For anyone interested in cool new NFT avatars, the large selection is a blessing in disguise. It’s great that we’ve got so many projects to choose from! At the same time, it’s impossible to keep track and make thorough analyses of them all unless you make it your full-time job.
What’s arguably the biggest challenge of them all is that demand for the most popular projects significantly outpaces the supply. This means that you’re by no means guaranteed to be able to buy an NFT in the launch. For NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain you’ll likely get into an expensive gas war, something I strongly recommend against if you’re new to NFTs.
Your best shot at getting in on the most popular launches, therefore, is to join a project’s “presale”. The presale is for the lucky few who have won or earned a whitelist spot. These whitelists often fill up fast or require you to work for them. So, once again, you need to find out about these new projects early.
Luckily for you and me, we’ve got some simple tools and shortcuts available to help us out. Based on my own experience and advice from experts in the field, here are the best ways to discover upcoming launches early.
NFT launch tracking sites
There’s no shortage of websites and apps dedicated to aggregating upcoming NFT launches. I’ve used and compared several of them over time. They all differ in terms of how and how well they showcase the different NFT projects, as well as the information they show about each one.
These are my current favorites.
MintyScore
MintyScore shows you all the basic information about each project, along with its number of Discord members and Twitter followers. The latter are two of the most important metrics when assessing the popularity of a new project.
You can see MintyScore’s rankings and featured NFTs on their website or mobile app
However, what’s really interesting is its focus on community curation. You can like and dislike any project on its site and see the total count. It also sums up a project’s performance on a series of evaluation criteria in a ‘MintyScore’, making it really easy to find the most promising projects.
NFTCLICK
NFTCLICK is a strong runner-up after MintyScore and a good complementary tool. This site also assigns a total score to each project, based on parameters such as its founding team, quality of the artwork, and community support.
What I really like about NFTCLICK is its filtering functionality. You can choose to view projects in certain categories, like Gaming, Music, or Sports. And you can filter on art style: Pixel, 3D, Hand-drawn, etc.
Notable mentions
If you just want an overview of upcoming launches without all the bells and whistles, I’d recommend Rarity.tools, NextDrop, and NFT Calendar. All of these feature NFTs on both the Ethereum and Solana blockchains. Check out HowRareIs if you want a dedicated Solana NFT aggregator.
Now, I could just have made a guide to the best NFT launch trackers and ended it right here. MintyScore and NFTCLICK will definitely get you far with relatively little effort. None of these sites are fully comprehensive though. Furthermore, the projects you discover through these sites and apps could often have been caught earlier by using some of the methods below.
Discord communities
Most projects, creators, collections, and subcommunities in the NFT space handle the majority of their communication on Discord. This makes it a great place to learn about upcoming launches in a few different ways.
Alpha channels
Many NFT projects have so-called “alpha channels” in their Discords, dedicated to people sharing insights and perspectives on the most promising new projects.
In general, you can assume that the “best” NFT projects attract the most experienced and well-connected NFT collectors and therefore provide the best recommendations and insights on upcoming NFT launches. However, you can easily find great alpha in some of the lesser-known NFT projects’ Discords.
Note that you will often need to own a given project’s NFT to get access to these channels. This is an important part of the value proposition for these NFTs. If you already own some NFTs yourself, I’d simply recommend you begin spending some time in their respective alpha channels.
Project collabs and giveaways
New NFT projects will often partner with established ones to get attention. Such partnerships are typically announced on Discord. Furthermore, these collabs often include whitelist spots or other perks to lucky members of the established project’s community.
Once again, not all Discords are created equal when it comes to collabs and giveaways. And once again you can expect that the most popular, respected, and valuable projects are able to secure the best partnerships.
Alpha & community NFTs
While many NFT projects do some of the above, certain ones have it as their prime purpose. Communities like ZenAcademy, Non-Refungible Network, Metaverse HQ, Friends With Benefits, and Crypto Packaged Goods are made for members to learn about NFTs and upcoming projects, get early access to new launches, and even enter competitions and raffles to win free NFTs.
You’ll find plenty of leads like these on Discord (examples from ZenAcademy)
Such communities are often but not always token-gated, meaning you’ll need to own one of their NFTs to get access. Some can be quite pricy and it’s entirely up to you to assess if you think it’s worth it or not.
I personally own a ZenAcademy Genesis NFT and have discovered lots of new projects and won a couple of whitelist raffles in the community Discord. One gave me access to buy 2 NFTs in the Coolman’s Universe presale, each currently valued at more than 1 ETH.
Social media
Since people like to talk about what’s new and exciting, it’s no surprise that social media is a great place to discover upcoming NFT launches. Twitter is the go-to for projects to share updates and for participants in the space to share their latest trades and opinions on new NFT projects.
From my own experience, a lot of the leads you’ll get on Twitter happen rather organically as you begin following the projects you like and the people you meet and know in the space. Until then, you may want to follow the accounts of MintyScore, NFTCLICK, and the other platforms mentioned above.
I also recommend following some of the leading collectors and traders who share their opinions on Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok. I’ve listed some of my favorites below. I’m clearly biased toward YouTube and Twitter, so you may want to do some more research into TikTok or other platforms.
- Ameer Hussain on YouTube and Twitter
- BentoBoi on YouTube and Twitter
- Brett Malinowski on YouTube and Twitter
- Crypto Gorilla on YouTube and Twitter
- Crypto Vilius on YouTube and Twitter
- Donte Walker NFT on YouTube and Twitter
- James Blanc on YouTube, Twitter, and TikTok
- Kosher Plug on YouTube and Twitter
- NFT Nate on YouTube, Twitter, and Discord
- NFT Pasta on YouTube and Twitter
- NFT Verse on YouTube and Twitter
- ryandcrypto on YouTube and Twitter
- Sebastian Ghiorghiu on YouTube and Twitter
- The Nifty Alpha on YouTube
Of course, many of the big NFT collectors and influencers don’t necessarily share every NFT project they’re excited about. Thus, a good way to know what they’re into is to see who they follow on Twitter.
The best tool I know to assist in this process is whotwi. Simply look up Gary Vee, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul, or another NFT VIP and see if they’ve recently started following some interesting new projects.
Closing thoughts
Websites and apps like MintyScore and NFTCLICK can help us keep track of upcoming launches and automatically sort out the least promising ones. Spending time on Discord, Twitter, and YouTube will provide us with even more leads.
That last word is key though. Whenever we learn about a new project through any of these channels it’s a lead. It’s not an investment recommendation. It’s not financial advice in any way. And it’s certainly not a guaranteed 10x on your money. It’s simply a cue for us to go research and learn more about a potentially interesting and worthwhile project.
Furthermore, discovering and analyzing a promising new project are just the first two steps. The third is being able to actually buy one of its NFTs during the launch, which is arguably a much bigger challenge.
To be guaranteed to buy one of the 10,000 NFTs when there are 400,000 people competing for them, you basically need to get in on the presale. Each project has its own presale structure and requirements, so you need to study those for any new project you’re interested in.
I may make a guide to whitelists and pre-sales in the future, with some general perspectives and tips on how to improve your odds. This is something I’m still figuring out myself though. So, until then, I hope the above will at least help you find some awesome projects!
