Here For The Moments Report 002
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This newsletter will be your weekly dose of NBA Top Shot news and updates. It will also include updates on what we at Here For The Moments are working on.
What’s going on everyone, it’s Steve and this is the second “Here For The Moments Report”.
Reservation Packs
Reservation packs are here to stay. Base Set (Series 2, Release 36) can now be reserved. This reservation guarantees a pack for purchase on Friday, May 21st at 11AM PDT/2PM EST. Reservations for release 36 are available up until 9 AM PDT/12 PM EST on Wednesday, May 19th.
Link to the reservation page:
https://nbatopshot.com/listings/pack/f8927bb1-760a-4360-9b39-e935f9bffe1e
This seems to be the system that Dapper and the Top Shot team will continue to use in the future. Reservations for packs go live a week before the packs release, you have until the following Wednesday to make a reservation and then the packs release on Friday.
Showcase Quest
Yesterday, Top Shot announced the first Showcase Quest. Before I talk about what this is, I’m going to link Top Shot’s official blog post.
Blog Post:
https://blog.nbatopshot.com/posts/showcase-quest
Since that is out of the way, let me give you the short and sweet version. A Showcase Quest will reward you for filling a showcase with certain requirements. The prize for completing the first Showcase Quest is a Cool Cats Ben Simmons that will never be sold in packs. The only way to get this Ben Simmons is to complete the Showcase Quest by Wednesday, May 19th.
To complete this Showcase Quest you are going to need nine Moments:
Any 3 Seeing Stars Moments
Any 3 Dunk Moments by a Center*
Any 3 Assist Moments by a Point Guard*
*There will be filters for player position in the marketplace in the event that you are unsure a Moment will be eligible.
With your nine Moments collected it’s time to create a showcase. Create a showcase with your nine moments by Wednesday, May 19th at 12 PM PDT/3 PM EST. Your Showcase must include the “#Quest” in the title. An example title could be “Steve’s Showcase #Quest”.
You must keep the nine moments in your showcase through Wednesday, May 19th at 12 PM PDT/3 PM EST to receive your Ben Simmons Moment. At that time, a snapshot of your account will be taken and the Simmons will be minted based on how many eligible showcases there were.
I think this is a great idea and should be used more going forward. I could even see a pack being a reward for a Showcase Quest. One idea would be to different tiers within the same Showcase Quest. Collecting six dunk Moments in a Showcase could earn you a Common Moment, while twelve dunk Moments could reward you a Rare Moment. That’s just an idea though, I’ll be happy with whatever the Top Shot team ends up doing.
EV What Now?
If you’re active on Top Shot Twitter, you’ve probably seen the the term expected value or EV get thrown around a lot. Expected value is exactly what it sounds like, the value you expect a future investment to have. Before the “Throwdowns” packs were released this past week, everyone and their mother was tweeting about the EV of a pack. The “Throwdowns” packs were available for $149 and they included one “Throwdowns” Moment and five Base Set Moments. With the amount of “Throwdowns” Moments being released with these packs, a lot of people speculated that the EV of the pack would be negative. This would mean that if you sold everything in the pack you wouldn’t get as much as you paid for it.
Every pack you open is a dice roll, and up to this point most packs on Top Shot have been +EV. With the constant pack drops and saturation of the market we will reach the point where on each pack you will break even with the opportunity for that pack to become +EV. You should only be concerned with EV if you are in Top Shot for short term gain and want to flip every pack you buy. Maybe you bought a “Throwdowns” pack and maybe you won’t get your money back if you immediately sold anything, that’s okay. Top Shot is a platform built by collectors, for collectors. Packs are not released with the intention of making you money, Moments are made for you to collect. Any money you may or may not make with each pack is just a bonus.
Don’t let anyone on Twitter or wherever else scare you away from buying packs just because they speculate it may be -EV. Buy what you want, collect what you want. That same pack someone loses money on, someone else could pull a #1 serial and make that money back and then some. Don’t invest any money you can’t afford to lose, you may not make money on every pack you purchase and that’s alright.
Giveaway #8
Giveaway #8 is coming tomorrow. It will be a 24 hour giveaway hosted on our Twitter @HFTM_TopShot.
Our last giveaway received just under 100 retweets but I’m rounding that up to an even 100 so that’s $20 we will be donating to charity. The retweets on giveaway #8 will be added to our running total and our donation total will be calculated after. At the end of the month if we could reach $50 donated, that would be an incredible achievement.
In case you missed it, the charity we are donating to this month is Asian Americans Advancing Justice or AAJC.
From their website:
Asian Americans have been part of the American story since its earliest days, and are now the U.S.'s fastest-growing racial group with the potential and power to shape our nation and the policies that affect us. Our mission is to advance civil and human rights for Asian Americans and to build and promote a fair and equitable society for all.
Podcast
There was no podcast this past Sunday in observance of Mother’s Day. There will be a podcast this Sunday, May 16th and another on Wednesday, May 19th. If you or someone you know would like to be featured on the podcast, contact us on Twitter. We are always looking for people to talk to. Thank you for supporting our show and everything that we do.
Podcast Links:
Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/here-for-the-moments/id1558814411
Google Podcasts - https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy81MGIyNDJkOC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw==
Spotify -
What’s Next?
Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou jumped into the Top Shot Discord Tuesday night and dropped some information on what’s to come. Keep in mind that this is all after Top Shot comes out of Beta which is still five or six months away.
non-negotiable stability (99.999% target) - Site stability is always a good thing, the more uptime on the site the more transactions that can be made. 99.999% uptime or five nines, means that in any given year the site can only afford to be down for five minutes and fifteen seconds. We would love to see a Top Shot that is always up, a lofty goal indeed.
excellent new user conversion flow - It’s always great to see new users and I’m sure this will have something to do with the planned mobile game, Hardcourt. Introduce people to Top Shot with a mobile app and then bring them into the broader ecosystem.
native mobile - A Top Shot app where you could do everything right from the app. Buy packs, list moments, view your collection, all within the same app.
fully integrated social media hooks - I’m going to be honest, I don’t know enough about social media marketing to know what this is referring to. Perhaps a bigger focus on social media advertising and marketing, partnering with more influencers and NBA stars to grow the community.
phone support - It’s not clear what this is about, it could mean more support for the mobile version of the site. It also could mean that Top Shot is bolstering its customer support team. Either option is good.
instant withdrawals - We all knew this one was coming sooner or later, imagine being able to sell a moment and withdrawal your money that same day. Sounds great, and that dream may soon become a reality.
That’s all for today, tomorrow I may or may not be posting the second edition of the “Office Hours Report”. Mostly because there hasn’t been an Office Hours since May 7th. If there is one tonight, you can expect an “Office Hours Report”. If there is no Office Hours today, I’ll just have to come up with something else for tomorrow.
You can find us on Twitter @HFTM_TopShot and listen to our podcast 'Here For The Moments' wherever podcasts can be heard. You can find us individually at the following:
Mike - @hftm_mike on Twitter and streetz_racer_00 on Top Shot.
Nick - @NickWilson2448 on Twitter and EMVPIID on Top Shot.
Stephen - @privites on Twitter and stephenprivitera on Top Shot.