Join our Telegram channel and chat to keep abreast of the main trends in crypto games.
In a project, the moment the NFT is created (mint) plays a big role, as it defines your community and influences its perception and how it will be evaluated by the wider market afterwards. It is important to choose a simple, safe and interesting mechanism to attract the right participants. In this article, we explore a new strategy for creating tokens proposed by 1337 Skulls (co-authors of the article) - “wave mint”.
Members of different NFT communities are invited to mint tokens in a series of waves, starting from close communities and gradually expanding outwards.
Wave Mint uses the data and reputation of participants on the blockchain to select holders that are well suited to the culture and goals of the project, while attracting attention and activity to the project. This approach also avoids the common problems with freemints and giveaways of NFT “free” giveaways to prevent so-called. “gas wars” and the transfer of NFTs to botnets.
We will talk about the Wave Mint mechanism, its advantages and difficulties, as well as share the experience of running a mint using this approach in practice.
As the NFT community is experimenting with different creation and interaction strategies, we hope this method will be a useful tool for artists, developers and project creators in the field of crypto games, NFT collections and web3.
How does Wavemint work?
Giving away NFTs for free may seem like an attractive way to get the masses involved in the project. However, in practice, freemints can prevent the formation of a community due to bots and “tourists” who only plan to resell tokens and do not stay in the community for a long time.
How can a project find people who share its values and goals? One way is to look for friendly and similar NFTs in users' wallets and invite them. [approx. ed. This is one of the strengths of blockchain for marketing. Direct marketing.]
With this strategy, different groups are invited to mint your collection's NFTs in stages. Each wave can last from a few minutes to a couple of days. So mint can be free (or below market price) without gas wars.
Groups invited on different wavelengths should be chosen taking into account the attraction of holders who actively interact with the new project and support its goals. For example, 1337 Skulls offered to hold a Wave Mint for similar cc0 projects (Creative Commons Zero license without copyright) such as Nouns and Blitmap; and online gaming could open up waves for project holders like DigiDaigaku and Pirate Nation.
The important point is that each wallet can only mint an NFT once, even if it matches multiple waves. Limit: 1 NFT per wallet helps ensure a wide distribution of holders.
Communities must be carefully selected to first build a strong core community of long-term holders and then scale. This strategy uses the power of close ties to build a core community and establish “social proof,” and then weaker ties to move into more distant but like-minded networks.
early waves
"trusted connections" – In the early stages of Wave Mint, you should focus on “trusted” communities where the creators have strong personal connections and established reputations. Working with such communities early on can build confidence in a new project and allow bugs or anomalies to be tracked down in a controlled environment. Starting with trusted connections is especially relevant because participants mint NFTs from wallets where other NFTs are stored, perhaps even very valuable ones, despite community warnings to use “battle wallets” to reduce phishing risks; setting up early stages with trusted connections provides the social proof you need to comfortably participate during the mint.
Next waves
"strong ties" - After the formation of a core community with trusted connections, you can switch to communities with “strong connections”, that is, those that have a significant overlap in the number of participants with previously attracted participants. This contributes to the network effect among the people interested in it.
Subsequent waves
Once the main community core of your project is formed and visible to other related groups, you can run several stages of mining for larger communities with weaker connections. This will help to attract those who may not have direct connections, but were interested in the project during previous waves and participated in your events.
Thus, Wave Mint provides an opportunity to gradually attract participants from different communities, starting from the nearest ones and moving on to more distant ones, but close ideologically and in spirit to your project. This helps to create a strong, active and committed community that will contribute to the project's growth and success.
It's worth noting that this approach also avoids some of the common problems associated with freemints, such as gas wars and bot wars, thanks to controlled and limited eligibility criteria.
Case of using the Wave Mint approach
We took this approach with the launch of 1337 Skulls, an NFT project that aims to strengthen the bonds between the NFT communities that have provided their intellectual property for addition and remixing under the cc0 license. Wave Mint has helped us attract enthusiasts who are passionate about cc0, blockchain art and remix culture on the internet.
At first, we focused on familiar communities, after which we offered participation in mint waves for holders of various cc0 NFT projects. During the process of creating tokens, we gradually introduced waves aimed at large audiences, but with short expiration dates. In the end, especially in the final phase, we focused on short-term waves for holders of a variety of NFT projects that have similarities with those that were chosen in the early stages (for example, similar design, launch dates, and community management style). Thus, we implicitly recruited participants from communities with weak ties who were particularly interested in our project.
Wave Mint Strategy Evaluation
The Wave Mint strategy is initially focused on attracting people who share the goals and values of the project. Moreover, each wave includes a group of people from an already existing community in a certain period of time, which immediately creates a “network effect” and helps to overcome the “cold start problem.”
In terms of Go-to-Market strategy, this provides significant opportunities for component audience growth – “member invite member”, with the rapid spread of information about each wave of mint by word of mouth within and between communities. And in terms of community building, the Wave Mint strategy helps ensure that the majority of token holders have at least a few strong community connections from the start.
We also found that, at least in our case, the Wave Mint process itself drew attention to the project. The gradual distribution of tokens over several hours and days allowed the 1337 Skulls community to review and evaluate NFTs as they appeared (which happened instantly after the mint) and simplified the process of onboarding and incorporating new community members in real time.
In terms of mechanism design, the Wave Mint format means that people's wallets effectively serve as a form of "proof of unique identity." Many people keep the majority of their NFTs—especially valuable ones—in one or more wallets (ONE EDIT: CGP does not recommend using 1 wallet for storage and use. It is not safe!). Mint limit 1pc. in 1 hand helps reduce the likelihood of counting the same participant multiple times. At the end of the 1337 Skulls mint, the project had over 50% unique holders (measured across different wallets), indicating a lower concentration among participants compared to other types of mining. (Editor's note. A very important indicator of the growth potential and health of the NFT community)
Also, the use of this approach suddenly and for short periods of time complicates the process of manipulation during the mint. This helps track anomalies in real time, such as when someone spreads assets across multiple wallets to get more NFTs. The wave format gives the team an opportunity to pause the minute in such situations, to think and develop a solution. Because each individual wave is small compared to the total supply, supply can be adjusted according to need to avoid the risk of “gas wars”.
Comparison with regular allow lists by whitelist type.
Wave strategy has a number of advantages over conventional methods using multiple parallel permission lists, where members of certain communities are given the opportunity in advance to register and possibly be included in the mint process.
While pre-listing mechanisms give people enough time to study the project and register, they often fail to keep their attention. Many sign up for whitelists, but forget about them by the time the minute is up. Wave Mint reduces the time from the first acquaintance with the project through existing NFT communities to the moment of mining and subsequent interaction with the community.
With advance permission lists, it's also difficult to determine how many people will participate in a mint. This forces teams to allocate too many resources, which can lead to huge gas wars. In contrast, the wave approach allows the project to adjust the number of available seats in real time, adjusting supply according to demand. You can leave the wave open longer or open multiple waves to get a certain number of community members.
At the same time, multiple allow list mechanisms make it difficult for users to comply with mining restrictions, as they provide many opportunities to reallocate assets between wallets in order to occupy multiple places in the allow lists. Wave mint directly solves this problem, although the ability to do this largely depends on the snapshots taken in advance (snapshots of the state of the blockchain to determine the holders).
Finally, wave mint can be more attractive than classic whitelists that work by order or through raffle. This often leads to disappointment. Some people who have made significant efforts to research and register on these lists are inevitably left behind. A wave mint, on the other hand, is more likely to create a positive frame of open opportunity—at least to the extent that people are directly involved in the process. And even if people miss the waves they were entitled to, at least they won't waste their efforts.
Thus, the wave mint strategy makes the process more accessible and friendly to participants, providing an opportunity for rapid dissemination of information about the project within and between communities. Thanks to this, participants can join the project and interact with the community without wasting time and energy on long and complicated processes of registration and participation in lotteries. As a result, this contributes to the formation of a strong, active and engaged community that will contribute to the growth and success of the project.
Challenges: operations and security
In terms of operations, the wave mint is difficult to perform. It takes a long time and requires careful synchronization between the front and back end teams throughout the process. The front-end and community management and marketing teams will be constantly tweeting, chatting on Discord, and keeping the project interesting (as well as stimulating speculation about what community wave might open next), while the back-end team will work with wallet lists, open and close waves, and make sure everything runs smoothly.
From the user's point of view, important security issues arise. By its very nature, the mechanism encourages people to mint using wallets in which they store other digital assets – often very valuable ones, such as tokens from large communities. Many people “store” their most expensive NFTs in one wallet, and attackers may try to create false wave mints to gain access to these wallets.
With this approach, it is even more important to carefully study each proposal and be sure to provide teams with clear information and documentation. Since waves open and close quickly, smart contracts and other key information must be available for study in advance and be clearly explained and documented. (While it is always necessary to apply maximum security measures to Discord, social media, and other communication channels, this is where the need is particularly acute to avoid attackers taking over a legitimate mint in the process.)
In the long term, it would be great to see delegation solutions specifically optimized for this approach, allowing people to delegate access in a way that they don't have to mint directly from their vault wallets.
Finally, another risk, in terms of incentives, if wave mints become ubiquitous, people may start storing their digital assets in many different wallets in the hope of maximizing the opportunity. This will necessitate more creative criteria for determining who should be eligible to participate in each wave.
Subscribe to our telegram channel and visit our main chat to discuss the latest news and strategies for earning money in crypto games.