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@ThesisInvestor<br />
Team/Devs:<br />
They have built three novel market viable products<br />
pre-mint that could reshape the NFT buying landscape.<br />
The first is an NFT pledging system that allows users to<br />
commit to holding an NFT for 10 or 30 days. If successful,<br />
the user increases their Investor Scoring rating and can<br />
pledge more NFTs. This scoring mechanism could be<br />
used by upcoming projects to provide whitelist access<br />
to proven holders. They have also created “pledging as a<br />
service” that other projects can leverage to incorporate<br />
time-based staking. Third, they created a pre-pay minting<br />
feature that they used for their own upcoming mint and<br />
can allow other projects to utilize. The products each<br />
look and function well on desktop and mobile. The team<br />
has also been excellent with communication outlining<br />
next steps and engaging the community. Checking all the<br />
boxes so far.<br />
Community:<br />
It’s too soon to tell since we are pre-mint, but so far,<br />
the community has been very active and authentically<br />
engaged in what Crowdsurf is building. The team<br />
deserves credit here as well for leveraging the community<br />
to test their various products and they have also<br />
frequently created incentives for the community to buy<br />
on secondary to access raffle prizes. Since Crowdsurf is<br />
building out a product that could yield lucrative whitelist<br />
access I see some strong potential for the community to<br />
stay active and engaged discussing upcoming mints and<br />
continuing to be early and rewarded for product testing<br />
future features.<br />
Innovation/Utility:<br />
Only time will tell, but I think Crowdsurf’s tools could be<br />
massively successful. Everyone in NFTs knows that the<br />
current whitelist allocation model is broken. Allocating<br />
WL to a bunch of other NFT projects doesn’t create any<br />
loyalty to the NFT. Allocating WL via pre-sale can lead<br />
to huge pumps and dumps without proper<br />
vesting rules. Allocating via scholarships or<br />
other proof-of-work methods is extremely<br />
time consuming. Crowdsurf’s pledge portal<br />
theoretically helps streamline this process<br />
by creating a data collection scheme to<br />
determine which buyers are more likely to<br />
HODL their NFTs. And the more people and<br />
projects that use Crowdsurf, the better the<br />
data will get, incentivizing future projects<br />
to allocate significant WL spots to proven<br />
diamond handers. The expansion into<br />
time-based staking as a service through<br />
their pledge portal and pre-pay features<br />
are also sneakily killer products. Timebased<br />
staking could be the new meta<br />
with y00ts going in that direction and pre-pay adds<br />
convenience for buyers and may even incentivize buyers<br />
to accumulate a mint at a discounted price while also<br />
providing valuable data to projects in determining how<br />
to price their final mint and conduct outreach (rather<br />
than waiting until mint day to see if enough people will<br />
buy into the project). And utility? If they pull this off this<br />
could be a great source of whitelist access which we<br />
know is lucrative based on the success of Blocksmith<br />
Labs and Bot Head. And Crowdsurf claims they will share<br />
50% of all revenue streams with holders. It’s not entirely<br />
clear to me how this will work - is this direct revenue<br />
share or revenue share tied to their utility token $SURF<br />
that they plan to introduce post-launch?<br />
Art:<br />
The art is solid. It’s simple yet distinctive and full of<br />
personality. I like that they split the mint into two<br />
sections: Deadsurfers as the OGs and Crowdsurfers as<br />
the bulk collection. If this project takes off it could really<br />
be desirable to hold a Deadsurfer as a flex. I appreciate<br />
that they did a PFP rather than an access card, as the<br />
market has clearly indicated that a PFP is far more<br />
desirable for building brand and community.<br />
Achievements/Potential:<br />
This project has already accomplished more than most<br />
NFTs pre-mint. They have built market viable products<br />
and appear to have product market fit helping address<br />
several very relevant pain points in NFTs, namely whitelist<br />
allocation, time-based staking, and tools like pre-pay to<br />
help upcoming projects mint out. Since they are utilizing<br />
a SaaS model and have proven an ability to build useful<br />
stuff, there’s no reason to believe they won’t continue to<br />
layer on new functionality and tools down the road. I’m<br />
very excited to watch this project grow and think it could<br />
be an A-tier utility play in the same vein as Blocksmith<br />
Labs, Famous Fox Federation, Atadia, or Bot Head.<br />
142<br />
<strong>SHILL</strong> <strong>Issue</strong> #<strong>77</strong>
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