NBA Top Shot Debut Market – May Update

Posted on May 18, 2022 by Not Top Shot Economist

Like the NBA Top Shot market in general, debut moments continue to fall. Many investors have the belief the debut moments would hold up better than others in a down market, but that has not been the case. Is this a seasonal fall, last year we had a similar market retreat during the playoff which only ended after the end of the season. Or is this related to the current correction in the Cryptocurrency markets? Maybe a little of both? Currently the TS market, is down 22% since January 1st 2022.

Here are the prices and market caps of leading Top Shot Debut moments as of Sunday May 15th.

Player	Series	Mint	Price	Mkt Cap	Chg vs. Apr
LeBron James	1	1000	$3599	$3,599,000	-38.7%
Ja Morant	1	1000	$2059	$2,059,000	-29.0%
Luka Doncic	1	1431	$1399	$2,001,969	-53.4%
Steph Curry	1	1000	$1648	$1,648,000	-32.0%
Giannis Antetokounmpo	1	1000	$1510	$1,510,000	-36.5%
Zion Williamson	1	1357	$945	$1,282,365	-16.0%
Nikola Jokic	1	1430	$549	$785,070	-33.5%
Trae Young	1	2978	$198	$589,644	-33.8%
James Harden	1	1000	$445	$445,000	-37.4%
Damian Lillard	1	1433	$285	$408,405	-25.0%
Kyrie Irving	1	1000	$365	$365,000	-47.8%
Lamelo Ball	2	4000	$380	$1,520,000	-33.2%
Anthony Edwards	2	4000	$299	$1,196,000	-14.3%
Tyrese Maxey	2	4000	$147	$588,000	-25.0%
Desmond Bane	2	4000	$115	$460,000	-31.5%
Tyrese Haliburton	2	4000	$100	$400,000	-35.5%
Cade Cunningham	3	4000	$218	$872,000	-23.5%
Scottie Barnes	3	4000	$185	$740,000	-36.0%
Evan Mobley	3	4000	$151	$604,000	-45.1%
Jonathan Kuminga	3	4000	$130	$520,000	-20.7%
Jalen Green	3	4000	$120	$480,000	-27.3%
Klay Thompson	Summer 21	9702	$40	$407,484	-39.1%

Top Shot Debut market May 15th 2022

Analysis

No TS debut in the list rose over the last 30 days, the best performance was Anthony Edwards was moment “only” fell 14.3%, or less than the overall market. The worst was Luka Doncic whose TS Debut fell 53.4%.

Where do we go from here? A recovery in the cryptocurrency market could help slow or reverse the market decline, but if the pattern of 2021 holds, we may not see value rise until the end of the playoffs. The best news Top Shot users can get is more users on the platform, higher demand will help easy the current over supply of moments.

We are working on more analytic tools which should be announced in the next few weeks.

THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE, PLEASE MAKE YOU OWN BUY OR SELL DECISIONS.

NBA TS Debut Market

Posted on April 12, 2022 by Not Top Shot Economist

I would like to thank Bytes from Bits for allowing me to post here and hope to educate and entertain those in the NBA Top Shot Metaverse (What ever that is)

The TS debut moment are the closest equivalent the platform has to “rookie cards” from the physical card world. They are the first NFT on the site for a player, rookie year or not.

We have been track rookie values for a few weeks and are posting our first review of the market cap of high end rookies. The players we are tracking are below.

Lebron James

Ja Morant

Luka Doncic

Steph Curry

Giannis Antetokounmpo

Zion Williamson

Nikola Jokic

Trae Young

James Harden

Kyrie Irving

Damian Lillard

Lamelo Ball

Anthony Edwards

Tyrese Maxey

Tyrese Haliburton

Desmond Bain

Cade Cunningham

Evan Mobley

Scottie Barnes

Jalen Green

Jonathan Kuminga

Klay Thompson

The list break down by Series –
Series 1 – 11 (First year overweighed)
Series 2 – 5
Series 3 – 5
Summer 21 – 1

The players were selected in Series 1 are consider the be the most likely to make the NBA Hall of Fame. Series 2 and 3 were the current market cap leaders when the tracking was started. Summer 21 was added to include Klay Thompson’s TSD.

We list the players in order of NBA Top Shot market cap, Market Cap is the number of common moments minted multiplied by the current low ask price. We believe is the best way to compare players as the Series 1 moment have many different mint numbers.

	TSD Rookie Market Caps 4/11/22
Player	Series	Mint	Price	Mkt Cap
Lebron James	S1	1000	5875	5,875,000
Luka Doncic	S1	1431	2899	4,148,469
Ja Morant	S1	1000	2999	2,999,000
Steph Curry	S1	1000	2424	2,424,000
Giannis Antetokounmpo	S1	1000	2379	2,379,000
Zion Williamson	S1	1357	1125	1,526,625
Nikola Jokic	S1	1430	825	1,179,750
Trae Young	S1	2978	299	890,422
Kyrie Irving	S1	1000	711	711,000
James Harden	S1	1000	699	699,000
Damian Lillard	S1	1433	380	544,540
Lamelo Ball	S2	4000	569	2,276,000
Anthony Edwards	S2	4000	349	1,396,000
Tyrese Maxey	S2	4000	196	784,000
Desmond Bain	S2	4000	168	672,000
Tyrese Haliburton	S2	4000	155	620,000
Scottie Barnes	S3	4000	289	1,156,000
Evan Mobley	S3	4000	285	1,140,000
Cade Cunningham	S3	4000	275	1,100,000
Jalen Green	S3	4000	165	660,000
Jonathan Kuminga	S3	4000	164	656,000
Klay Thompson	Summer 21	9702	69	669,438

Lebron James has the largest market cap, this will come as a surprise to no one, we thought the difference to Luka would be larger. Zion was included because he has been the “It” rookie from Series 1, but injuries have held him back and Ja Morant’s highlight filled season as sent him up the charts.
Lamelo Ball is the clear leader from Series 2 with Anthony Edwards far behind. Series 3 has Scottie Barnes, Evan Mobley and Cade Cunningham tightly bunched at the top.
To us, the largest surprise is the market cap of Klay Thompson. Maybe it is because of the higher mint count or his TSD being issued in Summer 21 series? We don’t know but it is interesting.

We will try to publish this data monthly along with our analysis.

DISCLAIMER – THIS IS NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE. PLEASE USE YOUR OWN ANALYSIS FOR ANY DECISION REGARDING BUYING OR SELLING OF ANY NFT.

NBA Top Shot Collector Score – Why no respect for Pack Farming?

Posted on July 26, 2021 by Jim Kennedy

The NBA TopShot Collector Score (CS) was introduced a few months ago to provide a way to rank users based upon the number and type of moment they own. It has been debated and tweaked since its formation. One area CS has never included is purchased but not unopened packs of TopShot moments. Pack Farming, the practice of not opening every pack a Top Shot user buys is popular among many on the site. Some people like to hold packs, as they do moments, hoping they will appreciate in price over time, similar to sport card collectors who buy and hold unopened boxes and packs of Baseball or Basketball cards.

Why does TopShot and Dapper not include the moments in those unopened packs in CS? We have seen online from TopShot insiders that people who Pack Farm are not considered “Collectors” but “Investors”. Dapper seems to want to believe that everyone who buys moments on the site looks at it like a 11 year old does when they buy a pack of baseball cards, no concept of financial rewards, the exchange of money for the pack is done for the pleasure of seeing what cards they can obtain and no consideration is given to the value of the the cards now or going forward

We don’t know many pre-teens with their own credit cards or Bitcoin accounts where they can purchase a $799 pack of moments without a parent being involved, so for TopShot to believe this premise the site operates on is a fantasy. The reality is many and probably the majority of TopShot users are hoping for appreciate of the moments they purchase and hold. Once that fact is accepted, then it makes no sense for unopened packs to be excluded from CS calculations.

TopShot knows the type (Base, Rare or Legendary) and number of moments in every pack sold. They could easily include those moments in the user’s CS without much additional effort. We understand their concern of users buying packs and not opening a single pack and that should not be encouraged. But if a user has opened at least 50% of the packs they have purchased over time, then their unopened packs should be included in their CS. We think TopShot should do this ASAP and if not, then user should let TopShot know how they feel about the matter. Let us not try to marginalize users who save a pack or two or fifty. while collecting hundred or thousand of moments from drops or the Marketplace.

Did TopShot conduct the Rare Pack drop (three tier) in the wrong order?

Posted on July 16, 2021 by Jim Kennedy

Last Wednesday saw the first use of the new three tier drop process by NBA TopShot. The intent of the new system was to maximize the chances for users with high Collector Scores of obtaining a one of the 6,000 Rare packs being sold, 2,000 in each queue.

Instead of a single queue for packs, it was broken into three, users with 10,000 Collector Scores (CS) over were eligible for all three tiers and were part of an exclusive “Priority 1” (PQ1) queue. Those with CS over 5,000 were eligible for “Priority 2” (PQ2) queue. Anyone with a CS score over 100 were allowed into the “General” queue. The “Priority 1” queue was first, “Priority 2” next and last was the General queue (GQ). Was the order of drops correct ?

Sorry, but this will involve a fair amount of math, but we will try to explain it all as it goes. Remember the goal of this process was to maximize the number of packs sold to users with a CS over 10,000. We will be using data provided by LiveToken for this analysis as to how many users were eligible for each queue:

371840 Eligible for GQ,
28536 Eligible for PQ2
11343 Eligible for PQ1

PQ1 – 11,343 users for 2,000 packs or a 17.63% chance of getting a pack.

PQ2 – 28,536 users for 2,000 packs or a 7.00% chance of getting a pack.

GQ – 371,840 users for 2,000 packs or a 0.53% chance of getting a pack.

How many 10,000 CS got a pack in each queue?

PQ1 – 2,000 Only those with 10,000 CS were in the queue.

PQ2 – 28,536 users were eligible, but the 2,000 who bought packs in PQ1 were removed so it was now 26,536 users or a updated 7.53% chance of getting a pack. There were 9,343 still trying for a pack (11,343 minus the 2,000 who got one in PQ1) or 704 with a CS over 10,000 should have got one in PQ2.

GQ – 371,840 users were eligible originally. Remove the 2,000 who got Rare packs in PQ1 and 704 from PQ2 which leaves 369,136 eligible for the drop. This works out to a 0.537% chance of getting a Rare pack in GQ. There were 8,639 with the 10,000 CS in GQ & 47 should have gotten a pack based upon the averages.

Users with CS 10,000

PQ1 – 2000 packs

PQ2 – 704 packs

GQ – 47 packs

TOTAL 2751 should have gotten packs in the three tier drop.

What is the order was reversed; GP first, PQ2 second and PQ1 last?

371, 840 users eligible for the GQ tier, including the 11,343 with a CS 10,000 over higher.

With a success rate of 0.537% or 61 packs to intended PQ1 users. PQ2 would have had 28,476 user eligible (28,536 minus the 60 who got GQ packs) for a success rate of 7.00%.

With 11,283 eligible collectors in PQ2 (11,343 – 60 with packs from GQ) 790 users with a CS over 10,000 would have gotten a pack.

Finally PQ1 where all the packs go to user with a 10,000 CS there would be 2,000 users with packs from PQ1.

If the drop had been conducted GQ, PQ2 and then PQ1 the expected number of users with a 10,000 CS getting a Rare pack is:

GQ – 61 (11,343 at a 0.54% rate)

PQ2 – 790 ((11,343 – 61) or 11,282 at a 7.00%)

PQ1 – 12,000

TOTAL 2,851 users with a CS over 10,000 should have gotten a Rare pack.

Summary – If NBA TopShot had run the queues in the order of GQ, PQ2 and finally PQ1 100 more user with a CS 10,000 or higher would have gotten a Rare pack.

Topps NFT – How the H&LL do you buy WAXP?

Posted on April 22, 2021 by Jim Kennedy

We are two days removed from the first Topps NFT baseball card pack drop. I have opened a couple of my packs while matching the marketplace, there are three available, for pricing trends. I have also been spending time also trying to purchase WAXP token without success.

Opening packs is a lacking experience. You have to open the pack twice technically. First select it to open and then you are taken to a screen where you have to select a pack from your holdings to open (I just did that on the previous screen ToppsWAX!) and then a short video pops up and all your card appear on the screen at once. No slow reveal or option to show one at a time and a slight time delay to see one before the next appears. This is something Topps/WAX really should enhance.

Marketplaces in Topps/WAX NFT is quite a bit different from those who have been involved with NBA TopShot. Topps/WAX has three options for selling and buying NFT cards and packs. AtomicHub, NFTHive and WAXStash. I have looked around all three, but need more time on each to highlight the pros and cons of each. Look for more in a future post.

Purchasing WAXP, the cryptocurrency which Topps NFT trade on, has been a time wasting failure. I have tried multiple merchants and multiple credit and debit cards, both debit and credit without success on AtomicHub. I have not tried purchasing on the other two marketplaces. I was close this afternoon, I got to the point were all that was left was verifying my ID via a Passport or Divers License. As sketchy as it seem to send your photo ID to a unknown website on the Internet, I was left with no other option. I uploaded a front and back shot and nothing happened. A few minutes later I received an email claiming they could not verify my identity. I uploaded the files again with the same results. I replied to the email asking what was the issue. What did I get back? The same auto generated email stating a generic “We can’t verify your identity”. UGH…. Generic autogenerated are NOT the customer experience people who are trying top give you large sums of money, should receive Topps/WAX! Why is it so difficult?

I will press on trying to find a way to purchase WAXP tokens and hopefully make some purchases in the marketplace for my next update.

Topps First NFT Drop – YIKES

Posted on April 20, 2021 by Jim Kennedy

Topps baseball cards joined the NFT craze today with its first pack drop of NFT (Non Fungible Tokens) “cards”. Potential buyers could purchase Topps Series 1 Base packs of with six cards for $4.99 or “Premium” packs of 65 cards for $99.99. WAX (Worldwide Asset eXchange) is Topps and MLB’s partner in this venture handling the blockchain side of the process. There were 50,000 Base packs available and 24,090 Premium packs.

The drop was to occur at 10 am PDT today, but the WAX website immediately had issues, people were getting a blank white page when trying to access the page to purchase packs. The release was pushed back to 10:30 am. I would guess there were between 200,000 and 400,000 people trying to purchase in the drop. There was a limit of 10 of each packs. The process was a mess, an epic mess. Most common complaint I saw on Twitter was unable to get to the checkout screen, kept getting an error from swipe, or time out error, or “missing information” error. People who got past the information entry screen ran into a black light purple screen with nothing on it. There were a number of people who got to check out and had transactions fail, but their cards were charged, or they went through the process so many times their cards were locked by the bank. The packs finally sold out after about 75 minutes. Bottom line, it was a bad look for all and something that should not have happened.

I was able, after 8-10 attempts to acquire both Base and Premium packs. The transaction that did go through the site did not give me a success screen, just no errors. It wasn’t until I checked my email that I knew I had actually purchased packs. I did use a credit card, but haven’t check for multiple charges on it. There was a 3.5% “processing fee” added to the transaction. The packs took about 30-45 minutes before appearing in my WAX account and I wasn’t able to open them for another 45 minutes.

I am a NBA TopShot collector too, NBA partnered with Dapper Labs to offer moments, video clips of cool plays. The Topps offering today was their Series 1 baseball cards in digital format. Having experienced the buying process today on WAX, I have more respect for what Dapper has accomplished with integrating block chain purchases with credit cards and not needing a crypto wallet. I am not sure if the buyers of today’s drop understand the value of thier holdings will fluctuate not just because of the change in value of their cards but also the fact they are traded in WAXP crypto increments, not Dollars? A couple of features WAX does have are the ability to sell whole packs, yes Dapper has promised that at some point, but not available today. WAX has an auction feature for selling cards, something many people have asked for on NBA TopShot.

Topps and WAX’s efforts in this was somewhat a disappointment as the NBA and Dapper has been experiencing the very same growing pains as it went from about 1,000 users to 200,000 users about two months. Topps and WAX should have known there would be upwards of 500,000 people trying to buy cards today and have gone through multiple stress test simulations to ensure the site could handle expected traffic. The site was able, with numerous glitches, able to sell all the packs. I hope Topps and WAX learns from today’s events and is ready for the next drop.

On to cracking packs! Or maybe selling them?