‘Rock star complex’ saw Tyler Did It round trip 1K ETH: NFT Collector 

Tyler Warner, aka Tyler Did It on X, has become one of the top content sources about what’s happening in NFTs and crypto. He first dabbled in crypto in 2017, with the NFT mania of 2021–2022 capturing his imagination and sending his career in a new direction.

Tyler caught the Art Blocks wave, as well as Azukis, Moonbirds and Pudgy Penguins. At the top, his NFT portfolio was worth around 1,000 ETH, but like so many JPEG enthusiasts from this time, he handed back the majority of the paper wealth as NFTs hit a brutal bear market.

“I round-tripped it all. I think I ran up to about 1,000 ETH, or about $3 million, at peak in August [2021]. I will admit I fell into a little bit of a rock star complex during that first full cycle, thinking I’m the best trader out there, and I’m so good at this. It truly was like everyone’s a genius in the bull market; it was easy to get caught up in a moment,” says Tyler.

“Then you look back and think, ‘Wow, I did not learn how to hit that sell button in that cycle. I hit it big on Art Blocks and then it was a down period. Then I did well on Azuki, which ran up a bit, and then I did very well on Moonbirds. I was buying birds the first day. But I was never really selling or realizing at the right time because I just thought NFTs were the new paradigm shift. I really thought it was up only over a long enough period of time.”

GameStop saga was a catalyst to get introspective

As a former banker and corporate consultant, he says the GameStop saga in early 2021 saw him question the legitimacy of the TradFi system.

“When they shut Robinhood down and halted trading after the first few times, it started feeling like this really is a rigged system in the traditional stock market.”

“There was a bit of a light bulb moment of crypto solving this. That can’t happen in the decentralized crypto markets,” he says.

Feeling that his stay in financial services consulting was contributing to a rigged system, he poured his focus further into NFTs and crypto, and by August 2021, he’d left his corporate job.

Within a few days of doing so, he spun up his YouTube channel and doubled down on content creation about Web3. The following month, he was working for Lucky Trader full-time, and today, he writes The Morning Minute, co-hosts FOMO Hour and still works for Lucky Trader.

“The crypto world excited me. It felt like a new frontier, and it felt like a market that I could potentially have a voice in,” he says, recalling how one of the partners at his old consulting firm said a good career progression involved working on your core skills, becoming a mentor, leading a practice and then “finally, you want to have a voice in the market.”

“As I was looking at my career trajectory, I struggled to see how I would have a voice in this market. I felt like a more interesting sector was crypto and that I would be happy to show up every day and perhaps develop that voice.”

The future of sports collectibles is digital 

As a big sports guy, Tyler is an avid fan of the NBA and NFL, with his X presence before crypto revolving around sports. He remains bullish on the future of digital sports collectibles.

“There were two things that clicked in my head in 2021. One was digital art and how it made so much sense on a number of fronts, including the ability to view art whenever opposed to having them stored away in airport hangers. The other thing that clicked was sports,” he says. 

“A good buddy of mine was getting into physical trading cards and baseball cards. He had a few thousand. He had to go to these trade shows to sell them and had to keep them in good condition. Further, storage and keeping them out of the sunlight was such a hassle and overhead.” 

“When Top Shot came out, I just clicked that it was better. You have 24/7 worldwide access to buy and sell these cards. You don’t have to worry about the condition. You don’t have to worry about maintenance, and the overhead is zero.”

Tyler thinks NBA Top Shot, a key catalyst of NFT adoption in 2020 and early 2021, still has the most upside, and he recently purchased some more to accompany his Victor Wembanyama Rookie Moment. 

“I did get caught up in Top Shot. It was one of those again, where I bought four days before the peak. I was the genius for a short period, with my portfolio doubling and tripling, then it all crashed,” says Tyler.

“I have the Victor Wembanyama Rookie Moment, and I’ve just sat and watched it a handful of times in a row before because it’s very well put together, and that just feels like the future. If you believe that sports collectibles are going to still be a thing in 10, 20 or 30 years, which I do, I think it has to permeate more into the digital space.”

NBA Top Shot alert 🔔

The Victor Wembanyama rookie debut Moment serial #1 of 4000 sold for $30,000 last night.

Highest rookie sale in quite some time… pic.twitter.com/6o4TEx7r3t

— TylerD 🧙‍♂️ (@Tyler_Did_It) February 11, 2024

Self-confessed Pengu maxi

One of only a few PFP NFT collections that have bucked the down-only price action over the last 18–24 months has been the Luca Netz-led Pudgy Penguins. Much maligned under previous ownership, Pudgy has had a rebirth under Netz since he took over in April 2022.

Netz’s vision and execution for the Pudgy brand are seen as a path to capturing mindshare of the mainstream with its social media and digital footprint, including 10 billion + GIPHY views and foray into physical toys with some of the biggest retailers in the world, including Walmart.

Tyler is a self-confessed Pengu maxi who bought Pudgy’s for double figures and sold close to the top before the former owners departed.

“It was one of the first collections I minted in decent size in 2021. I picked up 10 around 0.2 ETH or 0.3 ETH. They ran up about 50% and I was looking at ones to sell, and it kind of stood out to me that I didn’t want to sell any of them. I liked them all. I couldn’t pick out the one that I liked the least,” he says.

“I rode the wave up to 4-ETH floor, but I actually was not a fan of the original owners behind Pudgy’s. When I saw what they were doing, I actually did sell the top pretty close on my Pudgy’s. It was one of the very few times I did that for a collection, totally exited the entire thing.”

“Then Luca came back in, and I saw this guy’s got some potential. I knew the Pudgy art was good from my experience in 2021, and a lot of the OG crypto guys just held through it, so it did have that built-in network, which is a cool part of it. I think I bought my current wizard hat PFP when the floor was around 3 ETH.” (At the time of writing, it was 7.6 ETH).

The iconic trade of OSF and Mando dumping over 70 Bored Apes into Blur bids in February 2023 for over $9 million is something Tyler was hoping to emulate with his Pudgy collection.

“I made a conscious decision at one point to try to become like the OSF and Mando of Pudgy Penguins with what they did with Apes. I built a stack up to 10, but I didn’t stick to the thesis, and I started selling some off and chasing other things. Ultimately, it whittled down to five and then three and then I’m just with the one. Had I stuck to that thesis, it was the right one. I just didn’t execute it, sadly. I’m still incredibly bullish on Luca. Putting CryptoPunks aside, I still think Pudgy’s is the collection that has the most upside.”

Rapid-fire Q&A with NFT Collector Tyler Warner

Favorite NFT in your wallet? 

“It’s got to be my Pudgy.”

Favorite 1-of-1 art piece?

“My Grant Yun piece, ‘Painting American Gothic.’”

Favorite NFT artist? 

“Alpha Centauri Kid.”

If you had to hold three memecoins for the rest of 2024, what coins do you think are going to be in your wallet?

“WIF is 100% there. If it’s till the end of 2024, it rules out all the political coins because I don’t know if those are going to last past the election. I’m bullish on the RSIC token, the rune coin on Bitcoin and happy to hold through the end of 2024. Lastly, I like PacMoon a lot. I think it’s got legs, and it’s still relatively cheap compared to the others.”

What’s it been like to join Rug Radio’s FOMO Hour show? 

“It’s been fantastic. I think these guys [Mando and Farokh] are the dream team; (there are) huge shoes to fill coming in behind OSF, and he’s not stepping away forever. Mando was actually my inspiration for starting to do NFT coverage, and Farokh is driving the ship. He’s the captain; he’s got the energy, and he brings it every day.”

The best thing about crypto?

“The opportunity.”

Worst thing about crypto? 

“The bad actors.”

Who are your top 3 favorite follows on X for NFTs?

“Let’s go Stats, Mando and then Thread Guy to keep us connected with Gen Z.”

Your top tools you use on a daily basis to track everything?

“Dex Screener, the Blast landing page, Blur and Magic Eden for Runes and Ordinals on Bitcoin.”

Top resources and information

“Mandos Minutes are great, but I don’t read a lot of daily newsletters because I don’t want to warp what I’m going to write myself. For inspiration, I’d say Milk Road. I think it is the single best newsletter, and I’ve drawn a lot of inspiration from the writing style.”

Advice on how to survive NFTs and crypto in the long run?

“Just know that it’s a marathon, and learn when to toggle. Basically, when to put your foot on the gas and when to put your foot on the brake so that you don’t burn out. Don’t listen to people who say you have to be on no sleep season — no sleep season is total bullshit. You can build great positions and do very well trading 9 to 5.”

“Don’t feel like you really have to burn the midnight oil. I think you just have to develop thick skin, and it gets rough out there. In the bear market, you can get down on things, but just know that there’s more good happening than bad in this space — even if the bad sometimes gets amplified louder than the good.”

If you had to guess, what will the global market cap number get to at the top of this particular cycle?

“I do look at it. $10 trillion is my number. $10 trillion is where gold was. That means we got basically 3x Bitcoin to get there. $150,000 is my Bitcoin target. I haven’t really sat down and done the math of what that means for total global market cap, but I’m probably somewhere in the $7 trillion–$10 trillion range this cycle.”