Secondary Market Buying, Selling, and Trading General Advice
Greetings community. Hopefully this post serves as a bit of a PSA to the new members (and a reminder to some of you vets out there.) Reddit Avatars are a lot of fun, and mashing is excellent, but ultimately you are playing with something that holds an intrinsic value set by a shifting market. What does that mean? It means that what you paid 6 weeks ago doesn't mean squat. What people are willing to pay is the "value" of a RCA. I've been both blessed and burned from purchases in the past few years. I've bought some for $5 and sold them for 100's. I've also dropped $150 on an avatar that bottomed and was then worth $5. It's going to happen. Here are some things that I've found helpful:
This is not Pokémon and you should not try to catch them all. If you have that "completionism" mentality, find an artist and focus there. Or find your mash style and stick with ones that fit it. It's really easy to get caught up in the hype, and then overspend.
Market determines value - nothing else. Did you buy a Maple from wispyw1llow for $120? Guess what, it sold a week later for $53. So while you can list yours for $120 all day, chances are no one's going to pay you that. It's like eBay. Look at the sold listings and don't be afraid to make offers. RCAx.io is a great tool, don't look at the floor, look at the last five or so sold, average them out, and see how long ago those sales were.
Patience is a virtue. Again, it's easy to get swept up in the tornado when someone posts an epic mash and you just HAVE to have that one piece or if you missed on a drop and go running to OpenSea to snag one. So you spam every board, and overspend to get that one RCA. Then you realize a week later that had you waited, you could have spent 500% less then you did. THEN you get salty when you realize you don't love it as much as you did when you didn't have it, and get mad when someone offers you the actual market price for it. For example Seraphina was selling for over $100 at one point. Sales lately have been under $10. Don't be that person that paid $65 when everyone else spent $6. Market dictates pricing.
If it feels too good to be true, it probably is. General rule in life, especially as many of you are dabbling into crypto and NFT's for the first time. Don't click on links, make sure trades are public, protect ya' neck as the Wu would tell you.
Again, general advice, but something I feel a lot of people need to hear right now. Back to your regularly scheduled mashing!