Part 1: The purpose of allowlists
Allowlists (also knowns as Whitelists) in NFTs is the process of selecting which individuals will have early access to mint a project. As a project lead, it is also one of your strongest tools in regard to marketing as well as tailoring the initial audience of your project. In general, we see AL spots exchanged for Discord/Twitter posts, AMAs, other AL spots or services such as contract audits and art commissions.
For many founders, particularly those creating utility-focused collectibles, the ideal allowlist consists of individuals who are going to be long-term supporters of the project. Those with a long-term mindset are generally more patient in regard to seeing the expected outcomes of the projects. In addition, it allows time to develop a genuine community, who have an emotional stake in the success and growth of the project. It also means the active supply of a project, NFTs that are held by flippers/traders and others with a short-term view, will be far less. For projects with significant hype this can lead to a high floor price, which in itself acts as further marketing through word of mouth and NFT analytics tools especially if the floor has risen to multiples of the mint price.
The problem with finding long-term holders
A project that is yet to mint has probably been in the public sphere for less than 6 months and has no product. Ask yourself, would you look to hold such a product long-term? Most likely not, one would perhaps continue to hold dependent on a mixture of market data, sentiment and how the project team is conducting itself in regard to delivering to its holders.
Getting your project in the hands of long-term supporters
It is no secret that the majority of the NFT community is looking to make quick money. The market already has much of their liquidity tied up in other long term holds whether that be BAYC NFTs or DeGods to virtual land and Art Blocks. We live in a space where buyers hire people to feign interest in projects to get WL, many individuals activity level drastically drop off after they’ve minted likely because they have sold, so when you can’t rely on your own spaces what can you do. The reality is whatever you do there is going to be some trade off and very dependent on your own position.
The main thing you can do is convince your buyers that there is a good reason to hold. Explain the benefits of holding, show that they are better than the financial gain of selling the project. Foster a community that people have a reason to continually come back to and participate in. Ask yourself, would I consume what I am offering both from a community and product perspective. The attitude of wanting to create long-term holders as opposed to finding long-term holders puts you in good stead for your own success.
Most recently, we’ve seen projects providing whitelist spots to those who are willing to pay the mint but then not allowing to sell for X months. We’ve also seen projects vet individuals through conducting interviews to assessing Twitter, LinkedIn accounts and more. Here is the reason why we’ve yet to see one good method to find long-term holders, all these individuals can eventually sell on secondary. You want to create a community of long-term believers in the project, no interview or set of words or CV is going to accurately determine that compared to the passing of time, and the moment your project has a secondary, you’ve thrown away what you were trying to vet for in the first place.
