Nansen unveils the NFT leaderboards

Introducing The NFT Leaderboards 

Overview 

Today Nansen unveils the NFT leaderboards. The leaderboards are a fun yet informative tool that act as a starting point to examine interesting wallets and strategies. This new feature complements last week’s release of a wallet profiler displaying total and realized gains for every NFT collection in a wallet. We believe that both products represent industry firsts as they automatically cover all standard ERC721 projects from the moment they start minting. In this post we delve into these new features by examining wallets topping the leaderboard such as Pranksy, Atblank.eth and Natealex.eth. 

Introduction 

NFTs (NonFungible-Tokens) are illiquid assets. Just like legacy art you cannot just sell NFTs for a given price at any-time. NFTs need individual buyers and a bespoke negotiation of price. This often means the underlying value of an NFT collection is difficult to establish and requires expertise that can assess both market trends and potential buyers. With the recent boom in new NFT projects, the mere calculation of how much has been spent by a wallet can become a full-time occupation. Questions like ‘How much profit or loss have I made?’ or ‘How do I strategically manage my portfolio?’ often end up with answers based on ad-hoc estimates or data painstakingly input into spreadsheets. Enter the Nansen leaderboard and NFT wallet profiler. 

The Leaderboard 

The simplest calculation to undertake for a non-fungible asset like NFTs is total profit. We calculate total profit as total revenue minus total spend. In NFT paradise mode you will now find a leaderboard ranking NFT wallets by total profit made. If you click through to a specific NFT collection you will also see the same leaderboard applied to a specific collection. To be included on the overall NFT leaderboard an account must have bought and sold at least 10 NFTs from over 3 collections. If you want to see a leaderboard just for a particular project you can find this under the hodlers tab in NFT God Mode.

NFT Leaderboards: The notorious Pranksy topping both the overall profit leaderboard (Top) and the Bored Ape Yatch Club leaderboard (Bottom). 

Wallet Profile & Realized Gains 

A realized gain or loss occurs when an NFT is sold at a price higher or lower than the original purchase price. It is the same metric as total profit or loss but only applies to the specific NFTs bought and sold. If you click a name on the leaderboard or enter a custom address in Nansen’s wallet profile you will access the NFT wallet profiler. Here you can see the total profit and realized gains for a wallet plus a breakdown by the individual collection.

Realized Gains in Wallet Profiler: Pranksy’s wallet making significant gains whilst maintaining a high level of diversification. 

Why is this important? 

As a collector you may want to devise a personal strategy for NFT investment. With all the excitement surrounding NFTs and FOMO for new projects, being able to understand your own portfolio and buying habits can help develop a sophisticated approach to asset management. When combined with the leaderboards, the wallet profile also surfaces insight into the behaviour of top collectors and how they manage their portfolios. Let’s take a few examples from the leaderboards. 

Keyplayers 

‘Pranksy’ – Best overall profits 

Pranksy is prolific. With a total spend of 1860 ETH (currently 3.4 Million USD), Pranksy has spent over 3x the amount of anyone else on the leaderboard. Pranksy also spans more projects than anyone else in the top 10 (86 collections) and in total has purchased 9390 NFTs, of which 2350 have been sold. This data suggests that Pranksy doesn’t just make a huge profit but is also a pioneer keen to reinvest into new projects. Kudos Pranksy. We will look at strategies currently used by Pranksy in a moment but first let’s identify some more key players. 

NFT Wallet Profile overall totals for Pranksy

‘Atblank.eth’ – best % profits / Autoglyphs 

Sorting by columns reveals a wealth of new wallet names to also examine. Topping the Total profit % is Atblank.eth making a 5000%+ profit on investment. Clicking on Atblank.eth loads the wallet profiler which reveals a staggering 13,000%+ return on Autoglyphs with nearly 50% still unsold. 

NFT paradise profit leaderboard sorted by column 

‘Danny’ – biggest spender / Hashmaks 

The wallet labeled ‘Danny’ on Opensea is one the biggest spenders and hodlers with a total spend of 2570 ETH over 7088 NFT purchases, of which only 149 have been sold. Notable spends by Danny include 35 Hashmaks with a total spend of 1175 ETH and none yet sold. #hodlgang 

NFT paradise profit leaderboard sorted by spent (ETH) 

‘Snotrocket.eth’ – most eclectic buyer 

With NFTs spanning 118 projects, ‘Snotrocket.eth’ is the most eclectic buyer. Despite this breadth of investment, snotrocket has managed to make 145 ETH total profit and only sold 184 out of their 613 NFTs. That degree of total profit is unusual for an NFT collection with such high diversification. 

NFT paradise profit leaderboard sorted by #Collection Bought 

Top 3 drill-down 

Clicking through from the leaderboard or manually entering a wallet address takes you to the wallet profile and a breakdown of spends and gains by every NFT collection purchased. Paying close attention to the numbers in these columns can reveal strategies used by collectors. 

1st place – Pranksy and reinvestment 

Returning to Pranksy’s wallet and sorting by the percentage sold column reveals zero sales for some major projects recently minted: Bonsai, Cryptoptrunks, Hashdemons, Punk Comics and Polymorphs. In contrast, Bored Ape Yatch Club appears at the later stage of an ongoing sale with 98% (1248/1250) of NFTs sold. Knowing Pranksy’s aversion to selling at floor prices, a lack of selling may either be taken as a signal of long term strength or a lack of buying sentiment.

Further research into current floor prices compared to purchase prices might reveal some interesting if not speculative insight for these key collections. 

Realized gains for Pranksy in NFT wallet profile sorted by % Sold 

2nd Place – AtBlank.eth and generative art 

In contrast to Pranksy, 2nd placed ‘Atblank.eth’ (already featured as 1st for % gains) has a smaller and more focused portfolio spanning only 12 NFT collections and appearing to specialise in generative art like Autoglyphs and Artblocks. Atblank.eth has yet to make a loss on any NFT sold suggesting a patient and considered collecting style. Using the wider features of wallet profile we can also dig a bit more into Atblank.eth’s on-chain history. Looking at related wallets in the NFT wallet overview shows Atblank.eth as a prolific deployer of contracts with 94 deployed to date. 

Realized gains in NFT wallet profile reveals that Atblank.eth is yet to sell an NFT for less than they paid. 

3rd Place Natealex.eth and consistent returns 

3rd place ‘natealex.eth’ demonstrates a consistent ability for realized gains with over 6 projects scoring +1000% returns. Here is a collector who knows their NFTs. When selling popular collections the NateAlex.eth wallet also appears to regularly hodl a remaining ~25-50% of NFTs. This suggests either a long-term attachment to NFTs beyond their monetary value or perhaps just some moon-bags for a rainy day.

Realized gains in NFT wallet profile reveals consistent gains for Natealex.Eth with many NFTs yet to sell Summary 

The NFT leaderboards and wallet profiler represent new ways of gaining insight into the fast moving and newly emerging NFT ecosystem. Unlike traditional art-markets, blockchain is able to preserve individual privacy whilst acting as a public treasure trove of data revealing market-trends and buyer strategies. These feature updates enable new and seasoned collectors to curate their own list of notable wallets for unique and personal insights into the latest NFT activity.