NBA Top Shot

djbayko

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
27,043
Los Angeles, CA
I mean, they claim its totally random, and I've seen people say on twitter they got great numbers after joining minutes before, but who knows I guess.

I joined about a half hour before the drop, pretty early, and got number 32963 out of 32775 packs available or whatever the number was, so I had to wait it out until the end to see if I'd get one, there were about 300 or so left when I got mine. And yeah, expecting the Rui to be pretty valuable since it's so limited and also part of the current challenge so people will be looking to buy those 9 right away. I'll probably sell it in a few days once the market price stabalizes and I see what it's actually worth and hold the others for now.
Your data point today doesn't help much because the opened the waiting room 30 minutes before. But the bolded is good info. Thanks for that. I'll keep plugging along.
 

scottyno

late Bloomer
SoSH Member
Dec 7, 2008
11,653
Your data point today doesn't help much because the opened the waiting room 30 minutes before. But the bolded is good info. Thanks for that. I'll keep plugging along.
Yeah, it had been open a bit when I joined, based on the twitch numbers I was probably something like 40kth to join. 2 other friends joined about same time as me and were about 38000 and 69000.
 

djbayko

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
27,043
Los Angeles, CA
I managed to create an account between the outages last night, and then grabbed a single moment as required earlier today. So I believe I'm all set to try and jump in line for the drop today.

Any tips on how best to get through? Should I go with an ethernet connection to maximize speed? Hop on the site right at 4:50 ET and just hit refresh until I'm in? Do they ever open it up earlier than the "ten minutes prior" to the official drop time?
What are you referring to here? I've done nothing like this and have qualified for buying packs just fine.
 

kevmyster

No Dice
SoSH Member
Dec 20, 2006
587
What are you referring to here? I've done nothing like this and have qualified for buying packs just fine.
It was listed in the terms for today's drop. Or it was for me, anyway. I messed with trying to buy the cheapest moments all day and kept having the transaction fail. I simultaneously think this is the stupidest thing ever and also that I can't get enough.
 

scottyno

late Bloomer
SoSH Member
Dec 7, 2008
11,653
What are you referring to here? I've done nothing like this and have qualified for buying packs just fine.
This was the first time they did it. You needed to own at least 1 moment to be able to get in the drop today, presumably to reward people that had been on the site at least a little while and to make it a bit harder for people to spam bot accounts
 

TheBenzingerGame

I.C.U.P.
SoSH Member
Apr 26, 2006
3,656
Washington, DC
How'd you do?
Got one! There were around 2,000 left when my turn popped up.

I pulled Theo Maledon as the rare Rising Star, and I have no idea what it’ll be worth. Also got a LE Giannis with a serial number around #500, which looks like it *could* be worth four figures. Also got a Donovan Mitchell, a Halliburton, and a Porzingis.

If Maledon is worth anything like other rares I see on the market, I feel like the pack could net me $1,500 or so. Maybe more? I don’t know... It’ll be fun to watch the market over the next few days.
 

Oil Can Dan

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2003
8,383
0-3 to 4-3
So does this work something like this:

1. Open an account
2. Hope to be allowed to buy a 'pack', which is compromised of video highlights that have been put together by the NBA specially for this
3. Get said pack, and then you sell the individual items that were in it for a profit on the open market - and all of that happens inside this little fenced-in environment
4. Withdraw your cash or keep buying stuff
 

djbayko

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
27,043
Los Angeles, CA
It was listed in the terms for today's drop. Or it was for me, anyway. I messed with trying to buy the cheapest moments all day and kept having the transaction fail. I simultaneously think this is the stupidest thing ever and also that I can't get enough.
This was the first time they did it. You needed to own at least 1 moment to be able to get in the drop today, presumably to reward people that had been on the site at least a little while and to make it a bit harder for people to spam bot accounts
Oh, you know what? I have bought two packs, so I guess I already qualified. My girlfriend just signed up today, so I'm guessing she might have to buy something if the next drop is a premium pack.
 

djbayko

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
27,043
Los Angeles, CA
I don’t want them either, but what’s really the material difference than having a baseball card that everyone has seen as well?
In this particular case I don’t like Too Shots because, while there is a defined, finite supply for each moment there isn’t anything necessarily finite about the moments themselves. If they had come out and picked only five moments per player per year that would make more sense to me.
Yeah, I don't see how this bubble doesn't eventually burst for this reason. Okay, so each moment is limited to 2k, 10k, 50k whatever. Great. But it's an endless production line. And why not? They just made $6M today selling fucking copies of GIFs.
 

scottyno

late Bloomer
SoSH Member
Dec 7, 2008
11,653
Top shot marketplace finally back up, but with limited abilities to buy and sell, can only post or buy 1 every 2 hours. Cheapest rising star right now is about 450, but would expect those to fluctuate quite a bit once the people who just wanted to sell immediately sell theirs
 

djbayko

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
27,043
Los Angeles, CA
The Series 2, R 21 common packs mentioned at the start of this thread are finally coming in. Did anyone get anything good?

I got a Durant but no limited run cards. Should be a fairly good profit at least.

39475
 

scottyno

late Bloomer
SoSH Member
Dec 7, 2008
11,653
I got 3 I'm pretty sure garbage cards, Beasley, Zeller, and Harrell. One friend I swapped with got a Giannis and a Bam, which is one of the new challenge cards, other friend got a 13000s Lebron, so whatever, it was $9 and I'll make a decent profit off them
 
Last edited:

djbayko

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
27,043
Los Angeles, CA
I got 3 I'm pretty sure garbage cards, Beasley, Zeller, and Harrell. One friend I swapped with got a Giannis and a Bam, which is one of the new challenge cards, other friend got a 13000s Lebron, so whatever, it was $9 and I'll make a decent profit off them
What do you mean when you say you swapped with your friend?
 

scottyno

late Bloomer
SoSH Member
Dec 7, 2008
11,653
What do you mean when you say you swapped with your friend?
We just agreed upfront, 24 hours after the market opens, whatever the price value is of our packs whoever has the better pack owes 10% cash on the difference. So like if my pack is $25 market value and each of my friends packs is $100 they each owe me 7.50.

So essentially I have 80% of my packs value and 10% each of 2 friends, just a way to increase the chances of an individual making money especially in this drop since you weren't guarnateed to get a great pack.

It didn't matter much in this one because everyone was guaranteed a pack, it makes sense in the limited drops because you're double or tripling your chances of getting pack equity, or of hitting a really rare one even if you both get a pack. So I lost 20% equity in the rising stars pack because I was the only one of my 3 friends to get a pack, but I gained equity in the seeing stars and I'll gain equity in this one so it evens out somewhat.

What makes some sense is if you had 10-20 people with accounts and everyone just agreed ok we're going to pool all our money and split everything equally, but then you get into situations where someone might want to sell and someone else might want to hold, the way we do it the person that gets the pack just buys out the value of the other people and then they can do what they want.
 

djbayko

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
27,043
Los Angeles, CA
We just agreed upfront, 24 hours after the market opens, whatever the price value is of our packs whoever has the better pack owes 10% cash on the difference. So like if my pack is $25 market value and each of my friends packs is $100 they each owe me 7.50.

So essentially I have 80% of my packs value and 10% each of 2 friends, just a way to increase the chances of an individual making money especially in this drop since you weren't guarnateed to get a great pack.

It didn't matter much in this one because everyone was guaranteed a pack, it makes sense in the limited drops because you're double or tripling your chances of getting pack equity, or of hitting a really rare one even if you both get a pack. So I lost 20% equity in the rising stars pack because I was the only one of my 3 friends to get a pack, but I gained equity in the seeing stars and I'll gain equity in this one so it evens out somewhat.

What makes some sense is if you had 10-20 people with accounts and everyone just agreed ok we're going to pool all our money and split everything equally, but then you get into situations where someone might want to sell and someone else might want to hold, the way we do it the person that gets the pack just buys out the value of the other people and then they can do what they want.
Oh cool. I see. It does matter a little bit even with this common drop because it helps with the variance, which is kind of important since it's not like we're able to buy tons of packs. You had a shit pack but are getting a bump. I would do that.
 

scottyno

late Bloomer
SoSH Member
Dec 7, 2008
11,653
Oh cool. I see. It does matter a little bit even with this common drop because it helps with the variance, which is kind of important since it's not like we're able to buy tons of packs. You had a shit pack but are getting a bump. I would do that.
Yeah, same equity but decreases variance. I don't mind that I gave up 20% of my $200 pack because I still did really well and it evens out in the other drops.
 

TheBenzingerGame

I.C.U.P.
SoSH Member
Apr 26, 2006
3,656
Washington, DC
Yeah, same equity but decreases variance. I don't mind that I gave up 20% of my $200 pack because I still did really well and it evens out in the other drops.
Did you already sell off your Rising Stars pack? I’ve been holding mine to see if the Maledon winds up being part of a coming challenge. Looks like his value has settled into the mid $500s, which would still put me ahead...but I get the sense that value could triple if and when the relevant challenge is announced.
 

scottyno

late Bloomer
SoSH Member
Dec 7, 2008
11,653
Did you already sell off your Rising Stars pack? I’ve been holding mine to see if the Maledon winds up being part of a coming challenge. Looks like his value has settled into the mid $500s, which would still put me ahead...but I get the sense that value could triple if and when the relevant challenge is announced.
I sold my rising star, not the other 6 cards yet yeah, but I had a Rui which was part of the current challenge. I got 800, which I'm pretty happy with, it peaked at about 850 before it started dropping back down.

I don't know about tripling, but yeah I'd probably be inclined to wait on selling that until the challenge unless you want the money to go after something else.
 

Red Averages

owes you $50
SoSH Member
Apr 20, 2003
9,623
I bought a few grand worth. I’ll wait until it his a few of the real exchanges then dump it.
Sorry if I missed it, what is the fundamental link between the coins value and the transactions on the Veve marketplace? What makes the coin appreciate, is it demand because it is used in transactions?
 

AlNipper49

Huge Member
Dope
SoSH Member
Apr 3, 2001
45,718
Mtigawi
Yup. With Top Shots and WAXP, WAXP gets 5% transaction fee on purchases. It's not clear on how ECOMI will do it, it's a pretty risky lottery ticket at the moment. WAXP has a much better track record beyond just Top Shots.
 

djbayko

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
27,043
Los Angeles, CA
Flash drop of only 5,000 Base Set, Series 2 packs today so they could do stress testing. They only gave a few minutes notice for the waiting room. Me and my gf both got in for a pack each. Finally something I can write home about. DeRozan, Bam Adebayo, Ja Morant, and ZION! I got about $500 worth of cards for 20 bucks.
 

Batman Likes The Sox

Not postscient
Gold Supporter
SoSH Member
Dec 28, 2003
2,636
Madison, CT
Great pulls!

Are you talking about the drop that was around 8:30 pm ET yesterday? Or a different one.

The flash drop I'm referencing had 25,000 packs and still 150,000 people waiting according to the chat. I was number 65,000 or so and had no shot (via the random assignment process - I was there ahead of time as well). I just happened to be at my computer when the notification came up, but still no luck.
 

djbayko

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
27,043
Los Angeles, CA
Great pulls!

Are you talking about the drop that was around 8:30 pm ET yesterday? Or a different one.

The flash drop I'm referencing had 25,000 packs and still 150,000 people waiting according to the chat. I was number 65,000 or so and had no shot (via the random assignment process - I was there ahead of time as well). I just happened to be at my computer when the notification came up, but still no luck.
The one I'm referring to was at 4pm Pacific / 7pm Eastern. I totally missed the one at 8:30pm. That sucks, but I think my chances were a lot better at 4pm because they gave almost no warning.

I'm going to have to play around with the Discord app so I get notifications to my phone when I'm away from my desktop.
 
Last edited:

riboflav

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 20, 2006
11,226
NOVA
There's a drop at 3pm later today. 6 common moments, 1 rare. Price, $229.

I've signed up but never tried for anything yet. Is $229 steep for one rare moment, or it simply depends on the moment? Probably a dumb question.
 

nattysez

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 30, 2010
9,391
There's a drop at 3pm later today. 6 common moments, 1 rare. Price, $229.

I've signed up but never tried for anything yet. Is $229 steep for one rare moment, or it simply depends on the moment? Probably a dumb question.
Here's a good comparison -- the Rising Stars packs, which sold for $199, also each contained one Moment limited to 2021 in circulation in addition to a few common Moments. The lowest-selling card in that pack right now is going for $415. Unopened Rising Stars packs have been selling for around $1000 on eBay.

I will definitely try to get one of those All-Star packs tomorrow. But I've managed to get a pack from three drops in a row, so I am not expecting my luck to hold out.

By the way, you need to have three Moments in your account in order to get the All-Star pack.

The one I'm referring to was at 4pm Pacific / 7pm Eastern. I totally missed the one at 8:30pm. That sucks, but I think my chances were a lot better at 4pm because they gave almost no warning.

I'm going to have to play around with the Discord app so I get notifications to my phone when I'm away from my desktop.
From reading the Discord and Top Shots blog, they do "stress test" drops in order to test their systems (as the name suggests). I wouldn't be surprised if there is a "stress test" tomorrow morning before the All-Star drop. The stress tests are announced with minutes to spare and are small -- 5,000 packs or so. That first drop yesterday was a stress test, followed by a "normal" drop.
 
Last edited:

riboflav

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 20, 2006
11,226
NOVA
Here's a good comparison -- the Rising Stars packs, which sold for $199, also each contained one Moment limited to 2021 in circulation in addition to a few common Moments. The lowest-selling card in that pack right now is going for $415. Unopened Rising Stars packs have been selling for around $1000 on eBay.

I will definitely try to get one of those All-Star packs tomorrow. But I've managed to get a pack from three drops in a row, so I am not expecting my luck to hold out.

By the way, you need to have three Moments in your account in order to get the All-Star pack.



From reading the Discord and Top Shots blog, they do "stress test" drops in order to test their systems (as the name suggests). I wouldn't be surprised if there is a "stress test" tomorrow morning before the All-Star drop. The stress tests are announced with minutes to spare and are small -- 5,000 packs or so. That first drop yesterday was a stress test, followed by a "normal" drop.
Thank you. That is helpful. Poking around most of tonight, I realized there's still a lot for me to learn.
 

riboflav

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 20, 2006
11,226
NOVA
I have some experience playing other markets but I'm trying hard to understand how this market operates... though admittedly I just dove into it a few hours ago. How does a moment like a Larry Nance JR dunk from 1/22/21... Base set, series 2, cc (35,000 will end up in circulation), with a relatively high serial number go for $4000 just a week ago but I can get one now with a similar serial number for $8? And that $4000 price tag outpaces any other sale by more than $2500.
 
Last edited:

CoffeeNerdness

Member
SoSH Member
Jun 6, 2012
9,725
Money laundering perhaps, otherwise the pricing just makes no sense. So many of these moments should really be priced at a buck or two, not $1700 for an eight-year-old Kelly Olynyk lay-up.

What's the best way to get alerts for drops?
 

riboflav

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 20, 2006
11,226
NOVA
Money laundering perhaps, otherwise the pricing just makes no sense. So many of these moments should really be priced at a buck or two, not $1700 for an eight-year-old Kelly Olynyk lay-up.

What's the best way to get alerts for drops?
That Nance moment has jumped from $8 to $19 with very heavy volume in the last 7 hours. I'm guessing this is because of the 3-moment requirement in order to be eligible for today's drop. People like me are scooping up the cheapest moments.

I follow nbatopshotnews1 and academyshot on Twitter.
 

nattysez

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 30, 2010
9,391
Money laundering perhaps, otherwise the pricing just makes no sense. So many of these moments should really be priced at a buck or two, not $1700 for an eight-year-old Kelly Olynyk lay-up.

What's the best way to get alerts for drops?
There was a lot of irrational exuberance a few weeks ago that has dissipated now. Also, as more people are engaged in the site, there are more people willing to sell moments for lower prices just to cash out. TopShot would be wise to get an auction system going, but that would presumably require a fair amount of infrastructure work.

I agree that there's possibly some money laundering happening, too. You can find some very suspect transactions if you sift through the history of various moments on evaluate.market.

The announcements channel on the TopShot Discord is good for drops announcements, especially if you can figure out how to get alerted every time they post in that channel (I have not).

That Nance moment has jumped from $8 to $19 with very heavy volume in the last 7 hours. I'm guessing this is because of the 3-moment requirement in order to be eligible for today's drop. People like me are scooping up the cheapest moments.
100%. I had a Zubac moment sell for $15 early this morning that I think was going for around $10 yesterday morning and has been selling for $19-20 today.
 

ElcaballitoMVP

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 19, 2008
4,075
How am I supposed to buy a pack when they drop if I don't have any moments? All Star pack is dropping today, I'm just getting into this, and I'm not eligible. Do I have to buy moments ($15 for an Eric Gordon layup! What a deal!)? Are there packs that drop that you can get if don't have to have any moments?
 

nattysez

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 30, 2010
9,391
How am I supposed to buy a pack when they drop if I don't have any moments? All Star pack is dropping today, I'm just getting into this, and I'm not eligible. Do I have to buy moments ($15 for an Eric Gordon layup! What a deal!)? Are there packs that drop that you can get if don't have to have any moments?
I think this is the first pack drop that required you to already own multiple moments. There are pack drops of common cards that don't have any restrictions (other than having to get to the front of the queue before they run out). Those have been happening a couple of times a week, I think.

FWIW, I would not buy new moments to qualify for this pack drop. A ton of people are going to try to get this drop, so there's a good shot you'll spend $ on cheap moments you don't want and then wind up not getting the pack because you get a bad spot in the queue.
 

ElcaballitoMVP

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 19, 2008
4,075
I think this is the first pack drop that required you to already own multiple moments. There are pack drops of common cards that don't have any restrictions (other than having to get to the front of the queue before they run out). Those have been happening a couple of times a week, I think.

FWIW, I would not buy new moments to qualify for this pack drop. A ton of people are going to try to get this drop, so there's a good shot you'll spend $ on cheap moments you don't want and then wind up not getting the pack because you get a bad spot in the queue.
Cool, thanks for the info. I wasn't really considering buying moments for this drop, I was just curious if that was the only way to qualify for it. I'll wait to get lucky for drops that don't have any restrictions.
 

changer591

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 19, 2005
1,182
Shrewsbury, MA
Too late! I ended up spending about $60 or so just to get some really cheap moments. Now it's time to wait for the drop and see how it goes.
 

Batman Likes The Sox

Not postscient
Gold Supporter
SoSH Member
Dec 28, 2003
2,636
Madison, CT
The announcements channel on the TopShot Discord is good for drops announcements, especially if you can figure out how to get alerted every time they post in that channel (I have not).
I signed up for discord notifications yesterday on my phone and it's been working. Here's what I did (this is all on my phone, iOS):

1.Found one of the several places on the top shot website where it links to sign up for their official discord channel
2.Set up a discord account
3.Then once I was signed up the top shot discord was in my list of "servers" or whatever they call it - basically I had joined the NBA top shot discord group
4.Then I found the subgroup "announcements"
5.Then up at the top of the announcements subgroup for NBA top shot (like when you're in that subgroup already and seeing the long list of the announcements) click on the title of the group "announcements" up at the top center
6.Click on notifications, and then "notification settings"
7.Make sure it's set so that "all messages" is checked
8.You also have to make sure that in settings on your phone that the notifications are set the way you want (badges, sounds, banners, or whatever you want for notification)

That's gotten me all the notifications from discord faster than via email since last night, including the one that said that today's drop is pushed by two hours.
 

nattysez

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 30, 2010
9,391
The struggle is real -- the TopShot site doesn't seem to be letting anyone get into the waiting room for the drop even after delaying it for 2 hours to prepare. Yikes.

Edit: Aaaand the drop's been delayed again.
 

scottyno

late Bloomer
SoSH Member
Dec 7, 2008
11,653
Cool, thanks for the info. I wasn't really considering buying moments for this drop, I was just curious if that was the only way to qualify for it. I'll wait to get lucky for drops that don't have any restrictions.
If you've already gone through the process of making an account and want to get into it then I definitely think it's +ev to buy moments to qualify for the big drops. You're spending $25-$30 for something that you can easily resell at a small loss in order to get a chance to buy a pack that's pretty much guaranteed $300-$400 profit minimum with way bigger upside

edit: was 25-30, now it's more like 50-60 because everyone is buying up the cheapest moments and driving up what were $6 moments yesterday to more like $20 today. So anyone that has any base common moments of crappy players and doesn't need them to have 3+ moments now is probably a great time to sell since the market for those will likely tank after the next drop and you can just buy them back for cheaper
 
Last edited:

bbc23

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 6, 2009
1,021
I got you both beat at 222,000. I wonder how many of these are real accounts, I figured demand would be lower due to the cost but maybe it skyrocketed because of the limited nature of the all star highlights?
 

djbayko

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
27,043
Los Angeles, CA
I got you both beat at 222,000. I wonder how many of these are real accounts, I figured demand would be lower due to the cost but maybe it skyrocketed because of the limited nature of the all star highlights?
Higher cost = lower print run = higher resale value

The word is out on this stuff. There won’t be lower demand unless/until the market dies down.

Looks like I will be getting a pack (13,123).