Okay, so what the heck is NBA TopShot?
If you’re familiar with the concept of owning trading cards or sports cards, NBA TopShot is a natural extension of that, but on the Internet. Instead of a static card that needs to be maintained and authenticated, NBA TopShots are dynamic video highlights of NBA players doing something cool -- a dunk, a jump shot in a key moment, a sweet pass, etc. Each video highlight comes attached with all the information you would find on a sports card (the player’s information, their performance that night, their stats). All the information about past sales and movement of assets is recorded on a blockchain integration.
Mechanics
What do you collect?
In NBA TS, you collect and own “Moments”. Moments are the video highlight, collated with player and team information. See here for an example of a Moment that I own.
Each moment is of a particular type:
Common
Rare
Legendary
Ultimate
The more exclusive the type, the less # of that particular moment are “printed”/issued by NBA Topshot, so the more valuable each individual moment of that type is.
How do you get new Moments?
Two ways, right now:
Buying Moments from the Topshot Marketplace (some moments are more expensive than others; see Terminology/Jargon for more info on that)
Buy and open Packs. This is the most cost-efficient way to get Moments, as Packs are only $9 and contain three moments, but there’s generally a huge rush to buy Packs as soon as the drop (and they generally drop at unscheduled times) so your chances of getting them are low at best.
What can I do with my Moments?
Right now, there are three options:
Showcase them: You can create a “Showcase” of up to ten moments together that form a “highlight reel” that you can post on your Topshot profile. See here for an example.
Win Challenges: Every week or so, the TopShot administrators release Challenges. Generally they’re a form of “collect these specific rare moments to earn a special reward moment that will never be a part of a pack”. So in this manner, you can acquire Moments as a path to get really rare Moments.
Sell them on Marketplace for a profit
Terminology/Jargon
Packs
The cheapest (but hardest) way to get Moments. Drop at random and unpredictable times.
Moments
The thing you buy on NBA TopShot
Showcase
Up to ten moments in a “highlight reel” that you can display on your profile (if you own them)
Challenges
Events that NBA Topshot runs to drum up interest in particular Moments -- collect the Moments specified in the Challenge to win a special reward
Sets
The “class” that a Moment belongs to (i.e. when they were released). Generally speaking, moments released in earlier sets are the most valuable.
Serial Numbers
The serial number of a particular moment. So if you own a Moment with a serial number 200/5000, that means that 5000 of these Moments were made and you own #200. Generally speaking, the lower the serial number, the more valuable the Moment (with some exceptions that are not worth getting into)
CC
Stands for “Common Collectible”. The lowest classification, it means that this is a Moment that could be reissued in the future
LE
Stands for “Limited Edition”. If you own a Limited Edition Moment, it will never be reissued again, so its value automatically goes up.
Common($)
The most common tier, can have up to 15,000 serial numbers for one moment
Rare($$$$)
A tier. Can have between 200-500 serial numbers for one moment
Legendary($$$$$$$)
A tier. Can have up to 50 serial numbers for one moment
Ultimate($$$$$$$$$$)
The rarest tier. Between one and three serial numbers produced for one moment.
Investment Tactics
All my current investment tactics right now are to buy all the Moments I like visually that are from good players or players that have the potential to get more famous, and then basically hold until I get a ridiculous offer. However, there are a couple of variations worth exploring:
The “Apple” strategy: Assuming you have a large amount of money to work with, the safest way to ensure a profit is to buy a Rare / Legendary Moment from a really good and famous player (think Lebron James, Luka Doncic, Kevin Durant, etc). They’re practically guaranteed to go up in value as long as Topshot as a whole is doing well, and because they’re Rare and Legendary there will be no more reproductions of that Moment in the future. The downside obviously is that you’re putting all your eggs in one basket and the gain as a % of principal will not be huge.
The “Pray and Spray” strategy: Given a medium sum of money, you can buy 10 or more Moments of less well known players (rookies, international players in their first few years in the NBA) and hope that one or more of those players pop off. You can buy Common Moments, as long as you’re ok with more of these Moments undercutting your value at some point in the future
The “Stick to a Theme” strategy: Buy moments or players from a particular team, or a particular position. This could allow you to customize your showcases and win more team-specific challenges
Hybrid: A little bit of all of the above
Let’s all have some fun with this!
For non-basketball fans, are there particular moment types that tend to do better? In other words, is it player alone that drives value of the moment or does the play matter too?