Krystle Blough • • NFTS
How to Flip NFTs: A Practical Guide
How do you ACTUALLY flip NFTs?
If you’re curious about flipping NFTs, you’ve probably noticed there’s a lot of garbage and fluff content around this topic. We put together this guide to help you cut through the noise and get some practical insights on how to actually flip NFTs.
You should know: It’s not passive at all
We’re going to be honest with you. Flipping NFTs is NOT “passive income”. You don’t get to just sit there and reliably let your NFT portfolio earn you money. You actually have to put in a lot of time into researching projects, networking, monitoring listings and sales, watching floors, digging up whitelists, and more.
Bots can help you save time with any kind of repetitive monitoring activity. But still, if you were hoping this would be a sit-back-and-profit kind of thing, it’s time to reprogram your thinking and accept that flipping NFTs is going to be an ongoing time sink.
Now, let’s look at NFT flipping through 3 lenses: short term, mid term, and long term flips.
How to flip NFTs: Short term holds
Time frame
Hold for less than a day
What to look for
Mints (usually free) and secondary sales (less popular for short-term flips than minting) where you expect significant floor price growth in a short time because of hype or anticipation
High holder count: If, for example, you buy into 10k PFP project with a low holder count of 100, you’re at risk because they can brick the floor by dropping all of them at once
How to find NFTs to flip short term
Use a tool like Hot Contracts to spot ethereum contracts getting listed, usually before they are actually launched. Research them quickly and be prepared to pounce on the mint if it’s promising.
Pay attention to influencers and alpha callers who have a good track record.
Track collections whose floors are getting actively swept. If you already have a list of collections, set up floor change alerts. To find new collections, @RiceRiddler uses apps like Curio Tools and Tiny Astro.
Watch upcoming reveals: After an NFT reveal, some of the people who listed pre-reveal end up revealing rares. Make a list of all the NFT listings you’re interested in across various marketplaces. Set up alerts so you know when a pre-reveal collection you’re interested in has a new listing that you can add to your list. Right when the reveal happens, check quickly to see which ones have the rarest traits and buy them fast.
Monitor listings below floor, so you can pick them up quickly and re-list them at or above floor.
Risks
Volume could dry up and the floor could plummet FAST. You have to be glued to your computer, even a bathroom break could cost you.
Pro Tip
Have all the tools in place to mint and buy fast. Things happen at the speed of light and profits are made within really tight time windows. Every second counts.
More Info
https://blog.boto.io/spot-and-flip-underpriced-nfts-with-this-ready-to-use-bot-e4c7dd3a101e
https://blog.boto.io/community-insights-how-0xbotwin-flips-nfts-fast-270d8db926a8
How to flip NFTs: Mid term holds
Time frame
Hold for a few days, up to a month
What to look for
An upcoming catalyst that will make the floor rise.
A team behind the project that you trust will deliver.
Solid volume and a gradually increasing floor, so that you can list slightly above floor and trust that the floor will get to that price point soon.
Strong communities with a floor that won’t go below a certain price; at that point it has investors who won’t be willing to take a huge loss - they’d rather hold forever.
How to find NFTs to flip mid term
Look at top trending NFT collections on Coingecko, Icy.tools or similar. Pick a handful of projects and track them to get an idea of how they move. Sign up for collection data updates daily (or even hourly) and watch every sale and listing in real time (as best as you can).
Go into their discords and look for project collabs that might pump the floor.
Watch influencer activity. While it’s common advice to follow influencers to know what to buy, a more important signal might be to follow to know when to sell because a collection’s floor often drops after an influencer promotes it. According to one of our community members who shared their flipping strategies with us: “I don’t wallet watch to know when to buy, I wallet watch to know when to dump… If you’re wallet watching to buy, you’re usually going to be too late.”
Risks
A piece of news you think will result in the floor going up, may very well not. Research similar floor price catalysts in other projects to see how those floors were affected and consult with experienced traders in your circle before making a decision.
Pro Tip
Pick one project and study it until you know it inside out: volume, trait/rarity premiums, etc. Start with quick sales but move to mid term flips for better profits. That’s how @CirrusNFT turned 0.6 eth into 150+ eth by focusing on just 2 projects; their playbook is outlined here. Hint: Bots that deliver real time collection data updates, sales and listings can help.
Long term
Time frame
Hold for months, possibly a year or more
What to look for
A very strong leadership team. As @RiceRiddler points out, “The longer you plan to hold an NFT, the more belief you should have for their team.” Whether they’re anonymous or not (doxxed), look for the following:
Business experience: Will they pay taxes? Does someone on their team keep track of numbers, cost benefit analysis?
Do they pay their mods? (Unpaid mods are a security concern).
A promising roadmap. What do they have planned? Do they have community leaders collabing with other projects on whitelists and allow lists? You’re looking for a viable plan to introduce continuous value or liquidity beyond mint(s) funds and secondary sales royalties.
Consistent volume over extended periods of time (10+ sales a day)
How to find NFTs to flip long term
Watch what holders of “diamond hands” like BAYC are buying into. Set up wallet trackers to alert you as soon as they buy into something new.
Risks
Don’t mistake a mid term hold for a long term hold.
Go forth and flip!
Hopefully this practical guide has been a helpful starting point. It’s NOT financial advice, of course.
If you use this advice, tell us how it went - what worked well, what didn’t - in our Discord.
More insights
Sources
Krystle Blough is the Head of Community at Boto.io and has been working in education & automation for 15+ years. She has presented at CMX Summit and Wikimania conferences about her experience in increasing adoption of emerging technology. She ran a 50k trail marathon once and now people think she runs fast (false).
