We are extremely excited to announce the official launch of Drop Watch, the culmination of various projects we’ve worked on over the year, including our real-time feed, the TRUST engine, and our love for data and graphs.
We believe this is the first real-time dashboard for NFT drops, similar to what you’d see in stock trading. Drop Watch provides a wide variety of information, covering both primary and secondary sales. You’ll be able to analyze who is buying into the drop, what they’re doing, and what they’ve done in the past. All of this information can be analyzed in real time to help you decide if you want to buy into a drop and how deep you want to go.
Drops can often be viewed in two phases: the primary sale and the secondary sale. We’ll start by discussing some of the graphs relevant to the primary portion of a drop.
Distribution and Participation graphs focus on the primary sale component of a drop, identifying the current distribution of supply and the number of wallets that have participated in the drop.
This information can be used in several ways. Examining the Supply/Purchased/Opened/Burned distribution and the rate of change within each category can shed light on the initial popularity of a drop. As the initial supply decreases, we can look at the Purchased vs. Opened rate, which helps gauge the collector vs. flipper rate. Flippers tend to hold onto items intending to resell them later, whereas collectors or wallets interested in the project often open NFTs immediately (assuming the drop is for some kind of pack).
The Primary Participation graph also helps understand how many wallets the purchased NFTs are distributed across. Using these graphs together can create a relatively accurate picture of the initial demand for a drop. Distributing supply across a wide number of unique wallets can indicate strong demand, while distributing supply across a small number of wallets may indicate bots or flippers buying up supply.
Primary Participation is split into two categories: New and Old Wallets. We define New Wallets as those participating in a drop for the first time. This usually symbolizes new users creating wallets specifically for this drop, but it can also indicate bots or bad actors that haven’t been flagged yet (more on this later).
Understanding the number of unique wallets holding NFTs from a drop can be valuable. We categorize wallets into Holders and Unique Holders. If we’re tracking the number of wallets holding at least one NFT from a drop, shouldn’t Holders and Unique Holders be equal? Not quite.
Web3 allows the same user to own multiple wallets. The TRUST Engine attempts to link wallets that are directly connected (usually owned by the same user). As a result, the Holder count represents the number of unique wallet names holding an NFT from the drop, while the Unique Holder count represents the number of unique users participating in the drop after removing directly connected wallets.
These wallets, often referred to as multi-accounts, are regularly used to bypass purchase caps on initial drops, allowing multi-accounters to access more of the initial supply than intended.
We also present a Top 5 Holder graph showing the wallets holding the most NFTs from the current drop. While the top holders often receive the supply fairly, mass transfers into single wallets can indicate multi-account networks consolidating their supply. However, these numbers should mostly be used to understand how much whales are buying into a drop.
Every drop is unique, and the Drop Signature graph aims to create a visual representation of factors differentiating drops from each other.
The Drop Signature graph compares stats from the current drop to similar drops over the past year, within the same project. For example, Funko NFT drops, which typically happen twice a month, would only be compared to other Funko drops.
The signature compares each field as a percentage to previous drops. At a glance, you can see how many wallets are participating, their average spend compared to previous drops, and the total overall sales for this drop. You can also quickly see how many new wallets this drop has brought to the project.
Understanding what drives a wallet is crucial when analyzing drop participation. Most wallets participate in a drop because they care about the project and want to add the NFTs to their collection. The Common Collection graph gives insight into what previous drops wallets have participated in. For example, users who have participated in horror-themed drops tend to return for more drops with similar themes.
The TRUST Engine analyzes all previous transactions from a wallet to understand what motivates it. While most wallets participate in drops to gain access to the NFTs being sold, some wallets aim to profit from these drops.
These wallets typically fall into common categories: Bots, Flippers, and Hoarders. Bots are automated wallets created to buy and sell items from the primary sale. Flippers are similar but are not automated and are run by real people operating within the standard rules of a drop. Hoarders buy items intending to hold onto them, which can result in inflated prices when supply dwindles. Understanding the supply held by hoarders can help predict future secondary market prices.
After the primary sale ends, we move onto the secondary market. These graphs track both the total volume in various categories and the average price of each item in real-time.
These graphs also provide a quick look into how secondary prices of NFTs compare across different marketplaces. In Web3, once we purchase assets, we can generally do what we want with them. Users often take their assets to the marketplace they are most familiar with or where they think they can get the highest value. This data provides insights into how each marketplace is trending and what those sales look like.
In addition to watching real-time data for active drops, Drop Watch also provides insights into drops that have already happened. Reviewing previous drops can help interpret the data presented in future drops.
With Drop Replays, you can select and review any drop that has previously been monitored on Drop Watch. This feature allows you to analyze historical data, observe trends, and understand market behaviors in completed drops. By examining past drops, you can gain valuable insights that can inform your strategies for upcoming drops, making it easier to make data-driven decisions.
Drop Watch is officially live in beta for free, and we are actively seeking feedback on the graphs and features presented. Our beta phase focuses on Funko drops on WAX and will continue to do so in the near future.
We are working to extend Drop Watch to observe NFT drops on Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon as a paid service once the beta phase is complete. We also hope to support all major Drop contracts on WAX in the future.
