Rating: Hold
Investigating new drops is a process.
From the start, Illuminated Beings looked like a solid addition to the ThetaDrop lineup. The front image pops nicely from the website with it’s glowing Theta logo – a trope that is admittedly bordering on becoming cliché for TDrop – but artful enough to garner excitement.
In the coming days, we found out the number of editions and rarity grade for each of the eight NFT’s.
What jumped from the screen was the high probability of pulling a common NFT. Each pack had a 50% chance of delivering the most common NFT edition. Scaling up slightly, you have a 75% chance of pulling the two most common cards.
The rational Degens we are, this seemed decidedly poor expected value (EV).
Using average sales figures from four days into the drop, the calculations came out surprisingly even.
The EV on these packs remains slightly above mint price – at $59.80 – but below current secondary market asking price of $95.
The reviews here aren’t always so quantitatively-driven. But when the breakdowns are as straightforward as in this case, it’s difficult to ignore.
Jason D. Page – the artist behind Illuminated Beings – is a self-professed Thetan. He’s invested and passionate about Theta Labs.
His artistic process is free from Photoshop. All the images are created in one-take using a single long exposure on the camera. What you see is what the camera captured in the moment. No post editing was involved.
Jason has also unfurled an interesting experiment with “golden tickets” that are attached to some of the NFT’s – that provides one physical redemption of each of the eight works.
Each redeemable will come with one of eight portions of a Theta Wallet key that when combined would allow the unlocking of a treasure of 25,000 TFUEL. We are interested in how this sociological experiment plays out.
Does one person grab all eight editions? Will the redeemers work together and split the bounty amongst themselves? Donate to a great cause? Reinvest in the project? Not sure, but it’ll take time to play out.
In the short-term, Jason has hinted strongly at future “Challenges” coming soon for collectors. Challenges have become the massive X-factor in the value of all NFT’s. Some projects embrace the Challenges, others seemingly can’t be bothered or are delaying this aspect. We’d expect to see early investors rewarded nicely for collecting the majority of Jason’s NFT’s.
Is there value here? Yes. And the Challenges will prime the market and the rewards will likely be worth the entry price.
Would we have liked to see a more diverse set of images from the packs? Yes. They tend to be somewhat vanilla outside the super-rare Theta logo #1 edition.
But these more rarefied pieces have likely been saved for the Challenge rewards. So, if you dig the art — pony up and start collecting.
Illuminated Beings challenges could come-through in a big way — and this collection may evolve into something much more sought-after than what first meets the eye.
Illuminated Beings
| Editions | 2040 |
| Type | Varying rarity |
| Drop Date | 5/22 |
| Mint Price | $50 |