according to CoinGecko<\/a>.<\/p>\nWhat happened?<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe first question, obviously, if prices fall is how did they get so high in the first place?\u201d says Michael Levy, another Top Shot collector. \u201cAnd is that something that was something that Top Shot or the Dapper team did to lead prices that high? Is it something that they are responsible for keeping up at a certain level?\u201d<\/p>\n
The way Levy figures it, there was a lot of hype around Top Shot, which led to the number of users increasing about a hundredfold. That slammed the Top Shot\u2019s servers, and so there was a period where the company didn\u2019t release new packs. That pushed prices up, which led to more media coverage, which led to new users, which pushed the prices up further. \u201cAnd then we reached these very, very, very high levels that I don\u2019t think anyone expected, the prices were up, I don\u2019t know, 50 to 100 times over, like, a four week period,\u201d Levy says.<\/p>\n
The data from CryptoSlam backs that up: in December 2020, there were 910 unique buyers, and the average price for a Moment was $27.11. In January, there were more than 19,000 unique buyers, and the average price for a Moment was $80.20. By February, there were more than 80,000 unique buyers, and the average Moment price was $181.81.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically what happened was \u2014 Top Shot was this massive boom,\u201d says LG Doucet, the host of The First Mint<\/em><\/a>, a podcast about sports NFTs. \u201cIt gave, like, hundreds of thousands of people their first NFT and helped them learn what an NFT is.\u201d Doucet\u2019s account aligns with Levy\u2019s: the platform was overloaded with users and was often down. To try to compensate for the onrush of new users, Top Shot made lots of new Moments.<\/p>\n\u201cTop Shot just flooded the market with more and more Moments,\u201d Schwarz says. \u201cMy LeBron Moment is still 149. But now there\u2019s tons of other LeBron Moments, and they\u2019re making new ones every month. And they just weren\u2019t bringing new people in.\u201d <\/p>\n
Sure, there\u2019s a speculative side to NFTs, says Jayne Peressini, VP of growth at Dapper Labs. But to Peressini, an NFT is a \u201ctangible asset.\u201d When a stock goes down, she says, she has less value \u2014 but when an NFT goes down, she still has the NFT. The same goes for a physical trading card. And, Peressini noted, the majority of actual trading cards aren\u2019t worth much either. <\/p>\n
When I spoke to users last year, many identified two separate camps in the Top Shot community. One group was hardcore NBA fans. The others were speculators. When there was a rush of new Moments, the speculators left, says Doucet. \u201cThey were like, okay, more supply\u2019s coming. I know how this works. I\u2019m just gonna sell everything and take off.\u201d<\/p>\n