mirroring.

That included me, might I add.

In my eight years in this space, I’ve come to one pretty simple realisation: the bigger risk isn’t buying an asset that could fall another 20%, 30%, or even 60%. The bigger risk is sitting on the sidelines while the highest-quality assets can outperform in such a ridiculously short space of time.

Which is exactly what we’re seeing now.

One framework I’ve leaned on heavily, and shared with this community for a long time, is the ISM.

The ISM (Institute for Supply Management) Manufacturing PMI is one of the simplest ways to understand the health of the economy. Every month, it surveys businesses across the United States to see whether conditions are improving or deteriorating. A reading above 50 means the economy is expanding, while below 50 means it’s contracting.

Today, that reading sits at 55.6.

That’s a strong number because it signals improving business conditions, which generally lead to easing financial conditions, stronger corporate confidence, and, ultimately, a greater appetite for risk assets.

While much of Crypto Twitter debated exact dates and tried to predict the perfect bottom, the backdrop underneath the market was quietly getting stronger.

I love the ISM chart below because, quite frankly, it’s been ludicrously accurate.

But its real value is that it gives you a mental framework for where we are in the cycle and, more importantly, puts a psychological shield between you and the market’s day-to-day madness.

And in crypto, that is gold dust.

Don’t underestimate the scale of the opportunity

One of the aha-apple-bouncing-off-my-noggin moments on my journey in this wild space was realising that we spend far too much time obsessing over the technology and not enough time looking at the people using it.

Think about the telephone.

We can all agree it was a world-changing piece of technology. But if I owned the only telephone on Earth, it would be completely useless. Users drive the technology’s additional utility, not the other way around.

The same applies to social media. Facebook didn’t become valuable because someone wrote elegant code. It became valuable because billions of people joined the network.

That, in a nutshell, is Metcalfe’s Law.

In simple terms, a network becomes more valuable as more people use it because every new participant creates more possible connections. Crypto, the ultimate money network, works in much the same way. Users become the network’s biggest proponents and, somewhat tribally, start fighting off competing ideas.

It’s why XRP army and Bitcoin Maxi’s exist.

As each cycle passes and our lives become increasingly digitised, that flywheel compounds. Only in the best networks, of course.

Famous macro investor Raoul Pal has often spoken about Metcalfe’s Law as one of the few observable frameworks for valuing crypto networks. More recently, he’s been talking about something potentially much bigger: Reed’s Law.

And this is where I think things get really interesting.

Most people’s valuation frameworks for Crypto are still based on humans adopting the technology. What they aren’t accounting for is the potential exponential effect of each of those humans eventually using 10, 20 or even 100 AI agents that could converge with blockchain technology and transact with each other.

Suddenly, we’re not just talking about billions of humans using these networks. We’re potentially talking about tens or hundreds of billions of human-directed AI agents interacting, transacting and forming their own networks on top of them.

Whether that plays out exactly as imagined isn’t really the point.

The point is that we’re trying to value something potentially exponential using linear thinking.

And that could mean we’re missing the forest for the trees.

Raoul Pal:

“Elon’s talking about the robot being the largest single product ever sold. Okay, there’s a billion robots. Okay. That makes a difference.

But when you’re talking about 100 million, 500 million agents, we have no comprehension what that means. So the economic system just doesn’t function. It’s moving so fast now.

Almost all technological adoption in all of history has been Metcalfe’s Law. So they kind of grow in that log channel. Look at Google’s chart from day one, look at Facebook, look at the NASDAQ, look at all of them. They’re all the same chart. And that’s Metcalfe’s Law.

Now, the issue is AI is the first ever recorded example of Reed’s Law. So Reed’s was theoretical. It’s not observed in biology. We don’t see it in things like viruses. It doesn’t exist.

Now it exists.

And so what we’re seeing is Reed’s Law is Metcalfe’s Law squared. So it’s the exponential of the log channel. The exponential of the exponential.

So, to put it in terms people understand, ARK put out a piece of research showing the estimated annual output of words of all of humanity each year, from the Gutenberg press in 1500 to today.

AI, in three years, has now exceeded per year all of the output of all humans on Earth in terms of words.

By 2028, so this is now, call it six years, five years after AI really came out, it will produce more words than all of humanity has ever produced in sum total.”

My highest conviction bet this cycle

There’s an old saying that you earn your stripes in the trenches, not when everything is going your way. SUI has been exactly that kind of trade.

I know many of you followed me into SUI. Some of you have been here even longer, from the Solana article I wrote when it was around $8, while others joined after I wrote about the Bitcoin lows. I never take your trust (or your attention) for granted.

The reason I’ve leaned so heavily into Layer 1s is simple: I’d rather own the infrastructure than try to guess which individual application wins.

Buying a Layer 1 is essentially owning the protocol that hundreds, or eventually thousands, of businesses can build on top of. You’re backing the rails rather than trying to pick every train, and on a risk-adjusted basis, that has always made more sense to me.

SUI has been that bet.

It generally moves in the same direction as Bitcoin, but because it’s newer, smaller and less liquid, those moves can be far more amplified. That cuts both ways, which anyone who's held it over the last year knows all too well.

At one point, SUI fell 70%+. That’s stomach-churning, but nobody gets to watch you sit through a drawdown like that and then tell you the upside was luck.

If you continued to dollar-cost average through that downtrend, you’re now beginning to feel the compounding benefits of patience. And having a full-sized set of kahunas.

If you bought near the highs, that’s okay too. Almost everyone who’s been around long enough has top-blasted a token. I wanted to crawl into a ball when I bought Ethereum at $150 and watched it retrace to $80.

We all know how that played out.

The lesson is that sometimes it just takes time for these things to play out. That’s also what the chart below illustrates beautifully.

SUI in blue broadly mirrors Bitcoin in orange, but the swings are much more violent. When Bitcoin falls, SUI can bleed harder. When Bitcoin moves higher, that same relationship can create amplified moves in the opposite direction.

That volatility is the price of admission.

The potential outperformance is why we’re willing to pay it.

Art on the Blockchain

Art has always lived on the medium of its time.

On cave walls, on the sides of buildings, on pavements, on canvases and even on pieces of cardboard like Pokémon cards, being the contemporary art of our generation.

Art now lives on the blockchain.

Our generation grew up online. We’ve built friendships, businesses, and entire careers online. So it makes perfect sense that our generation’s contemporary art also exists online.

NFT art captures internet culture. The difference is that, for the first time, digital art has built-in scarcity, built-in supply friction, verifiable ownership and permanent provenance. Those are the exact characteristics that have made physical art valuable for centuries.

Art sits upstream of wealth, and there’s now an extraordinary amount of wealth inside crypto.

One thing many people overlook is the relationship between NFTs and Ethereum. NFTs are a huge function of the Ethereum ecosystem. When ETH appreciates, ETH holders' purchasing power increases, creating what often feels like a multiplier effect for culturally significant NFT collections.

What is extraordinary is that Art Price researched 47,000 contemporary registered artists and found that 85% of the value accrues to just 100 of them, which makes the $1.5 billion in value roughly the same as the entire NFT market cap today.

So, if you pick the right artists, and without me overreaching here, it could genuinely change your fucking life.

This is why I continue to believe the greatest opportunity isn’t chasing endless meme coins or micro-cap tokens with unlimited competition and endless supply. Too many tokens are competing for attention, and liquidity is spread far thinner than it was five years ago.

That’s why I still believe in the barbell approach: own battle-hardened blue-chip assets on one side and culturally significant digital art on the other.

The edges are where the opportunity lives.

Final Thoughts

There’s an old saying that everyone looks like a genius in a bull market, but the actual genius is still having some irons in the fire when it arrives.

I’ve had countless messages asking me where prices go from here.

The truth is, I don’t know. Nobody does. And after three cycles in Crypto, I’ve realised that trying to predict every twist and turn is usually where people tie themselves in knots.

What I am confident in is the framework.

Using indicators like the ISM to understand when financial conditions are improving. Building positions gradually. Scaling out gradually. Owning the right assets. And, above everything else, managing your emotions when the market inevitably tries to slap the conviction out of you, like when Mom came at you with a slipper.

The biggest lesson this cycle is to stop thinking you’re Nostradamus and trying to predict the future. Note to self. Avoid getting pot committed to speculative bets while the obvious trend is staring you squarely in the face.

Bitcoin. Ethereum. Solana. XRP. DOGE. SUI.

Then, for those willing to venture further out on the risk curve, culturally significant digital art.

Where I think people are missing the forest for the trees is that this isn’t the same Crypto market we were investing in 5 years ago. Back then, governments were talking about banning it. The SEC was suing large parts of the industry, liquidity was tighter and institutional participation barely existed.

Today, the playing field couldn’t look more different.

Crypto has become a social trend. People proudly stick “Investor” in their bios, and almost everyone I speak to owns some combination of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP or a shit coin that tasted like regret.

The beauty of this cycle is you get to be the second mouse that gets the cheese.

You can put meaningful size into assets unlike those tiddly little bits people were parking their cash into in 2017. It’s because these right assets have already survived bear markets, regulatory attacks, hacks, crashes and 47,000 declarations that Crypto is dead, yet still have an enormous runway ahead of them.

It’s the moat Uncle Warren Buffett has talked about for decades, just applied to Crypto. The strongest networks become increasingly difficult to displace because the users, liquidity, developers, applications and attention start compounding around them.

You don’t need to find the next obscure token hiding under a rock and pray it does 100x. Sure, have a punt, but put that firmly in the “fun” category, somewhere under dopamine shot in the arm.

Sometimes the biggest opportunity is the one sitting right under your nose. Capture the obvious trend. Have a framework. Give the best assets enough time to do the heavy lifting.

Now the real opportunity in Crypto begins.

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We covered Burge’s dating strategy, which was slightly unconventional to say the least, but it’s hard to argue with the results. 😂

Simon shared what he’s been building on the AI side, and then we picked apart everything happening across crypto and NFTs.

A heck of a show.

Many of you have already grabbed the Crypto Wealth Playbook. If you’re ready for the next step, come and join the community. We discuss trade ideas every day, host monthly group calls, build lifelong friendships, and most importantly, make sure you don’t have to navigate this cycle alone.

Become a Founding member: https://stan.store/jaydenlevitt/p/founding-plan-join-my-inner-circle-best-value

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Simon had just got back from London with his family, while Burge and I were sat in 39-degree heat with the fan working overtime just to keep us alive. 😂

We covered everything from the macro picture and where we think Bitcoin could finally find its bottom, to the latest NFT mints, and something I find really interesting... old founders making their way back into the space. Some are coming back after huge success, others after failed projects, but many are quietly building again.

It’s also a little surreal to say we’re already on Episode 46.

If you’ve been tuning in from day one, thank you. Genuinely. Your support means the world, and it’s the reason we keep showing up every week.

If you want to take the next step, join the Carrot Lane community where we share ideas every day, or grab my free Crypto Wealth Playbook packed with the highest-conviction digital assets I’m researching this cycle.

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Burge, Simon and I covered the current crypto market, the Coldcard hack, the scam call I received yesterday (which was sobering, to say the least), and everything happening across crypto, NFTs and the macro landscape.

If you’ve been reading my posts or tuning into these livestreams for a while but haven’t joined the Carrot Lane Founders Group yet, this is probably your sign.

When I look back over the last eight years, almost every expensive mistake I made came from going it alone, guessing, or having nobody around me to challenge my thinking.

That’s exactly why I built this community.

It’s a group of people who share ideas every day, challenge each other’s thinking, act as a sounding board when emotions are running high, get direct access to founders through private calls, and genuinely want to see each other win.

The returns matter.

But the relationships, accountability, and clarity you build along the way are what stop you making the mistakes that cost the most.

If you want to make this cycle the last time you guess or go it alone, click “Join Community” below.

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Thank you , , and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Burge, Simon and I covered the current crypto market, why the Clarity Act now looks further away than many expected, NFTs, PNKSTR, and Fake World Assets. The ecosystem Adam Levik has built, which has already generated almost $20 million in trading volume.

If you’ve been reading my posts or tuning into these livestreams for a while but haven’t joined the Carrot Lane Founders Group yet, this is probably your sign.

When I look back over the last eight years, almost every expensive mistake I made came from going it alone, guessing, or having nobody around me to challenge my thinking.

That’s exactly why I built this community.

It’s a group of people who share trade ideas every day, act as a sounding board when emotions are running high, get direct access to founders through private calls, and genuinely want to see each other win. The returns matter, but so do the relationships you build along the way.

If you want to make this cycle the last time you guess or go it alone, click “Join Community” below.

Join community: https://stan.store/jaydenlevitt/p/founding-plan-join-my-inner-circle-best-value

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Burge, Simon and I spoke about the silent undercurrent of collectables making their way into NFTs, which is a clear sign the market is shifting.

We also covered the Clarity Act, what it could mean for crypto, and our expectations for both Crypto and NFTs over the rest of the year.

Many of you are regular listeners and readers here but haven’t yet made the leap into the Carrot Lane Founders Group. Looking back, most of the worst and most impulsive mistakes I’ve made came from going it alone and guessing.

I encourage all of you to find a community that acts like a hive mind for crypto, where you can share trade ideas in a daily chat, use experienced members as a sounding board, and build genuine connections with people who are on the same journey.

If that sounds like something you’d benefit from, click “Join Community” below.

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We explored both sides of the NFT market: the success stories, but also the projects that have gone silent on their holders.

Simon didn’t hold back.

Many of you have been watching the show for a while now, but you’re still going through this cycle alone and largely guessing. If you want to be part of a high-signal community that cuts through the noise, consider joining the Carrot Lane Inner Circle, aptly named the Founding Members Group.

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Crypto and NFTs are in a really interesting spot, especially with the situation in Iran bubbling over.

We also got into the World Cup, Kevin Warsh, Michael Saylor selling Bitcoin, and the viral Gary Stevenson video calling for higher taxes on the rich.

Plenty to unpack in this one.

If you want to be closer to the community, the Carrot Lane Founding group is where it happens. That’s where the deeper conversations are, and actual friendships are being formed.

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Crypto and NFTs are in a really interesting spot right now.

Collectables continue to pump, helping support NFT prices, while crypto is still largely drifting lower and following the typical four-year cycle.

We also dig into the macro tailwinds that could change all of that, Kevin Warsh’s appointment as Fed Chair, and why it could be one of the biggest catalysts for asset prices over the next 12 months.

If you want to be closer to the community, the Carrot Lane Founding group is where it happens. That’s where the deeper conversations are, and actual friendships are being formed.

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We had a few technical issues, but the reason why is genuinely hilarious, so stick around to find out what happened.

We also got into Bitcoin dropping below $60,000, NFT art continuing to trade sideways, and why forward-looking indicators look much more positive than the headlines suggest.

If you want to be closer to the community, the Carrot Lane Founding group is where it happens. That’s where the deeper conversations are, and actual friendships are being formed.

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If you want to be closer to the community, the Carrot Lane Founding group is where it happens. That’s where the deeper conversations are, and actual friendships are being formed.

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Market conditions feel a little gloomy right now, but forward-looking indicators like the ISM, the midterms, and the new Fed chair, who seems more dovish on business conditions, could change all that.

If you want to be closer to the community, the Carrot Lane Founding group is where it happens. That’s where the deeper conversations are, and actual friendships are being formed.

Founding members get:

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He and his brother Oliver have built one of the most successful NFT projects to come out of the UK. It was fascinating to dig into their approach, from leaning heavily into physical merchandise to building a brand people genuinely want to be part of, and how all of that feeds back into the NFT ecosystem.

There are a lot of lessons packed into this conversation, whether you’re interested in NFTs, branding, or building a community from the ground up.

If you want to be closer to the community, the Carrot Lane Founding group is where it happens. That’s where the deeper conversations are, and actual friendships are being formed.

Jacob is also jumping on a private group call with Carrot Lane founding members soon.

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A heck of a conversation between me, Simon and Burge.

If you want to be closer to the community, the Carrot Lane Founding group is where it happens. That’s where the deeper conversations are, and actual friendships are being formed.

Founding members get:

• 1-2-1 strategy call with me

• Private members-only group chat

• Daily, real-time market discussions

• Monthly deep-dive group calls

• Direct access to the community and a premium research newsletter

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The top 300 NFT collections by market cap are all up significantly over the last 90 days, as we discuss on the live show today.

A heck of a conversation between me, Simon and Burge.

If you want to be closer to the community, the Carrot Lane Founding group is where it happens. That’s where the deeper conversations are, and actual friendships are being formed.

Founding members get:

• 1-2-1 strategy call with me

• Private members-only group chat

• Daily, real-time market discussions

• Monthly deep-dive group calls

• Direct access to the community and a premium research newsletter

See you on the other side!

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Deadfellaz did close to $100 million in trading volume back in 2022, and recently, there’s been a noticeable resurgence in buying activity around the project. After speaking to Betty, it’s easy to see why.

One of the biggest signals in NFTs is holder behaviour.

Deadfellaz has 61.4% unique holders.

77.24% of those holders own just one NFT, which makes that single asset psychologically harder to sell.

89.01% of the collection hasn’t moved wallets in the last year, and in some cases, probably since mint.

That level of conviction is absurd.

I don’t own a Deadfellaz NFT, but I’ve been seriously impressed watching Betty and Psych build through one of the nastiest bear markets this space has ever seen.

That’s the beauty of this cycle: we finally have visibility into who actually kept building when nobody was watching.

Do your own research, and make sure you watch the show above. This looks like a really strong project. Check out the collection here: Deadfellaz

Cheers, Jayden.

If you want to be closer to the community, the Carrot Lane Founding group is where it happens. That’s where the deeper conversations are, and actual friendships are being formed.

Founding members get:

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• Private members-only group chat

• Daily, real-time market discussions

• Monthly deep-dive group calls

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The top 100 NFT collections by market cap are all up by huge percentages, which is something we discuss on the live today.

A heck of a conversation between me, Simon and Burge.

If you want to be closer to the community, the Carrot Lane Founding group is where it happens. That’s where the deeper conversations are, and actual friendships are being formed.

Founding members get:

• 1-2-1 strategy call with me

• Private members-only group chat

• Daily, real-time market discussions

• Monthly deep-dive group calls

• Direct access to the community and a premium research newsletter

See you on the other side!

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I’m noticing a theme.

Whether through DMs, livestream comments, or folks I speak to on calls, is that many are becoming pot-committed to micro-cap tokens, we’re talking assets with market caps under $500 million.

Me being sceptical is an undertatement.

The monumental landmine everyone will tread on is that there are too many tokens in that echelon of assets. Even if the token has a high memetic ceiling, the team is profound, or you genuinely like the technology, it still requires attention flows for it to drive buying pressure.

It’s the simplest and most underestimated explanation for what drives the price.

Price increases become a self-sustaining marketing tool because it drives more eyeballs to the asset, which in turn creates the next wave of buyers. That’s how these network adoption models can have parabolic price rises. Right now there’s too much diluted attention in these tokens and too many assets competing for the same capital.

Most people are better suited to sticking to one of the five battle-tested assets that are either Bitcoin or indexed against BTC, while simultaneously not letting NFTs become a blind spot. So playing on either end of the barbell in obvious coins and then culturally significant NFTs.

I believe NFTs are the Crypto opportunity everyone is overlooking.

We can now clearly see that the top 100 NFT projects by market cap are all up in percentage terms, while Ethereum, the underlying currency used to buy these assets, and Solana and Bitcoin have traded sideways. That’s significant because when Ethereum rises, the NFT becomes a leveraged bet on ETH, and you get this multiplier effect, which is why it tends to outperform.

In other words if you buy an NFT for 1 ETH and the buy-and-sell demand pushes it to 10 ETH, that’s already a great return. But if Ethereum itself also moves from today’s price of $2,300 to $10,000, that same NFT has effectively gone from $2,300 to $100,000.

That’s the magical multiplier effect. And in the right NFT asset, it’s a swing most people should at least consider taking.

In a world where everything digital is basically infinite, including coins, NFTs solve one very important problem: scarcity.

The beauty of the asset is its built-in supply friction: the psychology of the holder is that, as the price rises, they become less willing to sell, which means it trades hands less often.

Most holders tend to buy one from each collection and sit on it. Because the first use case is art, and humans socially signal through art, people organise around these assets. They meet online and in real life. It makes the experience of holding the asset much more immersive than coins, which then makes that one token much harder to sell because, in many cases, selling it feels like stepping away from your friendship group.

As Punk6529 says, the nature of the token shapes the holders, who in turn shape the nature of the token:

The single most important test, is can I imagine myself saying (or the token hodlers saying): "I have no intention of selling this token, I plan to give it to my grandchildren when I die and I hope they don't sell it either"

Selling an NFT feels like amputating part of your identity.

And right now, the behaviour pattern we are seeing in these NFT assets is that they operate much like coins, in the sense that they are network adoption models. It’s now a race to the top for the strongest networks, and all that really needs to happen is for these online communities to survive and develop a Lindy effect. If they survive a downtrend, they become increasingly difficult to displace because each new cycle increases the likelihood that these non-perishable assets will remain with holders rather than be sold.

Art has been upstream of wealth for hundreds of years. But the NFT technology itself operates more like a QR code on steroids, where the issuer can add anything of value to the contract layer in perpetuity. That makes the asset much more dynamic than most people realise.

It truly is an everything token.

What we’ve seen over the last 30 days is that CryptoPunks, which acts as an index for the NFT market in a similar way that Bitcoin does for altcoins, has been moving higher, and that’s starting to have a knock-on effect across other blue-chip collections.

Blue-chip trading volume.

Something’s starting to shift under the surface.

Trading volume on blue-chip NFTs is up substantially. It’s picking up in a way that’s hard to ignore and the market is still nowhere near all-time highs.

What NFTs are showing right now is that this is becoming a race to the top for the strongest communities.

You can already see the early signs in the data, with a clear uptick in trading volume, something a lot of notable commentators have started pointing out on the timeline.

Lewis:

BAYC: 11.26 ETH
Pudgy Penguins: 5.59 ETH
MAYC: 1.89 ETH

All green.

This isn’t one collection pumping.
It’s the entire blue-chip tier moving together.

When correlations tighten on the way up,
it’s usually macro rotation not project specific news.

Capital is rotating back into NFTs.
The floor doesn’t lie.

Blockcast news posted:

“NFT Market Cap Tops $2 Billion for First Time Since January

CoinGecko data shows the total NFT market value at around $1.95 billion in early May 2026, with daily sales over $2.5 million amid a broader crypto bear market.

Blue-chip collections are driving the rally, sparking chatter about undervalued gems that hit $15 billion at their 2022 peak.

Enthusiasts like CryptoKaleo predict big growth in a bull market, while communities share nostalgia for OG projects, blending hype with long-term belief in art and culture.”

Let’s ground this data.

When you zoom out, the chart below shows where we are in all-time blue-chip NFT trading volume. The NFT market cap is now $1.9 billion, which is up over $700 million in the last 30 days alone, but it’s barely a speck on a chart compared to where we were in 2021.

To put that into perspective, the entire crypto market cap is roughly $2.6 trillion, with NFTs accounting for just $1.9 billion, or 0.07% of the total.

That’s minuscule.

To borrow Punk6529’s expected value framework, there is a 50% chance that NFTs double and account for 1.4% of the total crypto market cap, and a 50% chance they go to zero.

So you stay delta neutral: 50% × 0.14% + 50% × 0% = 0.07%. That’s roughly where we are today.

I like this probability framework for anchoring decision-making because it gets you closer to thinking in outcomes, not certainties, while also factoring in that crypto itself is expected to grow as a share of the total investable asset market.

If you take the total investable market at around $200 trillion, and crypto today sits at $2.6 trillion, that’s roughly 1.3%. Using the same framework, there’s a 50% chance that doubles to 2.6%, and a 50% chance it goes to zero.

Personally, I think the chances of NFTs doubling their share of the crypto market from here are significantly higher than the chances of them going to zero, which makes the expected value positive.

And that’s before factoring in that crypto adoption itself is likely to increase over the same period, meaning the total crypto market cap, currently at $2.6 trillion, could realistically grow to $10–15 trillion this cycle. And if the expected value is positive, it makes sense to have some exposure to the best-performing NFT assets, given their finite supply and the multiplier effect of Ethereum rising.

But the real fuel may come from trading card games and this hybrid model of phygital collectables, where companies like Courtyard.io are spending $80 million a month on PSA-graded cards, which are largely sold as digital receipts (NFTs).

With the world becoming increasingly digitised, the odds of higher prices continue to increase, particularly when you’re buying historically and culturally significant art, where there is always a reason for people to return to it.

Right now, we just need time to do the heavy lifting.

Over time, holders become increasingly unlikely to sell, while new demand is likely to keep coming in.

If we reach the volumes we did in 2021, we’ll have some crazy moments.

The data is quietly disagreeing with the crowd.

One of the truisms of the crypto space, especially when we’ve seen ludicrous assets like memecoins based on obscure ideas run into the billions in market cap, is this:

If you’re having an allergic reaction to something, someone on the other side of that trade is having a positive one.

And the only thing you need to do, if you want to be successful in this space, is find out why.

Like an old cricket coach used to say to me when I was underperforming as a batter and trying to cover it up by pointing the finger elsewhere: “Jay, there’s no hiding place for data.”

And it’s true of NFTs right now.

I read so many comments from people in denial, or saying things like “NFTs are dead, bro.”

But the data says otherwise.

I’ve crammed as many as I could below into one chart, but all of the top 100 NFTs by market cap are up by multiples.

Final Thoughts

Ever hear those stories of people who got into assets early, like the early Bitcoin or Amazon crowd, and you sit there wondering how they saw it so early?

That’s where we are with NFTs.

I think it’s the second bite of the apple, where most people are still carrying that early PTSD from missing Bitcoin and defaulting to denial.

Most people still think NFTs are a bit faddy, when in reality they’re one of the only things in crypto that make real sense as a use case, because they’re effectively an everything token.

So now is the time to lean in or at the very least get educated.

You might be sitting there as someone who already holds crypto but is still very new to NFTs, so as a thank you for reading this far, I’m going to make some suggestions on assets to look at, and I’ll link the projects below.

All are risk adjusted entries into the space. But I will say this: you need some kind of moat around your assets, and it all hinges on sustained attention.

There are three catergories I lean towards.

First, historically significant art, where you only need time to do the heavy lifting because there’s always a reason for folks to come back to them. You can’t go back an recreate that first or early moment. Most people don’t realise there is an entire antiquities market in NFTs.

Second, culturally significant art that captures a moment or movement, like top artists XCOPY and Beeple.

And third, IP plays.

These are much harder to get right because they depend heavily on the founder’s ability to drive demand, and you also need confidence that they have an altruistic view of business and will see the project through. It’s akin to investing in a start-up.

The most obvious thing people miss about NFTs, aside from their first use case being art, is that we’ve all grown up on the internet, and NFT art captures internet culture, which means there will always be demand.

The only cost of entry is an open mind.

Do your own research. But I recommend these as a soft entry into the space.

XCOPY

Beeple

Curio Cards

Veefriends Series Two

World of Woman

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This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial, tax, or legal advice. You should consult a financial professional before making any significant financial decisions.

NFT prices are pumping. The top 100 collections by market cap are all up by huge percentages, which is something we discuss on the call.

A heck of a conversation between me, Simon and Burge, with great questions from the audience.

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