How Do You DYOR in the Web3 Space?
A lot of people say things like "This project is super great, if you buy it then you will not regret it. I promise this is the project of a lifetime. The team is amazing & the roadmap is unmatched." Then they will finish with "NFA. DYOR." However, the problem with these statements is that they create a closed loop. Unless you are already involved in the space & have an understanding of at least the fundamentals then you have no idea where to even start DYORing (btw DYOR means "Do Your Own Research" lol). So, Im wondering, if anyone has any comprehensive advice on where someone who is completely brand new to web3 may starty doing their own research to understand some of the deeper concepts that are typically expressed in this industry.
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Fantastic question! Most web 3 based projects (NFTs and Defi) have a discord with an #official-links channel. There should be a link to the project's documents (usually on a site called gitbook). This is where most of the research is done when trying to evaluate a project. However this isn't the only piece of research. There's tons of supplemental materials that should be used in your evaluation:
- Twitter Spaces / interviews (listen to as many as you can)
- Social media engagement (twitter and discord followers)
- Team (fully doxxed? semi-doxxed? anonymous?) - Try to gauge their background and past work.
- Community - If you have the time, join their discord community and see if your values align with it.
- Utility / Roadmap. - Roadmaps are free to write so I wouldn't put too much faith in what is written but try to see how forward looking the project is promising. Also take a note of mint price and supply. Do quick mental math at how much revenue the project (for NFTs) will generate and see if you believe that will be enough to execute on their promises.
I can tailor the workflow to twitter.
Let's take MPL. One of my favorite NFT projects.
Let's pretend I'm new and see this project mentioned and I try to find their official twitter account. Once I find it I look at the header. I'm looking for some kind of link that will point me to a place where I can see more information.
In this example I see a linktree.
Once I open that I find a handful of avenues. I would go to their official website and then their discord. The discord step is a bit advanced but it's very necessary imo to get the full picture.
NFTs are products. It's a piece of tech. The same muscles you use to do due diligence on finding a new laptop or buying something on amazon applies here. Customer reviews (via twitter / discord), testimonials, websites, etc.
Maybe Im not phrasing it the best way possible, but this isnt really what Im looking for. This stuff is sort of self-explanatory to an extent. It's all right in front of you, but doesnt really outline what to look FOR or what is or may become valuable or what "utility" really looks like. This is more of a guide on evaluating individual projects once youve started digging around. Im trying to compile more info on starting from absolute zero & streamline it. Its a tough question to answer. Maybe it can never be really streamlined because the term NFT is so broad.
Ah I see. "What to look for" is entirely unique to the person. I gravitate towards gaming Nfts. Someone else might gravitate towards generative art. Others might invest in NFTs to help social causes. The best advice I ever got was to get your hands dirty and start minting a couple NFTs. I do believe having around a $1k "tuition" fee is almost necessary. It's not a hard rule but spending time in the space by minting/interacting/trading will give you the best education possible. Once you have this foundation you can see what works for you and what you gravitate towards.
Really, really love this question CRVNE! Thanks so much for asking - this is unquestionably one of the hardest things to answer, especially for a newcomer since there's so much implicit knowledge that has to be built up for someone to be able to really make educated and informed decisions in Web3. The main problem I think is that there is fundamentally no shortcut for time. There are resources to point people to, but to get to the point where someone can make a truly informed decision about an NFT project and fully understand the space is something that will take at least likely a few weeks of work. If people are willing to put in that much time, this is exactly what I tried to write to get people up to speed with my Crypto 101 article from 2017 (75 minute read though!), NFTs 101 from last year (111 minute read), and our Nas Academy NFT course (12 hours of content). The Nas Academy NFT course was us trying precisely to answer this question for NFTs specifically and teach people how to understand both the underlying technology and learn the skills to vet projects in the space - and it took 12 hours to really try to teach everything from the ground up! If someone's willing to put the time in though, I do think that course does a pretty good job of getting people to the point where they can start DYORing. Super, super curious to hear of other people's personal journeys and any other useful resources others have found for sure!
My number 1 answer to this question from now on is: "PUT IN THE TIME!" and then sharing a bunch of links. lol. Thank you for this and for the extensive amount of work you put into creating FREE eductional material for web3.
And thank YOU for helping so many people in this space tirelessly and answering and asking so many questions here!! Appreciate you so much!!
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I feel like this info is even a little bit deep for some who is brand spanking new. This is great for someone who knows a little bit, but what about someone who just discovered NFTs on Twitter yesterday and what exactly should they be DYORing? [context: I was asked this question by someone & didnt really have an answer so brought it here] If no one else offers something more geared towards people who are even newer then I will mark this as the answer.