2021-2022, Numerical Collection Investment Phase#
- 2021 is a bull market for global asset appreciation and a year of celebration for investors. In this year, China has released a large amount of liquidity, leading to a large influx of funds into the market. In this situation, various investment products have been sought after by investors.
- In fact, in the first half of 2021, NFTs were still relatively unknown in China. The earliest to enter China in the first half of the year should be NFT China, which attracted very few people's attention. Huobi, which focused on the domestic market (at that time it was Li Lin), laid out the NFT ecosystem ibox on HT. At the beginning, in order to avoid trouble, only the overseas version was available. However, there are so many excellent NFTs overseas that ibox never had a chance to take off. By May, ibox boldly entered the domestic market.
- Domestic ibox adopted several particularly advanced strategies, which paved the way for many Numerical Collection enthusiasts and left a deep impression in my opinion:
- Using WeChat official account for promotion and WeChat groups for community, which is very in line with Chinese habits.
- Numerical Collection images focus on introducing copyrights and emphasizing compliance. Many collections are well-known IPs in China.
- Optimizing payment methods, initially directly using WeChat Pay, which was very convenient. Later, due to payment issues, ibox encountered difficulties. However, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise and benefited early investors.
- Later, the introduction of speculation methods from the cryptocurrency circle greatly boosted the Numerical Collection community, but it was a temporary bubble that grew too large.
ibox#
- After saying so much, I have a connection with ibox and it has left me with many memories. I believe that those who have played ibox have both love and hate for it.
- I entered ibox in September 2021. At that time, I was at home due to lockdown, bored, and looking for investment opportunities. I accidentally discovered the advertisement for ibox on the Huobi app.
- The advertisement for ibox on Huobi was very bold, stating that it entered the NFT platform through WeChat official account and used WeChat Pay for purchases. Without much hesitation, I followed the advertisement and found a way to enter ibox. I entered the pit and only then realized that ibox had been operating since May. I played ibox with a half-believing and half-doubting attitude. I remember that at that time, ibox rode on the trend and released music collections, namely NFT music. There were many releases, with tens of thousands of copies. The first releases were not sold out, and each copy was very cheap, only 10 yuan. Only special numbers were worth more (Numerical Collection veterans know that the first batch of Numerical Collections were hyped for their numbers).
- The most interesting part was the Numerical Collection group. ibox should be the first to establish a WeChat Numerical Collection group. When I played, there were only a few groups, and the groups were manually created by customer service. It took a long time for a few people to join the groups. To my surprise, around October, ibox exploded. Groups could be filled with 500 people within a few hours. Looking back now, it's really unbelievable.
- After playing ibox for a while, I discovered something interesting. Every day at midnight, the prices of the collections would rise. Later, through discussions with group members, I found out that it was because WeChat Pay had a transaction limit, and many people had reached their limits for buying and selling. The ibox community was very active, and the most memorable person was someone with a panda avatar. ibox released a series of Numerical Collections based on the animated film "Havoc in Heaven" produced by Shanghai Animation Film Studio. He might have invested in it and boasted every day that the prices of this series of Numerical Collections could rise. Whenever there was a new person on WeChat, he would recommend buying this series. At that time, ibox released new products that needed to be manually grabbed. There were too many people grabbing them because if you managed to grab one, you could sell it for a lot of money. The grabbing process was so lively that it felt like the phone was about to explode. I played ibox for almost a month and it started to take off. The newly released collections would generally have several times the increase in value as long as you managed to grab one.
- However, by the end of September 2021, ibox experienced a crisis of trust due to payment issues. The reason was that WeChat Pay had a sudden transaction limit, and ibox believed that WeChat Pay was not a long-term solution. They wanted to find a new third-party payment platform, but at that time there were no mature third-party payment platforms in the market. As a result, ibox closed the secondary market, and the purchased images could not be circulated. People couldn't sit still, and some people pessimistically believed that ibox had the intention of scamming money.
- Later, because ibox was still on the Huobi Chain, around November, ibox came up with a way to transfer NFTs using on-chain wallets to circulate the collections. In fact, it was the most basic transaction function of blockchain, and those who understood blockchain would understand. During this period, I remember that ibox also released a blockchain game called "Drawing a Pie". At that time, overseas blockchain games were very popular, and it must be said that ibox on Huobi had execution power. The off-market trading of ibox collections, influenced by public opinion, was much lower than expected. Only the collections related to the blockchain game showed some improvement, while others basically fell through. I remember that on WeChat, I could buy a collection for just over ten yuan. For the music record collections released by ibox, some people sold them below the issue price, almost giving them away for free. ibox fell, and the only art that rose unexpectedly was the "Genesis" collection. This gameplay lasted for several months in the Numerical Collection community. At that time, the first releases of collections were grabbed based on timing. If you managed to grab one, you would make money. The only thing ibox did was to create a "Genesis" collection for Chang'e, which gave the holders of this "Genesis" collection the right to purchase new products in advance. This actually had the meaning of speculation and borrowed from the gameplay of the cryptocurrency circle. With the "Genesis" collection, you could buy new products and make money, which drove up the price of the "Genesis" collection. The price increase attracted new people to enter. At that time, when the Numerical Collection platform could be counted on fingers, Chang'e was hyped to tens of thousands, which was really amazing.
- Time came to the end of December and the beginning of January. I remember that ibox resumed the secondary market. Everyone in the group was confident, but the prices were similar to off-market trading, and in terms of terminology, it could be said to have returned to zero. The prices fell to the floor, and there were many listings at the floor price. I was also helpless. At that time, I invested 30,000 to 50,000 yuan, and maybe only had a little over 10,000 yuan left. During this period, ibox imitated the "Genesis" collection and played a game of holding collections to compete for rankings and receive airdrops. I was still in the top 100 and received the "Zhen" collection, which was well-known in the ibox community. But I just didn't have the luck to make a fortune. Later, when the market was better, I sold the "Zhen" collection for a few thousand yuan.
- The big turning point in the Numerical Collection community was during the Chinese New Year in 2022, which all the old Numerical Collection enthusiasts know. Haha, it's a bit ironic that it exploded during that year's Spring Festival Gala. There were two highlights in the Spring Festival Gala: one was Shen Teng's sketch, in which he said, "No one is flipping dogs in the metaverse yet"; the other was the virtual person "Su Xiaomei" from the only Beijing TV Spring Festival Gala. With the endorsement of the only state-owned enterprise, it was already popular before the Chinese New Year, and after the Spring Festival Gala, it completely took off. Chang'e directly reached 100,000 yuan and was rumored to be worth one million yuan off-market. From February to May 2022, it was the sweetest period for Numerical Collections. The capital market needed a continuous influx of new people and funds. During that period, Numerical Collections exploded, with a large number of new collections being released. What was even more terrifying was that there were more new platforms appearing every day than new collections. The so-called "Genesis" collections on the new platforms were generally hyped to over 10,000 yuan. Even though new platforms appeared crazily, new people kept taking over.
- From February to April, ibox, as an old platform, performed averagely and did not demonstrate the advantages of being an early player in the Numerical Collection community. But in May, it completely became the king of Numerical Collections, and countless Numerical Collection players looked up to ibox. Looking back, it was still the peak of Numerical Collections.
ibox did several things that are still considered classic speculation tactics:
- Changed the management team. The original Huobi ibox exited, and 18 Planning took over ibox. Although it was a new team, the foundation of the old ibox platform was still there, and old players still miss the time when it emerged in 2021.
- In the Numerical Collection community, 18 is a celebrity and a very controversial figure. Those who were trapped hated him to the bone, while those who profited greatly respected him. At the same time, 18 was the pioneer of speculation, which in a sense changed the taste of Numerical Collections, but the way of speculation was admirable.
- At that time, the mainstream gameplay was the "Genesis" collection, but after a while, everyone became tired of it. It was difficult to grab the "Genesis" collection and couldn't compete with the bots. Later, it was optimized to be based on lottery, but it still couldn't beat the large number of registered users. ibox broke through first. 18 proposed that all collections on the platform could have priority purchases, which revitalized all collections and made it possible for each collection to generate income. The capital market is driven by expectations. The strong expectation of making money drives every speculator to buy in. At that time, it was still a bull market, and the fresh gameplay of ibox stimulated the market to skyrocket.
- Personally drawing pies in the community, 18 was probably the one who interacted the most with collectors in the Numerical Collection community. From the moment I entered ibox, 18 organized meetings. At that time, Tencent Meeting was very lively. There were probably hundreds of WeChat groups, and 18 would speak in each group every day, drawing pies and saying that the platform would get better, implying that collection prices would rise.
In this way, in May 2022, ibox ushered in a bull market. Basically, ibox could compete with all other platforms. The price of the cheapest collection was around 3,000 to 4,000 yuan, and it lasted for half a month. Any new collection that came out would be worth tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands! At that time, ibox even briefly made it to the hot search on Weibo, becoming the white moonlight in the hearts of old players.
