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Now more than ever, it is important to scrutinize the strength of upcoming projects. Bearish markets mean less liquidity, and investors are more cautious. Putting SOL into promising projects instead of hyped projects is a much safer route, especially given the failure of projects that have scraped by solely on hype and underperformed. The following summaries of upcoming projects can be used as a guide to direct attention towards projects that are more likely to succeed, especially in the long-term. Having a long-term vision inside of a bear market is important, as many investors are staying in the ecosystem for the foreseeable future until some sort of recovery occurs.
Camo Chameleon Club
158.6k Twitter Followers https://twitter.com/CamoChameleonC
Camo Chameleon Club (CCC) first got its hype in the shadow of the success of Okay Bears; the simple art and adjective+animal format title drew parallels that drew the eyes of a lot of potential holders. As the project progressed, it was the target of a significant Discord hack, which deleted the whole server. However, the project rebuilt, and the Discord again has 100k members.
The future plans of the project are clearly laid out in the roadmap, which includes IRL events, merchandise store, a second collection of females with 25% of sales going to holders, breeding, airdrops, $CAMO coin, and a P2E game. This roadmap is very standard and not unique in any way, so the success of the project is almost solely resting on community sentiment and strength to shill the project and get holders to join and hold. There is a well-developed lore section in the Discord, but it is unclear how this lore will interact with the project moving forward.
Sphynx Underground Society
64k Twitter Followers
Sphynx Underground Society is a project that aims to create a community and foster and support members’ innovation for upcoming project ideas. The team is doxxed, and their backgrounds and roles are available in a Medium article. Built on the native token $NYAW, the project is building a store for merchandise purchasable with $NYAW and NFT trait upgrades.
Outside of the typical plans for a community-driven project, one of the main cruxes of the Sphynx Underground Society roadmap is the future launchpad. Members are able to pitch their ideas to the DAO and receive funding and aid from the project to pursue their own projects.
Because of the excess of launchpads and increasing saturation of the market for upcoming projects, this project will most likely only find success based on the strength of its community. Additionally, if the project’s launchpad launches a very successful project, this will reflect back on Sphynx Underground Society. However, the reverse is also true: if the projects launched with its aid are unsuccessful or rugs, it will be hard for the project to continue attracting new community members that trust the vision.
Midnight Panthers
81k Twitter Followers
Midnight Panthers is another animal project focused on branding. Instead of following in the footsteps of Okay Bears, it seems as though the project is more closely emulating Cets on Creck. In fact, that is the only plan that has been announced. Instead of a roadmap, they have a “mission statement,” as they believe roadmaps hinder creativity.
It seems as though at best, the intention is to leave the future wide open so that the project can adapt to a rapidly changing space, and at worst, they actually just don’t have plans. It is always a risk in projects like these and it is hard to be certain about the genuineness of the team, but it is worth noting that in the space, people are generally willing to take fewer risks as they need to protect their liquidity.
Notably, the project is committed to banning bots from the Discord, which not only keeps the community safer, but shows the intention to build a genuine community based on real numbers, not purely hype. However, this is coming from the context where many projects underperformed based on the expectations set from their high engagement numbers, so they may just be adapting to that fact. Nonetheless, it is good to see that the team has a good pulse on the market and the way things are changing quickly. Although it is not the best timing for this project, depending on community sentiment and strength led by the team, it may still be able to survive the bear market and deliver on its vision.
Hello Pantha
149k Twitter Followers
Hello Pantha is another Okay Bears branding spinoff, with beautiful marketing art with light, warm colors that look inviting. In the section of the Discord that details the path forward, the project admits that it is relying heavily on community sentiment to stand out among the crowd. However, they claim to be able to catalyze a positive sentiment starting from the team.
The project vaguely outlines its intention to implement “community incentives.” A project in the ecosystem has never come up with a streamlined, universal system to reward raiders or community engagement before, and if successful, it will not only be highly beneficial to the project, but we many see many other projects jump on board this idea. However, it depends on the swiftness of execution of a system that adequately and sustainably rewards holders. Additionally, the team mentioned the possibility of a welcome pack for holders in order to kickstart the brand and sustain excitement on Web3 and IRL.
Neo Hunters
159k Twitter Followers
Neo Hunters has been building for a while, which is in and of itself a good sign: many other recent projects rise into the spotlight and mint as fast as possible to make sure they can capitalize on their attention. It is clear that Neo Hunters is an homage to the popular ETH project NeoTokyo. This project is focused on building a P2E game to collect the native token and in-game items.
The art of the project are impressive animated pixel art GIFs, and the artist information is available after some speculation about stolen art circulated. Solana has not seen very many game-oriented projects find success, and much of the community is aware of that. Therefore, it will be imperative that Neo Hunters is extremely transparent about their timeline for game release, benefits to holders, and while the game is being built, offer other incentives to hold.
Sweetooth
19k Twitter Followers
Sweetooth appears to be a community-focused project, and the information about their future plans is vague, which is most likely intentional. The art is impressive and unique, and it fits in the current style of favored art. Additionally, the project is not a derivative of anything, which is a strength because it does not cap the potential of the project.
In terms of the future, Sweetooth plans to form a DAO with voting power on the specific actions and directions taken by the project. The roadmap mentions an NFT incubator, whose purpose is a bit unclear, but alludes to finding like-minded artists and a second collection. Staking is planned, but it is unclear how the token will be used at this point in time. Because of the buzzword-filled roadmap and unclear vision, it appears that this project will be a flip over a hold. As usual, the ultimate success will be decided by community sentiment, loyalty, and strength.
Susanoo
87k Twitter followers
Susanoo is another community-driven project with anime-inspired art. Because of the numerous projects that appear similar to Susanoo, it will be hard for the project to differentiate itself and convince its community to stay loyal amidst the progression of other projects.
The whitepaper was recently released, and the plans explain their intentions to promote adoption of Web3 from Web2; their current plans extend to 2023. Staking will earn holders native token, which can then be used in the auction and raffle houses, and in the future merchandise store. Again, because these plans are not out of the ordinary, the deciding factor on its success will fall mostly to the community, and in bearish times, it is harder to gain community interest and loyalty.
Shisoka - The Outcasts
171k Twitter Followers
Shisoka gained hype after its first few cryptic “any interaction” tweets got a lot of engagement. Spectators seems interested in the beautiful art and mysterious energy of what was to come. Not much more has been revealed about the plans since the project first appeared on 10/05/2022, and it will be imperative for more information to be released prior to mint in order for the community to trust the team.
So far, the project has lived exclusively on Discord and Twitter, and there is no website at the moment. However, there has been a lot of effort put into building the community, including movie nights, and they have taken a strong stance against the whitelist purge meta. Despite the lack of information, it is likely that this project will be community-driven and focused, and their last sneak peek was sent along with the message “good art sells itself,” pointing to a focus on the quality of art.
In summary, it seems as though many upcoming projects saw the success of projects that went before them and tried to emulate those qualities, whether that be in art or execution. However, the market is in a different place, and it is less accepting of projects that offer little to no information, investors are interested in proven teams that are here to innovate and provide value. In order to separate between dud projects and projects that have a sustainable, profitable future, it is important to evaluate the quality of the team. This can be done through interacting on Discord, and a good sign would be to see a team that is active in the Discord when they can, answering questions from the community. Another way to evaluate a team is through AMAs, which are becoming increasingly popular on Twitter spaces. This can be a great place to evaluate professionalism and intelligence.
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