The less of something, the more valuable it is — essential supply and demand. In NFTland, it's the same. The rarities of an NFT’s traits are currency, and the rarest editions can sell for multitudes more than a project's floor, but there is more than one way to judge value and rarity.
Since diving into the world of NFT collectables, I have learned a lot on the topic of rarity, especially from the following projects.
The Avatar Project
You may remember reading about The Avatar Project (TAP's) in Part Three of my collectable craze series. At the time of writing, I was not a TAP's holder. I had tried but been unsuccessful. Last week, TAP's creators, Draper and Robek, spun their wheel again, and this time I got lucky! You can watch the live stream here.
JL: The TAP I won has inspired me.
Draper: That's good to hear. What will you do with this inspiration?
JL: I'm going to talk about rarity on my blog.
Draper: Then this might be of interest to you. He's half of the duo behind Brotchain.
JL: Is this what inspired my Looks. Rare. TAP?
Draper: No, that was just based on the many 'looks rare' memes.
JL: What do you think of rarity? Did you consider it when making TAP?
Draper: I think rarity is quite a significant part of the NFT space, which is underexplored. Rarity has always been a huge part of collectables and art (but in a different way). I think the NFT space has injected the style of rarity previously reserved for collectables into art. Rarity is one of the things we're taking aim at with The Avatar Project, so in that sense, it's definitely something we considered a lot. But in a way that we're poking fun at it rather than actually trying to make pieces rare.
The original idea came out of rarity. People cared more about the % rarity of the traits in the art/collectables — so we made the traits the artwork itself. The idea was all based on the disproportionate weighting people give to rarity in NFTs. So in a way, 'looks rare' has replaced 'looks nice' or 'looks pretty' or whatever people say of traditional art.
JL: Divergence said, if all the traits are rare, then nothing is.
Draper: You spoke to Divergence? That's cool. He's very impressive.
JL: I said that the hay then becomes rare, but Divergence made an excellent point.
Draper: True, but most projects purposefully engineer both hay and needles. So you have a hay floor and rare needles.
JL: I like the hay. Some hay is lovely!
Draper: Well, I think that cuts to the heart of it. Do you prefer how it looks, or how rare it is, which affects its market value? In the NFT space, it seems to be primarily the latter.
Cool Cats
Not long after writing my article on Cool Cats, I was able to acquire one. This is Happle (yes, I named her). I bought her at 1.5ETH, and it took a lot of internal convincing to spend what was 5k USD at the time on a picture of a blue cat, but I don't regret it one bit! A month later, Cool Cats floor is 13ETH. I have an even more significant number in mind if I ever sell her, and I think Cool Cats can get me there easily.
Happle is not a rare cat by Cool Cats rankings. She is ranked 7532nd out of 9999 on rarity.tools. She doesn't have a bright background. There is no TV head or unicorn horn to show she is special. She is a floor cat and, by all mathematical metrics, common. I still love her. I watched the floor cats for days until I decided on this one. She spoke to me. So cute and so happy. Her value comes not from her rarity among cats but Cool Cats rarity among projects. As Cool Cats' reach grows, so does my investment.
We Are Dorkis
Since writing about We Are Dorkis, I have gotten to know the team very well, joining them as Project Manager. Working with Dorkis has taught me much about rarity, as this week, our project got listed on rarity.tools.
From the listing, we saw an influx of community members and new holders. It was clear that these buyers were treasure hunters, scooping from the top 100 at early prices. The business side of me understands the value of rarity, and I am happy to see the highly ranked Dorkis selling for larger and larger sums. They are gorgeous and worth it. I also think looking for gems is fun and wanting to have something no one else has is human nature.
I am fascinated and impressed by the algorithms and mathematics the team had to consider from day one to make Dorkis rarities interesting. Furthermore, I enjoyed learning about how resources such as Rarity Sniper and Rarity.tools calculate rarity on their sites.
It was surprising to me, that these tools don't have the same standard calculations and that they could potentially have completely different rankings for the same project. It made me wonder how future tools will characterise rarity and how that might affect future market value.
My favourite Dorkis in my wallet and current Twitter avatar is Dorkis #766 Zaphod Sockpuppet. I love that Zap is non-binary and looks like the life of the party, but Zap is hay (no offence, Zap). Ranked 4663rd out of 4724, they are one of the least rare Dorkis. My mission will be to increase my value and prove Zap Sockpuppet is one of the rarest Dorkis, even if the math doesn't agree.
There are many factors to consider when assessing value. And there are many ways to measure rarity.
