Dear Bankless Nation,

Azuki’s third NFT collection, Azuki Elementals, just minted out at 2 ETH each.

The creators, Chiru Labs, pulled in over $38 million from the drop.

There was major demand for this collection, and this is translating into a big first day of trading for these NFTs.

So what to do if you want to track the action and maybe do some trading amid this sort of flurry of initial activity?

For today’s post, let’s use the Azuki Elementals drop as an example of how to wrap your head around a big brand new collection release like this!

-WMP

How to Approach a Big NFT Collection Release

1. Catch up on the basics

First things first, it’s important to understand the basics of a new collection. Scammers abound before, during, and after high-profile NFT drops, so it’s important to double check you’re getting your info from an authoritative comms channel.

For instance, on Twitter the Azuki team recently published security tips, a mint schedule, and the revealed and unrevealed OpenSea pages for its new Elementals release. These resources can get you up to speed in short order. If you go beyond them, watch out for impersonators of the Azuki account/Azuki team members using comments to try enticing victims toward fake mints.

2. Getting ready post-mint

After its presale launched, the Elementals collection minted out within minutes.

Let’s say you didn’t hold an Azuki or Beanz NFT so you were sidelined from the primary sale, but you want to track secondary marketplace action. At this point I’d recommend heading over to a more advanced trading platform like OpenSea Pro.

Why? Because something like OpenSea Pro not only has great analytics resources you can lean on, but it’s also a marketplace aggregator itself. This way if you do see a listing that jumps out at you later, you can make the trade right from the same hub you’re analyzing from.

In the immediate aftermath of a big mint, fake lookalike collections can cause chaos in NFT marketplace search bars, so again, double check you’re on the correct collection page. For reference, here are the official OpenSea Pro pages for Azuki Elemental Beans (unrevealed) and Azuki Elementals (revealed).

Note some collections take days to reveal their art/metadata, while others just take minutes. Many see secondary trading frenzies before their reveals take place, but for Azuki Elementals trading only began after its reveal began. That’s another important lesson here: every project has its unique nuances to keep track of.

3. Taking stock of the market

On a big mint day like today, it’s worth also zooming out to track how some of your other favorite or target collections are faring. For instance, the floor prices of many top NFT projects are currently down on the day as more than a few holders sold off to participate in the Elementals drop.

That said, maybe you don’t pick up an Elemental today, but maybe you do find a few good bargain deals elsewhere in collections you’ve already been tracking for a while. Zoom out and see how things look around at the very least.

4. Be prepared for the unexpected

The chart above shows the all-time floor price data of BEANZ, which dropped in April 2022 as the second collection in the Azuki ecosystem. You can see in the secondary trading the BEANZ floor price quickly peaked at 5 ETH post-mint before trading at or below ~1.5 ETH ever since.

The BEANZ drop caused lots of excitement, thus many people tried to immediately rush into the collection, which in turn caused the floor price to temporarily surge to 5 ETH. However, you could’ve just waited a month or so after the drop and picked one up for over x3 cheaper.

You’d assume that’s what was going to happen today with the Elementals release too, then, right? Well not so, at least not so far. At the time of writing, the Elementals art just revealed and the floor price quickly dipped below the 2 ETH mint price as people are seemingly dissatisfied with how Elementals look just like first-gen Azukis. In other words, don’t rush into a trade too quickly, but also expect the unexpected.

5. Track the key info

When trading begins for a big drop like this, there’s a major flurry of market activity. To get your bearings amid this surge, keep an eye on things like:

• Total supply (the number of NFTs in collection)
• Current floor offer (the highest ETH bid for one of the NFTs)
• Current floor price (the lowest listed price for one of the NFTs)
• Creator fee (royalty percentage per secondary sale transaction)
• 24h volume (how much ETH in trades over the past day)
• Items listed (number of NFTs on offer out of total supply)
• Unique holders (how many unique wallets hold at least one of the NFTs)

On OpenSea Pro, note you can find most of these stats on any collection’s main page, and for others you can simply click into that collection’s “Analytics” tab. The “Market” and “Activity” tabs are also helpful for visualizing recent sales activity and beyond.

Also, keep in mind at this point you could also start exploring the “Traits” metadata and getting a feel for the collection’s rarity dynamics. In the case of Elementals, it will take some time for these dynamics to be fully understood since rarity rankings will be incomplete so long as there are unrevealed Azuki Elemental Beans left to be converted into Elementals. At the time of writing, only 2,000 out of +18,700 had been converted.

Ready for Round 2?

Later this week, another hotly anticipated Anime collection — Ether — is dropping. I don’t think it’ll reach Elemental levels of hype, but it’s going to provide you with another opportunity to track and maybe trade from a brand new and high-profile collection. Using the basics we walked through in this post will ensure you’re ready for this and many more drops to come. Don’t force things, don’t rush in too fast — just make a plan, track the action, and act accordingly if you’re price target is reached!