we are an inclusive web3 community that costs $10k to be apart of

I signed up to be a part of a community.

I was getting inclusive vibes “We are here for the community. We are bringing fairness to mints. We want to build with other projects. Community is everything.”

I loved it. If you want to build a better web3, we have to be intentional. This seemed intentional. Here’s the thing about the “inclusive project”.

The mint was 3 ETH. At the time 3 ETH was $9k! $9,000 is not inclusive for a community without a credible product. The whitelisted projects were the other TOP PROJECTS in the space. The floor on these projects were 5 ETH.

Greg Isenberg, the founder of Late Checkout and web3 pioneer believes free mints are the future. Greg said it is the fastest way to bootstrap a community and give them incentives to participate. I don’t know if free mints are the future, but they are better than $9k mints.

Let’s look at the NeoTokoyo Citizens mint.

• You register
• Solve a puzzle
• Solve a harder puzzle
• The winners get a free mint

“Proof of work” to join a community. I love this. You send 1000 messages in Discord. Amazing. But, are you dedicated enough to the community to dedicate time and energy towards being a valuable participant? There’s a difference between programming a bot to say ”gm” and “lets goooo” all day vs. dedicating your valuable time to a project.

Here’s an example:

People love North Carolina Tar Heel basketball (I am in Chapel Hill right now, so bear with me).

There are plenty of people who claim to be huge Tar Heel fans. They buy the season tickets. They go to a few games a year. Wear the swag at the family BBQ. They are “casuals”.

Then, there are the “die-hards”. These people may not live in North Carolina. They may have never even gone to the school. But, they live and die UNC basketball. They are on the message boards. Live tweeting the games. Responding to recruits and following Coach Davis’ private jet, so they can figure out who will be the next star in powder blue.

If you were building a brand, which person do you want on your side?

The casual who will miss a game because they have a conflicting pickle ball game, or the die-hard who will drop everything to watch a recruit announce their commitment to UNC on a random Tuesday in June?

Let’s take a hypothetical. UNC drops an NFT project. Two options:

1. High mint price. Exclusive access for holders of other top nft sport projects. The project would make a lot of money from the mint. It would have top nft sport influencers. It would generate a lot of hype.
2. Proof of fandom. The ideas are endless. Have a quiz to prove your knowledge of UNC basketball. Creative artwork and essay contests. Attend webinars. Play in a 2K tournament with other fans. Only the best fans would join. They wouldn’t leave when the floor price dips. They would show up in the metaverse and loyally defend the project on social media. They’d build products and projects for the community.

If you were betting on the project like it was a startup, the easy choice would be #2. We see startups with millions in funding go down all the time. They are all flash. All hype. They may hire exceptional people but lack direction and grit.

I will bet on the project that cares. They will do anything to make sure it succeeds.

Bet on the builders.