Even those who are far from crypto have already heard about NFT. Large companies helped spread the trend. For example, Nike uses NFT to promote products, Warner Bros. Entertainment to sell films, and Tiffany to follow trends.
Analysts predict the NFT market will grow up to $122 billion by 2028. For comparison, at the end of 2021, it had reached $15.7 billion.
Last week, we published an NFT explainer. In short, NFTs (‘non-fungible tokens’) are tokens that represent ownership of a digital object, such as an image, audio, or video file. Each NFT is unique and cannot be replaced.
Today we’d like to share an interview with the Monaproof NFT marketing agency’s founder Yaroslav Levchenko for you to learn about the crypto market trends firsthand. We’ll discuss NFT project creation features, find out why influencer advertising is most often a scam, and learn what changes market participants can expect in the near future.
– Tell us what is Monaproof and what kind of clients you work with?
– Our company is engaged in the NFT project’s promotion. We focus on promoting projects in Discord alpha and DAO groups (ed. note: special server groups in Discord and groups of decentralized autonomous organizations) using our own software. This is how we bring a high-quality audience interested in NFT to the project.
The main clients now are gaming projects that want a live audience. Many games raised money on the bull run about a year ago and then dove into development. Now comes the moment to show something, for example, the MVP (minimum viable product), but there is still no audience. Here is where Monaproof goes.
– How to become your client? Is it necessary to be at the MPV stage? Are you working with young projects that don’t even have a work plan?
– Clients are different. For those who only have an idea, we give initial recommendations they can use for revision. Teams we start working with for 2-3 months before the launch can use this time to make a project’s demo version. In the current situation, we go through the sales level only with teams that have a real product, that is something that we can show. The promises do not work now as only experienced NFT traders remain on the market.
Our company works on the basis of a “success fee”. This means that we take a percentage directly from the sale. Therefore, we are not interested in working on unpromising projects. We only start working when the team shows potential. If we can’t see a project’s future, we usually give initial recommendations. If improvements help to bring a light of potential, we begin cooperation.
– Tell us about your team: where are you located and how many people work on projects?
– We are an international team. The office is located in Dubai, and we have 20 people on salary. The rest are freelancers. There is a group of 10-15 developers. We also have a marketing department of 30 employees and a design team of 40 professionals.
– How long has your project existed and what is your background? What was your main direction before running your own company?
– I am a professional artist. My specialty is monumental art. I am professionally engaged in painting large surfaces, up to a thousand square meters. I am the owner of a large workshop that produces sculptures up to 10 meters. Our art objects are presented all over the world.
I started investing in cryptocurrency in 2017. When the NFT boom started, I dedicated part of my team to creating digital art. This is how I started the first project. I personally lost about $200k due to poor-quality marketing. Here is how the desire to bring everything to its logical conclusion spearheaded my life and forced me to learn how to launch NFT projects without third parties.
Then I started to share my experience with my clients. Here is how we turned into a marketing agency that helps people save money and make a profit. The efforts of traditional marketing teams are never enough. In most cases they simply buy ads from influencers, and we consider this approach to be a scam.
– Why do you consider influencer advertising a scam?
– Most influencers have a fake auditory mostly consisting of bots. It is a negligible possibility to find people who are really interested in NFTs. That is why influencers don’t have a good conversion rate from ads right now. Perhaps the situation will change at the next bull run, but for now it is tragic.
– You said that now you are mainly focused on GameFi projects. Why do you think this direction has become popular? What other in-demand NFT trends can you highlight?
– We chose between the art and collectibles. The last one is scalable, so we picked it. It turned out that we made the right choice: with the market downtrend, the art turned weak.
A year ago, artists made good money selling art. Now, many of them have returned to their regular work: they draw graphics and buried NFT art. Collectibles, on the other hand, are still in demand. At the same time, I believe that the art market can revive with the money flow.
GameFi is just in trend right now, which is why we're focusing on them. In general, the NFT market has its own trends. First it was 3D, then 2D, and now GameFi projects (with the game done).
– Is there a demand for sports NFTs now?
– Sports NFT collectibles are in demand. They have their own audience ready to spend money. For example, this is how Nike or the NBA can earn money.
We are focused on building new brands. Our tools are for international marketing without borders.
– What platforms do people use to buy NFT today? Is it a good idea to launch your own token trading platforms now?
– Market downtrend destroyed weak platforms. If you have enough money, it is possible to consider this time as a break to build your own platform in a goal to launch it during a bull run and take the audience. But launching marketplaces right now is a bad idea. It would not be easy to gain an audience.
We prefer listings on the two major platforms: OpenSea and Magic Eden. But let me remind you that we work with highly demanded GameFi projects. They already have a large gaming audience that’ll stay anyway.
– Instagram presented a tool for NFT purchases. How do you feel about it?
– Large platforms use market downtrend to create infrastructure in order to gather an audience against the next bull run. However, it is not clear whether these tools will be in demand in the future.
– What kind of NFT market future can you predict and what trends can we see next?
– I see long-term non-fungible tokens market potential. Many large brands have already created NFT divisions and registered trademarks. I think they will support market growth and audience expansion.
Among the future trends, I can highlight fractional NFT sales (token parts sale). It seems like it may become a real trend.
