When deciding which NFT to mint, there are many signs and warnings you’ll want to keep your eye out for! Some of these can be a tell-tale-sign of the project and include! Some of these major signs include (but are not limited to):

Discord Membership: Is their discord full of real, active, and engaged members? Do you feel like you can enter the discord and connect with others? Be sure to keep an eye on how team members interact within the discord. Are the administrators and moderators engaged? Do they respond to questions appropriately and with well resourced knowledge? How is the discord organized? Is necessary information easily located? Are they assisting their members to become better educated or just filled with hype? 

Social Media Presence: Does the project have a solid social media presence? Not just followers count! Be sure to look at post likes, comments, and shares! Many pages can have a massive following, but little to no engagement! 

Roadmap: A HIGHLY crucial piece of examining an NFT Project. Be sure you read through the roadmap of the project. This will tell you what the project intends to achieve. When formulated comprehensively, a roadmap should display the intentions of the project Founders and explain the future of the project. Is everything on the roadmap attainable? Does it seem too good to be true or is the roadmap under developed? 

Art: A MASSIVE part of the value of an NFT Project is the art displayed on each individual NFT. When deciding which projects to mint, be sure to tap into your creative likings? Is it something you like to look at? 

Doxxed Team: Has the Founding Team of the project made their identities known? This may seem small, but this a crucial step, into understanding who’s behind the project and what they stand for. 

Utilities: Owning an NFT isn’t always just owning a pretty piece of digital art. Does the project you are researching provide unique utilities to their holders? Are these various advantages intriguing to you? 

Cost: Are you able to afford the minting price? In any financial investing space, you’ll see the approach of “only spending what you can afford to lose”. This is a very healthy approach to choosing which NFTs you want to invest in. If a minting price of a project is higher solely on the hype circling the project, be sure to evaluate if you’re able to maintain financial safety if you don’t see a return on the money you used to mint. Do not invest in a project without considering both the best and the worst case scenarios, and all the speculative space in between! 

One of the benefits to minting an NFT is the access you have to buy into a project at its earliest point. Minting enables you to be the first owner of the NFT. 

If the demand outweighs the supply, as with any market, then the cost of minting the NFT can be less than the sellable value on secondary market, regardless of what the individual NFT’s  minted appearance ends up being.

You have the added benefit of a lottery component. This relates to projects which engage rarity attributes and traits (as most generative collections do). Minting an NFT means you receive a randomly generated token, with randomly generated traits and these traits then each have their rarity evaluated. The lottery component means you could end up minting one with a high or low rarity (the higher the rarity score, generally the higher the value) at the same level of investment. 

Have a look at some of the more popular projects and their selling value on the secondary market. Here you will see that the difference that is established between a high and low ranking NFT can be quite extensive.