When you dine at a buffet-style restaurant, there are so many choices that you typically can’t fit all of your selections on one plate. It’s the perfect analogy for investing in the metaverse. NFT’s, gaming, coins, back-end support, front-end support, wallets, etc. provide so many ways to get into this emerging technology that it’s difficult to keep up, let alone invest in these companies. Your investment plate is most likely too small to fill with all of the choices in the buffet. How do you sift through the options, let alone select some of them?
Here's my method and examples of how I found and chose two of my investments:
Learn
Join podcasts, YouTube channels, meetups, crypto educational groups, and networking. Find one that seems to be right for your ability to grasp what they’re talking about. I started with one, and when I felt I’d learned everything I could, I found another. I’m currently on my fourth or fifth information source. I can only contribute a few hours per week to this, so I listen to just one source at any given time. I am picky about what they can teach me. These sources talk about the current and emerging investment opportunities.
In this article, I will attempt to avoid esoteric language. The metaverse has its own locutions and until you pick-up what they mean, it’ll sound like gibberish.
Examples of the investments I made are in The Sandbox and with TacoCat Tokens.
I heard about The Sandbox on a podcast I subscribe to. The podcaster was impressed with the company’s marketing strategy and its popular Minecraft look.
A TacoCat founder is in an investment group I belong to. While he was talking to the group about his startup, I went to the website and looked at his experience. It was impressive enough for me to explore the company in more detail.
Cursory Analysis
Find what you can on the company within a 15-minute time budget. In that time, you’ll have enough information to know if you want to delve deeper or not.
A brief look at The Sandbox showed that they had proof of concept, already had sold many parcels in The Sandbox, and doling out sales events in spurts to create more buzz and demand. The land prices were in my budget and I could see how I could monetize my investment.
TacoCat’s ecosystem is intriguing. In their Wildcard project, they have a play-to-earn format which is becoming popular in the metaverse. The digital card game allows for deckbuilding, collectability, and competitive gameplay which are similar elements of a company that I own.
Team Experience
Who is involved and what is their background and expertise?
The Sandbox team consisted of members with combined experience of at least 50 years. Their advisors have significant experience in blockchain gaming.
The depth and breadth of the TacoCat team and advisory board is impressive. With their vision and experience this investment seemed likely to produce results.
Utility
What need does it fill or improve? Reviewing their white paper, or even their lite paper, you get the flavor of the company’s personality, vision, and strategy. In this part of the process ask yourself ‘What do they bring to the metaverse and what does the metaverse bring to them?’
The Sandbox plans on ‘building a unique virtual world where players can build, own and monetize their gaming experience using SAND, the main utility token of the platform.’ When reviewing their strategy and roadmap, look for the section(s) that indicate their competitive advantages over others. With The Sandbox, more control is given to the end-user in a decentralized manner. I could see the potential for popularity and growth.
TacoCat’s lite paper talked about ‘Crypto for the Mainstream.’ I know from experience how difficult it is for many to plunge into cryptocurrencies. It’s the wild west in this space with an entirely unique language. There are an infinite number of ways to lose your investment. If TacoCat can make the process easier, then the entire industry will explode in popularity.
Partnerships
Who are they currently partnering with and who might be a good partner in the future?
What really won me over with The Sandbox was that they were already partnering with Atari, Walking Dead and Snoop Dog.
I had also invested in TacoCat and could see how that might be a great partnership with The Sandbox. Both entities had strong teams and a unique selling proposition in their respective ecosystems. We shall see if that comes to fruition, but from my perspective, it would be a win-win.
Intuition
By now, you should have enough information to make an investment decision. The last step, and perhaps the most important, is your intuition. If there were little things that bothered you in the research, you should probably walk away. Often your inner voice is right.
Oh, one more thing to remember…..DYOR. It means Do Your Own Research. It’s a common phrase that means in this case, that this article is not financial or investment advice.
This article was first published here