Hello NFT world. I've got my first stripe on my white belt.
I've also seen obnoxious prices just hours after minting. I'd wouldn't want to seem that desperate. I'd much rather rise with the tide of a stable market, but this must be the NFT promised land. I suppose that this seems somewhat par for the course with many who've become accustomed to milking Hive for everything they can.
Regardless, lots of people clearly want to turn their $16 into big returns overnight, not a good look for the best community while the cryptoverse spotlight may actually be shown our way since the hostile takeover.
On my end, first steps were made... I minted 18 punks, my first time. I tried to get more at the buzzer with what should've been enough time, but Blocktrades' LTC>HIVE transfer was abnormally slow. After several steps and fees, I didn't enjoy watching the 10K cap approach as I waited for my Hive transfer. Hopefully one day HIVE will be on more exchanges, where Hivers don't need to be tipped huge bounties in celebration (probably sold for BTC) for paperwork submitted to an exchange that likely listed us due to guilt over drama they were trying to make good on. "The North remembers."
Despite shipping HIVE over immediately after receipt with a tiny bit of wiggle room left, I was officially the bubble as the first to be refunded. To my dismay, someone dropped a request for 25 to add to their large collection and finish the first edition. They literally beat me by a few seconds. I was fine with it until I saw the results, where there was a good chance that the rare gold laser eyes punk #9,998 they immediately listed at 25K HIVE would've been mine to stash. All my fault for pushing it too close while waiting for ETH gas fees to simmer down.
Aside from 
While there were bumps in the system to have it be a while to see my punks, 
Using the preview bot I heard about late at night, I was relieved to see a few of decent rarity to feel like I got something to look forward to holding.
These were my 3 most rare of the initial 18:
As soon as I saw the Zombie (1 of 39), I felt at ease knowing that this was enough to have a decent poker chip in the game to warrant the expense. I figured I'd at least get a little money back on top of the fun.
Here's a link to all of them, including the 4 I bought today: https://punks.usehive.com/gallery/steemmatt. My least rare one is listed on the market at 45 HIVE to theoretically double my money after 10% seller fees as an experiment, but it's invisible for some reason as upgrades are underway.
Likely not the only one, I stayed up late refreshing the market, observing discord, and researching the original CryptoPunks to see what attributes do well there. I felt good about my Zombie, but was also irked by the slow Blocktrades swap once I saw that missing the gold laser eyes was the true cost. So much for the Litecoin Lightning network. Oddly, the same exact steps were super fast the first time earlier in the day. I simply didn't account for it not nearly being as smooth. Lesson learned.
The Next Day:
Ahhhh Hive Punk hangover...
I'll admit that the first thing I did when I woke up today was check the market. I figured some people would've left outdated low prices from the night before. I also hoped to snipe a few good ones before the prices started inflating as some of our favorite ROI-seeking Hive Punk pioneers started cranking up their prices to attempt to capitalize on the new hype. On the top market ranks, we currently have one at 333,333 HIVE parked next to one at 8,000 HIVE that's only 47 points less rare. Whyyyyyy...?
Is the name of the game to aim extremely high so the really high price gets normalized faster? I was almost fooled.
Back to the morning after with tired eyes, I saw a few that seemed "undervalued" based on their appearance, name/occupation, and distinct cultural elements. I didn't factor in their rarity too much. Since I'm not going to dive deep into these NFTs with my budget in mind, fun and holding most for the long run seems like the right approach (especially since is a semi-clone project). Those rushing to sell now seem to be giving up most of the upside on what is relatively a small investment. If it goes to zero, who cares? If one makes a few thousand overnight, congrats, but I'd rather see what happens over the years for such a negligible cost of $16/punk.
Back to browsing... I tried to buy #4812 at 29 HIVE (219 rarity), a great deal fair for what it was. Keychain said it was broadcasted, but I didn't see my purchase. In hindsight, I had no idea that HIVE on Hive-Engine was needed until asking in Discord. I quickly let this deter me from sending the HIVE I was refunded yesterday to Hive-Engine. After extra swaps and steps the day before, I logged out and snoozed.
When I woke up and saw that someone bought that punk and relisted it for 1,199 HIVE, I got my first jolt of disgust of how this game likely works. This price was way out of line with similar rarities, but hey, that's clearly not the only driver of price. While I personally thought that punk would call to someone down the line, I wasn't going to buy it and immediately relist it for 43.3X the price. That type of greed makes me mad, but that's reality, and account names are attached to see. It's not like this person is a genius and calculated the market price based on 24 hours of partial data. They just threw a number against the wall in hopes that someone would just buy it eventually. Seems like many are doing that based on a few others that I saw bought and relisted for much higher, and definitely across the NFT space. I guess the valuation process across a bunch of random ROI-seeking individuals is going to be haywire at best, seemingly the name of the game when the hope of easy money is involved.
Using my *masters in *economics from *Harvard..., I feel that inflating prices will turn people away, as opposed to allowing demand and excitement to grow organically. Patience wins, not selling an apple you just got for 10,000 HIVE when the next nearly identical apple is 100 HIVE, and the next is 1,500 HIVE. It's just silly, but call it an experiment.
Seeing many familiar Steem/Hive names ballooning prices showed me a side of them I guess you wouldn't see until money is involved. So much greed and tossing random numbers in the air like it's a real valuation. I've seen this with some Splinterlands card sellers too. One card is a $50K, the next is 2.5 million. You ask the seller about it and they mute you on Hive... true story.
What about some patience? The project is barely a day or two old and people are slinging absurd prices for something that hasn't even left the Hive bubble yet, like they're experts. Perhaps if these people tried promoting the launch to help the entire ecosystem and create organic demand, I'd feel differently, but it seems that many expect new investors magically swoop in to buy their $16 purchase for ridiculous sums. Perhaps over time, but not 1-2 days after the launch when the site is still malfunctioning.
Anyway, I reconsidered buying some punks as collectibles, and did so instead of buying two untamed Splinterlands packs while feeling in the gambling mood.
Shout out to one particular Hiver for being flexible on their pricing since I had a budget to work with. He was very responsive and approachable about it. This restored some faith in the community while many were doing the extreme opposite.
These are the ones I bought to help the economy grow, what I feel is better than parking these punks on the market basically Hivers will be looking through unless more marketing and crypto bridges are built to attract outside money.
My rationale was that I already committed to spending most of this HIVE yesterday, and each punk would've been a sunk cost of 20 HIVE anyway. Therefore, my cost was only X- 20 HIVE.
- Bought for 50 HIVE because it had a nice fun look, a catchy name, and a fun profession. I wanted a headband NFT, and this was different than the typical ones that look like basketball players. I have a feeling this will be somewhat easy to sell down the line.
- Bought for 55 HIVE because smoking props on the real CryptoPunks are often in demand, and I liked the irony of the music therapist profession with the depressed frown. Here he is supposed to be healthy and help people, yet he's sad and smoking to cope. It was originally 80 HIVE, but I negotiated down to 55 after a direct message. It doesn't hurt to ask and it worked out!
- Bought for 40 HIVE as an ode to Covid times for my memory bank. It looked simple enough and I thought it could actually be more desirable than all of the bells and whistles to someone. No clown nose or eyeshadow needed to make it on my roster.
- Bought for 35 HIVE because it looked like Michael Jordan. Again, the cigarette prop seems to be popular on real CrypoPunks. I negotiated this down from 40 HIVE because that was all of the funds I had left on Hive-Engine. Again, props to the generous Hiver who was buying and selling for FUN, not to make large profits by wishing on a star. This seller was realistic and I'll try to buy from them again if I do tack on.
See a young Air Jordan or no?
Actually, here are all 22 I have now, because why not? I wanted at least 25, so I've closed the gap enough.
My final advice is that people should've be so desperate to sell their punks for thousands of dollars. Take some realistic gains if you need the funds, or just hold on to them and help the economy grow by marketing them around the cryptoverse where deep pockets reside. It just takes a few substantial investors to come over and get us free PR to help these gain traction. The alternative is hyping the prices up and scaring off the smart money. There's not as much dumb money out that as you'd like to hope.
Overall... I'm just venting. Do your thing. Get paid if you can and really need it. The greater fool theory does work sometimes.
Lastly, thank God
Long live Hive Punks!
PS - Forgive me if any of my words may be harsh to some. I feel that it's best to address issues head on.