Mekami NFTs - I Just Right-Click Save...

I won Mekami Whitelist! But in the end, i didn't even bother to go to the mint website at all when it happened. And here's why.

Happy that i won, i went over to look closer at the project at mekami.xyz.

These days, i collected quite a number of NFTs already so whitelist opportunities are plenty. And out of laziness, usually i only start doing my research after i won the raffle, especially those easy ones where we are only required to follow, like, and retweet on Twitter.

The Team Is My Most Important Deciding Factor

The first thing i look at in a project is the team behind it... Are they doxed? Is someone well-known? or an anon(short for anonymous)? And this is what i saw...

Not much info, or should i say practically none - No social links to Twitter or LinkedIn... That is a big red flag to most people because they could just be gone in the wind, and you will be left with a jpeg.

The next thing i notice was that it doesn't have a Discord server yet. To any team that is serious about building an NFT community, this is quite a standard for the ownership utility. So for them to say it's coming soon is another red flag.

There is also another similar project, Meka Legends at mekalegends.com, that i came across and i would say they are doing better simply because they have a Discord Server, even though nothing is known about the team on their website too.

While i can understand that some creators would only reveal their identities if a project is successful. In this Bear Market, i would just look for a reliable team, someone i can know of their credentials, are they real? Where can i find them? Any social proof? If they have the resources to last the bear market?

How to Know an NFT Art is Created by Ai?

Also came across this guy giving his review of Mekami on Twitter. He did more research than me by discovering that the project pictures might have been created in NovelAi in part 2 of his Twitter video.

In case you don't know what is Novel Ai, it is Artificial Intelligence (Ai) software that will create images in seconds, based on the keywords you provided. So while it may look nice, it doesn't require much effort at all.

I am using another Ai Image software, ArtSpace, for my content marketing, thus i am quite familiar with Ai Images. The common problem with Ai Image software is that they can't "paint" fingers very well at this point in time. Look closely at the collection and you will understand what i mean.

About the Art

Usually, for NFT projects, multiple parts of images are overlayed so that they can be mixed and matched.

For example, the characters would be in the same position, so that whatever wings can be "placed" behind them nicely, but for this collection, they are all over the place that one might think that an artist painstakingly drew each one of them.

In another example from my recent collection, Departed Apes, headgear, and weapons are "placed" in front of the character image. Sometimes the main character pictures are even without hands so that the hands with weapons are fixed accordingly.

Personally, i feel that unless it is those legendary 1 out of 1 in the collections, nice art is just a bonus. An NFT can be valuable regardless of the art, look at VeeFriends One that was hand-drawn by Gary Vee.

Be it that the founders or creators use Ai Art or hire someone from Fiverr, i wouldn't mind. But an NFT without Ownership Utility is just a Jpeg that we would be better off just right-clicking save if we like the art...

Conclusion

There is money to be made in the secondary market even for a rug-pull project. Timing is everything.

There are words going around that a group or groups are pretending to be Japanese doing Japanese-style NFTs. Well, Jap anime, comics, and games are pretty much what we grew up with, so a lot of attractions. Beware.

Lastly, i like to remind us that Cryptocurrencies Investing, Crypto-Gaming, and NFT Collections are of High-Reward and High-Risk Nature. Only Invest What You Can Afford to Lose Totally.

Scammers are Everywhere, High-End, Good-Looking, Movie-Standard Heist (RugPull) is very possible. When Things Look too Good to be True, Always Do Your Own Research (DYOR).

Only We, Ourselves, are Responsible for Our Own Wealth.