As the history books are written and documentaries are made on the formative days of NFTs, Jimmy McNelis, aka j1mmy.eth, holds a special place in history as an innovator, passionate advocate and owner of one of the greatest. All Time NFT Collections.
NFT OG, who started his journey on December 5, 2017, when he bought the first cryptocurrency, the 45-year-old American is also the founder of Avastars, which, in early February 2020, developed the PFP project intellectual property (IP) rights granted to owners.
That was popularized by Board Up Yacht Club and the 2021 PFP Mania, which has become the benchmark for most projects for owners of IP rights. Avastars was a pioneer in putting the project on chain, inspired by Autoglyphs, which was developed 10 months ago.
J1mmy has an unrivaled collection of NFTs worth around $150 million at peak. The impressive collection includes eight autoglyphs, 19 chrome squiggles, 30 bored monkeys, five cryptopunks, 11 gasters, 61 mibits, 114 cyberbarkers, and twin flames by Justin Aversano.
“At its peak it was about $150 million. Whether that was actually liquid or not, $150 million was on one of the wallet portfolio sites. Today it's probably 1/10th of that,” says j1mmy.
“One thing I've really not done well is the NFT travel collector aspect and the art collector that I am. I believe I have one of the best art collections out there.”
“I see a lot of funds trying to recreate what I have and what other people have, but on a smaller scale. I had 30 autoglyphs but I still had eight. If you use those as an example, if a fund owns a single autoglyph, that's considered very valuable.
Often unafraid to speak his mind as a key voice in heated debates, j1mmy has been a big advocate for creator royalties, seeing as the key value proposition of NFTs has fallen by the wayside in recent times. Whether it's pro royalties, a champion on the chain, or protecting IP rights, j1mmy doesn't look at arguments while maintaining perspective as a new husband and father.
“I'm going to be an angry old man yelling at a cloud meme. At the end of the day, I hope people understand that I'm passionate about this, which should be pretty clear to everyone at this point,” says j1mmy.
“Because I like to argue, I sometimes start arguments,” he said. “I like hot stuff because it's fun and it's not just about fitting in with everyone and being WAGMI and all that. All of this, I hope, will lead to an evolution of what we are doing. I want us to evolve. I want us to continue to improve. I think that is the purpose of all this.
Table of Contents
ToggleAvastars – a project for the future
Avastars, j1mmy's pride and joy as a creator, is often overlooked for his role in various areas. and assigning IP rights to holders.
Inspired by j1mmy's frustration at finding a collection of CryptoKitties not hosted on-chain, and Larva Labs' Autoglyphs, the first artwork to be hosted entirely on-chain, Avastars was born in February 2020.
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According to j1mmy, they see it as a mix of CryptoKitties and CryptoPunks with the ability to create iterations.
“For me they are [CryptoKitties] He had made a big mistake from the start, and it set a bad example. I was there to fight that precedent so when the time comes we will have NFTs on chain, and people like Elon Musk can't say they're all screwed because they're not on the blockchain. ”
“I was literally waiting for Rogan's comments about NFTs in January and February 2018. It was ridiculous. You tell me we have this blockchain and we have these NFTs and we're not storing the data on the blockchain? This is the dumbest crap ever.”
J1mmy feels his Avastars project is underappreciated.
“Avastars is still more than 99% NFT project. Technically and historically speaking. To be honest, the only project that I feel is a spiritual successor to Avastars is Cyberbrokers.
J1mmy's mouth watering NFT collection
The collection is enough to make an NFT collector drool, with pieces from all the big artists in the space, including XCOPY, Beeple, Matt Kane, Snowfro, Hackatao, Josie Bellini and one of his personal favorites, Australian VR artist Giant. Swan, j1mmy commissioned a work to commemorate his wedding reception with his wife at sunrise.eth.
But unlike some of his fellow collectors who focus primarily on art-only NFTs, j1mmy enjoys collecting and trading PFPs and other interesting projects. He once helped the BAYC Mint catch fire by releasing 420 Bored Monkeys with his good friend and famous businessman Pranksy, and the rest is history.
“I have a really ridiculous collection of NFTs. I currently have three wallets that I collect – the original j1mmy.ETH, my Vault wallet, and my Cold wallet. That's where I keep all my Ethereum NFTs. I think of it as a giant NFT mutual fund, just my personal collection,” says j1mmy.
I hope to connect with an institution interested in displaying my items, as I think I have a very interesting collection that could one day be developed into a museum exhibit. History of NFTs or something of that nature basically.
Many of the NFT collector DAOs and funds like Flamingo DAO and Curated are very deliberate in their approach, but for j1mmy, much of his collection was born out of sheer curiosity.
“There are so many things in my wallet, I have no handle at this time. “My NFT collection is so vast, I've forgotten a lot of things I've done,” says j1mmy.
In the mind of a high level NFT collector and trader
J1M's top fundraising and marketing tip is to look at the market based on emotion, not reality.
“It's sentiment based on economics now. Everything is unfortunately not based on reality. Price is not based on reality. It's based on emotion and how people feel. The key to business is understanding people's emotions and how close they are to changing those emotions,” he says. j1mmy.
“It's important to try to read that sentiment and sell to people when the sentiment is very high and it's not the end. Sometimes it's a game of musical chairs. That can be a short-term game of musical chairs. Prices go down, prices go up. One thing is constant, prices don't stay the same. That's what I constantly remind myself. That's it.”
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Similar to the great Warren Buffett's quote, “Be greedy when others are greedy and others are afraid”, j1mmy has the same philosophy with NFT buying and selling.
“My approach is when everybody's buying, I want to sell and when everybody's selling I want to buy. It's not a core strategy, I'm sure it's a Warren Buffett-like saying. I only apply that to NFTs,” he says.
I was a buyer during the 2020-22 bull market but I also sold some things. During this bear market, I spent all my ETH. I was a consistent buyer during this bear season, but this time I am becoming more selective.
Trading jpegs is painting cave walls with berry juice using our fingers age for nfts.
nfts are not dead…they are just taking their first breath.
— j1mmy.eth (@j1mmyeth) September 13, 2023
From zero to hero
J1mmy reflects that his NFT journey has truly been enriched by being surrounded and supported by curious friends since the early days of CryptoKitties. Their mantra was that they were going to spend all their money on CryptoKitties, and it was either going to be good or not.
Interestingly, it was the lessons from those days that put them in a strong position to take advantage of the 2020-22 bull run, not CryptoKitties itself.
“It's very satisfying to sit back and see where we are today versus where we were. In the year In 2018 we talked about Zeros or Heroes. A few of us ended up being heroes with NFTs, not necessarily with CryptoKitties but we fired our shots and went up,” says j1mmy.
“It's great to go through this with a group of people, not alone. Being successful is often a lonely journey. We've all gone our separate ways, but seeing our friends and peers succeed alongside them is the most rewarding part of it all.
“I'm so grateful for the whole place, all the creators, all the community, everyone around. It's been the best years of my life so far and I'm looking forward to what's to come.”
1/25 tl;dr “Show me your friends, I'll tell you who you are.” – my father.
Save separately:
The people you interact with day to day shape your knowledge and behavior over time.
This is a story about a group of friends who study together not as a DAO but as a Mastermind team.
— j1mmy.eth (@j1mmyeth) January 22, 2022
Quick fire question and answer
Do you own your favorite art NFT?
“One of my favorites is My Twin Flame #19 by Justin Aversano. I've got the two punk rock twins.
Favorite NFT in your entire collection?
“My Avastar #141, which is my PFP.”
Are you still in Flamingo DAO?
“I am. I recently put that back on my Twitter profile because I don't think people realize I'm part of it. I sold an autoglyph to get into Flamingo. That turned out to be one of my best trades, even though it was a very rare autoglyph. I sold an NFT, and now it's 1% of the best collections in the space.” I've owned almost .Flamingo definitely rivals my collection.
What do you think is an undervalued or underappreciated NFT project right now?
“My answer is Cyberburgers. The level of detail, the sheer cost of putting those things on the chain, and their ongoing construction effort is impressive. The overall experience as a participant in Cyberbrokers was better than that of Yoga Labs in terms of performance.
“I think I've produced more raw ETH than any individual project and if I'm wrong about that being a big hit in the market, then so be it. I still own all of this amazing chain art.
What advice do you have for someone getting NFTs today?
“That's one of the reasons I really like Gary Vee. He's polarizing at times, but I think he gives good advice, overall. In the year One of the things people will be told in 2021 is to do 40 hours of research before making any purchase. I'll even double down on this point. I'd say spend a month or two figuring out what it's all about before you decide to put anything into it.
“It's hard to say from where I'm sitting right now, but I'm not going into this expecting to make an immediate profit. Another thing I would caution is to pay attention to how taxes work.
What is the best Art Blocks project?
“I think Gatherers is the best Art Blocks project so far. Matt Kane is an incredible artist, and flexes his muscle on Art Blocks like no other. I'm still trying to find displays where I can see his artwork every day. There is no easy solution here, so he created something really cool.”
What advice would you give to j1mmy before buying his first cryptocurrency in December 2017? Would you do something different?
“Don't judge anyone. I don't give myself any advice because I had to go into this with blind ambition like I did. I must have misunderstood what cryptocurrencies were on chain because if I hadn't, I would never have created Avastars.”
“You know, intelligence is sometimes our greatest gift, and ignorance is bliss. Really, with NFTs, I got in too heavy, too deep and too hard, and look where I am today. It's not often in my life that I drink too much, but it worked out for me in this case, one of those rare situations where I wouldn't change a bad thing.”
Links:
X: twitter.com/j1mmyeth
Avastars website: avastars.io/
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Greg Oxford
Greg Oakford is co-founder of NFT Fest Australia. A former marketing and communications professional in the world of sports, Greg now focuses on content creation and consulting at Web3. He is an avid NFT collector and hosts a weekly podcast covering all things NFTs.
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