The Bored Apes minted on April 21, 2021. For all practical purposes apes mark the beginning of the NFT market.
Back then the market was dominated by younger male, wallstreetbets meets card traders, meets day trader types. Gambling personas flipping kindergarten art, animal and hero characters. Degens, gawd bless 'em all.
NFT sales were entirely due to influencers shilling their bags to legions of followers, then copy buying. The unspoken rule was the greater fool theory.
I'm wondering if the demographics changed from then till now? On balance I can't see where they have.
There's very few women at NFT meetups. I was at last year's Art Basel in Miami - it was a sausage fest. Selfies on NFT Twitter resemble the Oakland Raiders look - younger males in baseball caps and black hoodies.
Two years in NFT revenue still happens starting with hype on NFT Twitter, then copy buying. Tweets are about "floor price" or "trading". It's hard (impossible?) to make a case that NFTs are about much more than the Benjamins.
The art and music industries are both bandied about on NFT Twitter as growth opportunties. For this to be true, market gatekeepers need to see more than what they're seeing now. They want to see and hear that their customers are excited about NFTs.
I collect street art. NFTs would seem to have a beachhead opportunity in the street art scene. But so far, NFTs aren't in the primary discussion. If they do come up the discussion ranges from bewildermint to the negative.
I'm a music fan and a Deadhead. I buy music and go to a lot of concerts. I make a point of talking to young people at shows. It’s few and far between that anyone I’ve talked to cared about NFTs. I can’t recall a younger female having an impression beyond the negative. No artist I follow has written anything memorable about NFTs.
I hope I'm wrong about the NFT market demographics. But if so, where is the proof? Can anyone point me to meaningful market analytics or research?
I don't believe that wallets are a metric to care about. Because you don't know who or where the wallets belong to.
For thousands of entrepreneurs and coders to take a bet on NFTs, risk their capital or coding time, they need to believe that NFTs will have a successful chasm crossing. But NFTs seem to be stuck in the visionary segment, are only popular with a limiting demographic.
Until market gatekeepers and entrepreneurs can see clear proof that NFTs are growing beyond their roots, or they believe they'll reach the mainstream market, arms will remain folded and skepticisim will remain high.
I'm not suggesting that today's current demographics will hold. It could very well be that the next growth phase of NFTs won't be in art or music - it'll be some other use case such as real estate. But if so, that would all but kill the current buzz around NFTs. Because I can't imagine that degens will care.
If so, that would signal an entire reboot. Which might be what's needed.
tty next time,
