NFT avatars have been going bananas lately. But finding the next white-hot cartoon animal, pixelated punk or low-res mineral project before it blows up, is easier said than done. We look at some tactics, and scope out the upcoming “Koala Intelligence Agency”.

 

NFTs and avatars… a quick recap

Before we do that, though, NFTs – non-fungible tokens… what the hell are they again?

When something is non-fungible, it simply means it’s unique and can’t be replaced – like a Picasso painting, land, or a diamond.

NFTs are the digitised, tokenised form of non-fungible assets, and they’re built on smart-contract blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana, Cardano and others. Just about anything you can think of that could be deemed an asset has the potential to be tokenised in NFT form – for fractional ownership or otherwise.

And this is why the cryptoverse is getting so excited about it. It’s the “tokenisation of everything”, including culture.

NFT avatars, first made popular by CryptoKitties before CryptoPunks and others ran away with the ball, are just one subgenre of the booming NFT world. It’s a pretty frothy subgenre, to say the least – and one that seems like it could bubble-burst any minute.

Or… maybe we’re just getting started…

 

“NFT Summer” is sweltering at the moment, and this is what it looks like in statistical terms, with the Ethereum NFT marketplace OpenSea raking in record amounts of monthly and daily transactional volume…

Source: Richard Chen/Dune Analytics; https://dune.xyz/rchen8/opensea

You can look at NFT avatars as just another expression of art, or as a collectibles craze that gives creators the ability to build in unique properties that can bestow individual pieces with extra perceived value. They also have the capacity to give artists or project founders a cut of the sale every time a piece is sold.

 

How can you find the next big NFT avatar collection?

While NFT avatar collections look like they’re relatively easy to make (know a blockchain programmer and a decent artist?), finding the next ones to moon is another matter entirely.

There’s no particularly clear-cut way to go about it – a large part of it is guesswork. But you can employ educated guesswork, which means taking the time to:

• Dig around in social media for “alpha”, particularly crypto Twitter and NFT-related Discord channels.

• Find out who’s been making (and losing) money in this sector and follow them for tips.

• Look at NFT analytics to see which projects have done well and to try to figure out why.

Just some of the many NFT gurus with laser-eyed focus on this sector of the industry include: @DCLBlogger; @elliotrades; @ZssBecker; @JRNYcrypto and @Zeneca_33. And you can take a look at who they’re following to find others, too.

And here is an outstanding roundup of NFT resources that points you towards useful NFT analytics tools, price-floor information (including Zeneca’s daily chart) and upcoming NFT avatar project mints.

 

Koala Intelligence Agency

Source: twitter.com/KoalaAgencyNFT

One upcoming NFT avatar release that we’re keeping tabs on is the Koala Intelligence Agency. Yep, it was only a matter of time before crypto moved on to Australia’s array of unique animals, and here we are.

Other than the fact we dig koalas, part of the reason this has piqued our interest is down to some intriguing added aspects beyond trading a bunch of “jpegs” on OpenSea.

These include: “top secret missions”, made available to holders of certain unique NFTs, in the form of geocache challenges and “experimental projects”.

“Stealthily located crates will be planted in real life, [and] the locator will receive a hidden prize,” reads the Koala Intelligence Agency website. “The crates will contain a variety of prizes including but not limited to ETH and NFTs.

“Future missions will come to light including Top Secret experimental opportunities for Koalas. Koalas will be able to participate with their Central Intelligence Officers consent.”

The project’s roadmap also includes a charitable angle, with 12 Ethereum apparently reserved for donation to the Australian Koala Foundation upon launch of something the website calls the Koala Academy. (That’s about US $38,600 at current prices, or AUD $52,600.)

Stockhead has contacted the Koala Intelligence Agency team and will update this story if we find out more details.

The launch date and time for “minting” these koala NFTs is August 23, 6.30pm EDT (8.30am AEST).

Whether or not it’s a “jpeg-flipping” winner for those who get in early, or something entirely more… drop-bearish for the vast majority, is anyone’s highly speculative guess.

Source: twitter.com/KoalaAgencyNFT