NFT whitelists are considered the cheapest, fastest, and easiest way in to an NFT project.
An NFT whitelist place almost guarantees the ability to mint in the collection upon launch and helps avoid the bots on extremely popular projects.
Getting on to an NFT whitelist is becoming more challenging for buyers, and some NFT buyers will not mint an NFT within a collection unless they obtain a whitelist place.
The best way to get on to an NFT Whitelist is to join and become active in the NFT projects community on social platforms, as well as entering each whitelist competition held. Buyers who follow the rules set within Whitelist channels on Discord are 87% more likely to obtain an NFT place.
In this guide we will look at proven methods to obtain multiple whitelist places, as well as techniques and tricks often overlooked by NFT buyers.
Let’s start with a basic introduction to whitelists.
What is an NFT Whitelist
An NFT Whitelist is a short list of specific wallet addresses that are permitted to mint an NFT from the collection earlier than anyone else. Whitelist places are set by the NFT founders and are often given out to competition winners and those users most active in the communities or refer others.
NFT presale to whitelist holders can start up to 48 hours prior to a public mint.
This allows whitelist place holders to buy ahead of anyone else and with an almost guaranteed chance of minting.
Some NFT collections have much more demand than supply. In such cases anyone who manages to obtain a whitelist place is almost certain to be able to mint and buy themselves an NFT in the collection.
On average the number of whitelist places is equal to 20% of the NFTs in the collection.
For example, if there are 10,000 NFTs in the collection then on average there will be 2,000 whitelist places available.
The scarcity of whitelist places, as well as the benefits being on the whitelist holds, creates demand.
There is also street cred available in the community to those who win a whitelist spot. These places are always sought after.
Not only does it provide the whitelist place holder a chance to mint earlier than anyone else, but it is also often at a reduced mint price too!
An average saving off mint price for whitelist place holders is 20%.
Therefore, an NFT with a mint cost of 0.08 ETH may be for sale for just 0.06 to 0.065 ETH.
At today’s Ethereum price, this is equal to a $52.41 saving.
How do NFT Whitelists Work
A whitelist works by prelisting only a certain number of preselected wallet addresses that are available to mint an NFT.
Technically, before a mint happens, the NFT project can check the wallet address of the user during a presale.
If the wallet address trying to mint the NFT is included in the whitelist of wallet address, the system will allow the mint to take place.
If though a user whose wallet address is not included in the whitelist of addresses, the system will not allow the mint to happen.
If a whitelist place is won, the user provides the wallet address the will mint the NFT from to the NFT project and they will add the wallet address to the whitelist.
Unless the user provides their wallet address to the project, or the project includes the wallet address in the whitelist – the mint is not possible.
On the other hand, if the user provides a wallet address to the NFT project for the whitelist, but they try to mint using a different wallet with a different address – again the mint will not work.
Many Discord channels have separate sub channels for whitelist members or provide a different status for those users. This helps users see whether they have been included in the whitelist or not.
How to Get on an NFT Whitelist
With the number of buyers of NFTs increasing month on month, and the number of popular and good NFT projects decreasing, it is becoming harder than ever to get on an NFT whitelist.
The demand is much greater than supply.
Although it is more challenging, the rewards are a lot higher.
Guaranteed mints and reduced minting costs are just some of the benefits.
Fast flips are also possible if this is the intention. Some NFT buyers make their money with fast flips within a project using whitelists than long-term holding.
Although whitelist places are becoming harder to come by, I am seeing the same users again and again getting on them.
In this section I’ll explain some of the tactics and techniques they are using to get on up to 10 to 20 whitelists per month.
Twitter Competitions
Almost every hour through the day and night whitelist place competitions are held on Twitter.
Often the competition entry requirements are to engage with the tweet, by way of retweeting and, or, liking, as well as sharing with other NFT buyer friends.
This simple action which requires less than a minute of time can get you one competition entry in to an NFT whitelist.
Some competitions have a few hundred entrants, where popular ones have a few thousand.
Did you know that over 62% of whitelist competition entrants on Twitter are void, as they failed to read and meet the requirements?
For example, many Twitter NFT whitelist competition tweets clearly state each entrant must include 3 friends in their comment.
Many either fail to include any friends, or only add one or two. This immediately voids the competition entry.
It is possible to enter up to 35 whitelist competitions each hour of time invested.
Some NFT buyers spend 2-3 hours every night following influencers, and major NFT projects, and entering all whitelist competitions they come across.
The more competitions entered, the more likely the chance of winning a whitelist place.
Make sure you follow the requirements and rules exactly to ensure your entry is included.
Discord Competitions
Discord is the second main social media platform used by almost every NFT project.
It’s a great interface to build a welcoming and helpful community, plus also communicate with and provide other essential information such as official links, how to mint instructions and how to get on to whitelists.
Often to help with community engagement, an NFT project run whitelist competitions through Discord.
This can be as easy as entering a competition by completing a Google Docs entry form or engaging with an emoji – to being an active voice in the community for weeks or months or inviting the greatest number of others to join the community.
Often the more popular the NFT project, the more difficult the requirements to enter the competition.
This though can work heavily in your favor.
The more difficult the requirements, the lower the number of entrants. Whereas the easier the way to enter, the more entrants there will be to compete against.
It is often worth the extra steps, and time taken, to becoming an active, positive and helpful voice in the community, as well as refer others, as NFT project see these users as great ambassadors to the brand, and often reward those users with whitelist places.
Visit the Discord channel every day to look for new competitions, engage with the community, and enter flash competitions as and when they are listed.
Friend Referrals
The main goal of any NFT project is to increase followers, members and ultimately buyers of their NFT collection.
Referrals are nothing new.
Having their own community spread the word amongst their friends and family is free marketing for any NFT project, and to encourage as many referrals as possible many NFT project provide whitelists to either those who bring in the most friends, or randomly to all those who have brought in others to the community.
Make sure to check whitelist requirements and opportunities through Discord channels and see whether friend recommendation is one way of achieving a whitelist place.
If you are part of other Discord channels, have your own social following or have built up network connections with other NFT buyers, these are ideal candidates for referrals.
You get to promote good up-and-coming NFT projects to other likeminded buyers, and the chance to get on a whitelist. It’s win-win!
This is why networking with other NFT buyers is so important.
Positive Community Activity
Referral of friends is just one way to positively enhance an NFT community.
The most helpful in the community are those that engage every day, provide helpful information and answers to questions, and actively promote and talk up the project.
A healthy strong community is one of the factors NFT buyers have when investing in to an NFT collection.
If the community is poor and small, it’s often a red flag.
As a strong community is one reasons NFT buyers mint in the sales, it’s vital the NFT project encourage and incentivize this engagement.
This incentivizing is often by NFT whitelist places.
Those users who spend the most amount of time in the community, provide a positive experience for others, newbies and potential investors are often rewarded.
Again, take a look at the relevant section in the NFT projects Discord channel to see whether community engagement is one way of earning a whitelist place.
If it isn’t there may be better ways to invest your time.
In Conclusion – Get on to NFT Whitelists
An NFT whitelist place may be the only opportunity to mint an NFT in an extremely popular collection.
Those projects with experienced founders, good utility, a unique USP and inspiring roadmaps are few and far between.
These types of NFT projects now are the ones capturing all the interest.
If 10,000 NFTs are available in the collection and 100,000 NFT collectors are looking to buy, there is only a 10% chance of minting.
Get on to the whitelist for such a project and the odds of minting are often at 100%.
The main four ways of getting on to the whitelist for an NFT project are:
- Enter Twitter competitions
- Enter Discord competitions
- Refer friends to the NFT project and become verified on Discord
- Play and active and positive part of the community
There may be other opportunities depending on the project, but these are almost always the main methods.
Perseverance and time spent are almost certainly required.
Whitelist places are rarely given out free and easy.
Invest your own time to get involved in an NFT collection and not only will you learn everything you need to know as to whether to mint or not, and make friends and built up your own network, but also potentially get on to such an NFT whitelist!
