I spent my severance on fake land part 2
Gas wars suck
Part 2 to “I spent my severance on fake land”
I woke up on Saturday with pre-game jitters. It was hard to focus. I picked up a pen to write, but was drawn back to twitter. I couldn’t get my mind off the mint.
It felt like this.
I felt confident.
There were 43.6k digital wallets approved for the mint. Wallets needed at least 305 $APE to mint an otherdeed (610 $APE to mint two).
When I went to sleep on Friday, there were less than 20k verified wallets with more than 305 $APE. Since there were 55k otherdeeds available to the public and each wallet was entitled to two otherdeeds, everyone should be able to mint AT LEAST two pieces of land.
Yuga Labs said there’d be multiple waves to mint an otherdeed. Here is the minting scenario under the assumption all 20k verified wallets minted an otherdeed:
1st wave ⇒ 40k otherdeeds
2nd wave ⇒ 15k otherdeeds
No one was worried about a gas war, because there weren’t enough wallets to mint out the nfts in the first wave. For those who aren’t familiar, gas wars happen when the Etheruem network is congested. They make transactions expensive (3 minute primer on gas wars).
Mid Saturday morning, the amount of KYC’d wallets with more than 305 $APE began to grow. At 10am PST the number jumped from less than 20k to 25k. By noon PST there were 30k qualified wallets.
By 3:30pm I tweeted this:
Remember, there were 55k otherdeeds available to the public.
According to Dune Analytics (crypto analytics provider), 60k otherdeeds could be minted in wave 1. There were more eligible wallets than nfts available.
Uh Oh.
There was going to be a massive gas war. Registered wallets weren’t going to mint an otherdeed.
I was stressed.
I hopped on twitter. Every twitter space was discussing the mint. Criticizing Yuga. Demanding they push it back.
We were in store for a massive gas war. How much gas was needed? No one knew the exact number. I asked veterans of the Azuki and vaynersports gas wars. They said I should have anywhere from .4.-.7 ETH in my wallet to be safe.
I started the day with .7 ETH in my wallet. I felt okay about it, but not great.
After listening to the spaces and monitoring Crumbs tweets (a gas war savant), I knew I needed more ETH.
I hit up my friend and he flash loaned .4 ETH. Then I hit up the same friend who sent me 3 ETH on Friday. He called me a degenerate and sent me another 1.2 ETH.
I had 2.3 ETH in my wallet. Time to prepare for a gas war.
I watched videos on how to win gas wars.
Here is what I learned.
Turn Advanced Gas Controls (this allows you to manipulate the amount of gas you use in an ETH transaction)
When you submit your transaction, you can customize the max priority fee and max fee to move up in line. Here’s the breakdown:
Gas Limit: Don’t touch this
Max Priority Fee: This is how much you tip the miners. Miners prioritize transactions with higher priority fees (duh!)
Max Fee: This is the base fee + max priority fee. You have to have a high max fee to even compete in a gas war
3. Go to blocknative. Blocknative will tell you the proper max priority fee and max fee for a successful transaction.
4.Press “speed up” button. Change Max priority fee and max fee according to Blocknative.
After preparing for war, I bought a 6-pack topa chico’s and charged my silver weapon (my computer). I was ready for war.
The mint started at 6pm PST. At 6pm PST exactly, I refreshed the otherside website and submitted my transaction.
I set the transaction for a 1100 max priority fee and a 1500 max fee. The total cost for these is just under $2700.
I expected the transaction to go through around 6:30pm. At 6:15pm I grew anxious.
People started to tweet about their deeds. Someone paid $12k in gas fees to mint. Another person paid $15k. 10k deeds minted. 20k. 30k. 40k. It kept going up. I was sweating my ass off. I put my reputation and money on the line. People were paying 3 ETH and there were less than 15k deeds left.
I started submitting new transactions every minute. I set the priority fees to 1000+ and max fees 5000+. I was prepared to spend over $6000 on gas and it still wasn’t enough.
(people still had to pay the 610 $APE which was equal to $6500. This meant people were spending over $20,000 to mint)
I saw 53,000 nfts minted. There were only a few thousand left.
I cranked the priority and max fee up every second. My fingers got tired. My heart sank. This wasn’t going to happen. I was a failure. I was dejected.
Out of nowhere, the screen changed.
The transaction took 1 hour and 29 minutes. I was emotionally, mentally, and physically, worn out. But you can’t take the fake parcel away from me.
It wasn’t over. As of now, I only had a “claim” to a piece of land. The reveal was set for 6pm PST the next day. The reveal shows the land’s traits, whether or not it has a koda, and how rare it is.
Before the reveal, floor prices shot up to 7 ETH. At the time ETH was worth about $3,000. This means we could have made a $25,000 profit. None of my “investors” wanted to sell. We were holding out for a koda (we had a 14% to land one).
The reveal screwed us. No koda, no special resources, no rare lands. We got floor lands (the cheapest, least rare).
The floor price as of May 17th is 3 ETH. ETH is worth $2000. I don’t have a job and most of my money is tied up in a fake piece of land. Be grateful you aren’t a degen.
What did I learn:
Don’t group invest into NFTs
Gas wars drain your soul
Sell pre-reveal
Get a job