Carlini's Market Guide

One of the top collectors in CryptoKitties recently gave a new player some market advice in Discord. Since this advice would be valuable to any new player, I have captured it below.

June 3, 2019:

BancoDeCrypto777:

Would ya say I'm too late to the party if I don't own a kitty yet?

Carlini8:

@BancoDeCrypto777 as others have suggested, it really depends on budget.

It also depends on what your purpose is for buying - the way you ask, makes it feel like it is for profit instead of collecting

For profit, in reality no one can tell you a fool proof method. If I knew something was going to make me a profit, I would buy it, I wouldn't tell you so you can make a profit. What I can do is tell you what I think will make a profit. This is then a bit of an odd situation because it will be stuff I am heavily invested in - I think X will make a profit, so I buy X, you come in asking what is good to buy, I tell you X because I think that is the truth right? Now you have to multiply this by everyone in the chat all doing their own thing thinking different things will be profitable.

The Classics:

Gen:0

The original hype buy. Limited to 10,000? 15,000? Somewhere around that people originally piled into these guys because they were the only real limited cats in the game. There can never be more than the number of gen:0s already made, there are promos ones but technically they already exist, just hidden. Personally I just think there are too many of these. If we get enough players that gen:0s are hard to get a hold of I feel that other things would have risen more. If you are going to be a breeder though, gen:0s are pretty much a requirement. Current Floor: 0.15 (Fast floor, 0.2038) I have somewhere around 100 of these, if I was investing more eth, this isn't where I would put it.

Founder:

A founder is one of the first 100 kittens in the game. ID 1 through 100. Technically #1 is genesis but it also counts as a founder. The floor is currently 25 ETH but a few have been listed for below that of late and not selling then getting delisted. If you really wanted one of these I think it would be worth sending a few PMs to get a better price. I would probably buy one around 15 ETH at this point if it were virgin. They are the high end pick, the start of the game and if things go the way I think they will, in the end a highly regarded collectors piece. It will take time, these are not a quick flip item, but for a few years down the line. If you want to double your ETH by the end of the year, this probably isn't for you. Personally I wouldn't pick up a bred one, I feel the virginity is important for long term value for these guys. Current Floor: 25 ETH Can probably negotiate down to 15 or so (editor's note: this pricing is as of June 3, 2019, as the market changes, so will the prices on Founders).

Fancies:

The second large area in the game after Gen:0s. Fancies were in the game from pretty much the start with Shipcat, DuCat and Dracula. The important thing here (IMO) is that they are numbered. Most collectibles (or at least that I look at) in a similar kind of vague area are not numbered. When you think Beanie Babies, Pokemon Cards etc. There is no #1 Charizard. Which I think would add a lot of value to certain cards if that were to be the case. Here, everything is numbered. Originally fancies were not limited but a change to the game about 3 months in capped fancies to different values. For example there are only ever going to be 73 Schrodinger's Cat but there will be 50,000 Page. So there is a range on all of these fancies. There are a few distinctions you can make, their number, their cap and the year they were bred are the big 3 IMO. I believe the biggest will be the cap - because of Schros 73 cap there can only ever be 73 full sets ever. A bit like founders, I think a full set of year one fancies will be a bit of a status symbol as in 2 years time it will be pretty hard to pick up. https://kittyhelper.co/price-floor/fancy/ This is a website that can help when taking a look. I would ignore the "?"s at the moment as they are cap limits which are not yet set as they are on a timer but here are the key fancies.

I am heavily invested in fancies, probably more than any other area. This is where I believe the long term value is, people may disagree, but I am at least putting my money where my beliefs are. I have focused on aquiring numerous low capped fancies such as the ones in the screenshots above and low numbered fancies. This is my account: https://www.cryptokitties.co/profile/0x29d5168059a47cb19767394e522fea39568ee212/special-cats?codexFilter=fancy With 20 of the first fancies ever bred out of a total of 60 something, 5 ahead of my competition I believe I have the best fancy collection going here. (I also have 20 #2s ahead by 6, 17 #3s ahead by 9). As you can see my view may be pretty bias given I have really gone for this narrative but like I said at the start, people will believe in what they buy, I wouldn't trust someone advising you in something if they didn't have any themselves, if they think it will do so well why would they have it! Also there is the issue of hyping up what you have to then sell it on, so while I think low numbered fancies are the best investment going in this game, I put it later in this list because I know not everyone agrees.

• If buying low numbered fancies you can take a look at the floors here by ordering by "Price 1" https://kittyhelper.co/price-floor/fancy/?num=1-12. There are 3 fancies on "the first page" going for an eth.
• Here is year 1 fancies low caps. Personally I think the best buy going is that 3 ETH Dogcat. It is not mine and if I didn't already have so many, that is what I would buy if my budget was 3 ETH. https://kittyhelper.co/price-floor/fancy/?year=1

Gems:

Another big area is Gems. There are four types of gems, Diamonds, Gilded, Amethyst and Lapis. They are limited like the fancies and only lapis can be bred now I think, soon to be none ever. For example the first ever kitten with Gerbil has the gerbil diamond: https://www.cryptokitties.co/kitty/121497 Gen:1, bred by me, sadly sold by me too! 2 - 10 are gilded and 11 - 100 are Amethysts. 101 - 500, Lapis. There is a leaderboard for the lowest number collection which has a gem for every trait, that can be found here: https://kittyhelper.co/leaderboards/?lb=gems&best=ln I was working on improving this but there are so many traits, 245 that it got pretty tiring in the end! I believe diamonds will soar at some point given they are the first ever of a trait. You can see from my beliefs in fancies that a low number is important to my plan.

Misc:

The biggest key right now is the downswing IMO. ETH is rising, people want to ride the ETH wave and they would like to pull some ETH out of kitties. There are people here that have put well over 100 ETH into their kitty collection and if they sold at floor or even 50% of the floor price they would be in profit. This makes people want to cash out a bit which is driving prices down. This is good for buyers - what is also good is that most believe that believe in kitties long term has such a large position in kitties that it is hard to justify a bigger investment. For example the floor price for my collection is somewhere around 1000 ETH floor across my accounts. I could invest another 25 ETH into a founder, but if the floor across the board x4s that 25 ETH would go to 100 ETH, but my 1000 ETH would go to 4000 ETH so the 100 ETH is not really much in the grandscheme of things. So there are plenty of things I would buy right now if my position was small, but it isn't! My main advice, once you have chosen what you want to buy, is do deals. As I mentioned, most holders have a big stake in CK, they can afford to sell some kittens below floor to get some ETH out and still reap huge rewards when CK pumps. If you chose gen:0s, I think nostro and Pranked and currently selling quite a few, a PM here or there could see a bulk discount applied. Low number fancies, what I used to do is open up the ones I wanted in bulk, so say 20-30 at a time, go to the owners and PM them on discord or email them if they have an email listed. See what prices you can knock them down to. If you are unsure who is who, ask in discord. For example I am "Fancy Hold" which a lot of regulars know, but if you are just searching on the site, you would have no idea. If you manage to get a great deal by just putting the effort in then you might even be able to flip something quickly if someone likes the deal you have got although I would plan for this to be a longer investment.

Also, if you are into high end, I would keep an eye on this guy: https://www.cryptokitties.co/kitty/108 He may hit 10 ETH in 2 days which is the cheapest one would ever have sold for.

Thanks for all the valuable insight, Carlini!