One of the most crucial decisions for an NFT project founder is selecting the appropriate drop structure. It can not only make or break your launch financially, but it can also be a good sign of how prepared, skilled, and equipped your team is to deal with unforeseen circumstances. NFT drops aren’t flawless; let’s face it. A contract leak before the mint caused the first TimePieces to drop to fail 96% of the time. Adidas’ public drop for “Into the Metaverse” left minters with exorbitant gas costs and a bad taste in their mouth as bots swept up a substantial portion of the supply. Hacks, bots, and dishonest community members’ front-running trades hurt the CloneX Dutch auction too. 

9167 CloneX NFTs will be up for grabs during the Dutch auction which starts in less than 1 hour.

Opening price of 3 ETH, and every 30 minutes it will drop by 0.1ETH until it sells out or hits 1ETH.

Current floor: 3.6ETH

Any predictions at how low the Dutch auction will go?

— Crypto Gorilla (@CryptoGorillaYT) November 29, 2021

Sadly, there isn’t (and possibly never will be) a single approach that will make the entire community happy. Each method has its own set of advantages and drawbacks. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t aim for it. Therefore, we are introducing various NFT drop mechanisms, highlighting their benefits and drawbacks, and including the astute insights of subject-matter specialists passionate about the area.

Public Mint FCFS

How it Operates:

While the FCFS public mints are the easiest to use, they are also the most chaotic NFT drops. As the name implies, public minting sessions are scheduled at a certain time, and FCFS drops are open. Then comes the dog-eat-dog race to minting, where all eager collectors will attempt to mint simultaneously. While some projects set a cap on the number of NFTs a single wallet holder can buy to prevent flipping and guarantee a representative sample of unique users, others allow unlimited purchases. All FCFS mint rates are constant (often in the.08 ETH to.2 ETH range); however, because of the increased network congestion for highly anticipated mints, collectors typically pay much higher gas fees.

Cons & Pros:

Naturally, FOMO results from urgency and scarcity. FOMO also influences demand. Numerous carefully organized FCFS public mints might sell out rapidly, generating additional buzz around a project. If programmers can stop bots, FCFS mints also function as one of the more equitable modes of minting, giving everyone an equal chance to obtain an NFT.

Gas wars, or sharp increases in gas prices due to network congestion, are a major source of frustration for all eagerly awaited FCFS mints. Many other customers are left with unsuccessful transactions and missed fees since only the earliest buyers can successfully mint an NFT before the collection sells out. However, even while the urgency of FCFS public mints can be a great method to increase demand, it’s crucial to have your smart contracts foolproof from a gas efficiency and bot protection standpoint.

Doing It Right

It’s imperative to be ready for criticism from people who couldn’t mint, had to pay expensive gas rates, or lost gas fees in unsuccessful transactions. Sadly, these things must happen. Not to mention the several individuals attempting to employ bots to mass-mint collections only to flip the majority of NFTs shortly after.

Public Mint plus Whitelist

What It Does

The Whitelist and Public Mint combination, which employs a similar strategy as the FCFS mint, has emerged as the de facto norm for NFT drops. An exclusive list of users who have access to a project’s presale, which typically occurs between 24 and 72 hours before the public sale, is known as a whitelist (also known as an allowlist or a starlit).

So how can you get on the whitelist and avoid all the trouble? Start by participating actively in the project’s community. Most projects will give active Discord users whitelist slots before a presale and public mint based on engagement like chat frequency, spreading the word about the project, or doing a kind deed for someone in the community. To generate excitement for the launch, many projects will also host giveaways on their Discord servers or the servers of other projects.

Cons & Pros

Securing a whitelist slot has one significant advantage: There are no gas wars. Presale prices are often less high than public mint sale pricing. Whitelists also give community members who are genuinely committed to the project the option to protect their ability to work without concern.

But while the public mint portion is subject to the same bots and gas wars drawbacks, whitelists have their own set of dangers. Frequently, Discord community members will actively participate until they are added to the whitelist, following which they will disappear from the map and swiftly flip their NFT. Even while this is not at all prohibited, it is important to strive to recognize and honor those who appropriately interact with your community.

Doing It Right

The ultimate goal of a project founder is to create a community of NFT holders who see their tokens as important works of art and technology rather than as speculative investments that can be quickly sold. While flipping is not prohibited, striving to recognize and reward those participating in your community for the right reasons is important.

Free Mint

What it Does

Free-to-mint NFTs, as the name implies, are distributed to the general population at no cost outside petrol prices. Free mints have become a potent drop option for many project founders in the present weak market, where liquidity and money are scarce. Founders that choose free mints instead of upfront funding from the primary sale proceeds primarily generate income from secondary royalties on all collection sales.

The most well-known and notable free mint is probably Goblin-town, which opened the door for initiatives like Moonrunners and Saudis. Goblin-town, the once anonymous creation of Truth Labs, has one of the NFTs’ most devoted and devoted groups.

Cons & Pros

Projects must also be diligent and committed to providing genuine value to their holders. On the one hand, this is a good thing for the industry because it lowers the price, a major barrier to entry for the general public. From the perspective of the founder, trade volume (and founder income) will suffer if the project is a failure and does not move in the direction of its plan.

Separately, though, free mints can cause significant harm when used by dishonest people. Free mints have become more common, which has led to an increase in “free mint scams,” in which traders connect their wallets to flawed smart contracts that immediately empty users’ wallets upon transaction clearance. At the same time, they believe they are minting a free NFT. Brendan Mulligan, the founder of PREMINT, claims that this has become a problem for the sector.

Doing It Correctly

It should go without saying that most founders will offer free mints with good intentions but never defraud or trick your community.