Have you seen the term “wen reveal?” before? If you have, chances are that the person who said it was an NFT trader. 

Rarity is one of the most sought-after factors when it comes to buying NFTs – the rarer a token, the more valuable it can be. As such, NFT traders are always anxious about a project’s reveal, as this gives them a better understanding of the true value of the assets they minted at the pre-reveal. 

Here, we discuss the concept of NFT reveals, pre-reveals, and whitelisting. 

What Does ‘Reveal’ Mean In Crypto?

No, the term “reveal” doesn’t describe the act of uncovering the real identity of a crypto trader or NFT creator. That’s what is called “doxxing”. 

Most recently, the identities of Bored Ape Yacht Club founders “Gordon Goner” or Greg Solano and “Gargamel” or Wylie Aronow were revealed in a BuzzFeed article to much controversy. Pseudonyms are big in the crypto space – in fact, the people who created Bitcoin are merely credited as Satoshi Nakamoto, a non-existent person – and so you may have seen the word “reveal” floating around in the crypto sphere in that context recently.

In actuality, the term “reveal” describes something a little simpler: the moment an NFT collection is made viewable to the general public. These days, the reveal can happen days or even weeks after tokens are minted – this means that buyers can’t actually check a token’s rarity until reveal day. 

The “delayed reveal” system turns NFTs into a game of gacha or a lottery system, where you pay for a chance at getting a rare item but the acquisition of rarity is not ensured.

Are Delayed Reveals Bad?

For some crypto traders, the delayed reveal system is a point of frustration, as it makes it much more difficult for buyers to strategically plan how to handle their tokens; that is, whether or not to hold their assets and flip them later on or sell them right away before demand potentially wanes. 

Some crypto traders have tried to game the system by “sniping” or checking a project’s metadata stored on an Inter Planetary File System (IPFS). By accessing this data, snipers can pick out which tokens have rarer traits and figure out which NFTs to mint – even without ever seeing the image. 

Some companies have figured out a workaround to this, allowing NFT creators to add a pre-reveal placeholder on their platforms to protect a project’s metadata. 

Another concern about delayed reveals is how the practice weaponizes FOMO or the Fear of Missing Out. FOMO is when newbies rush to buy assets without doing their due diligence because they see a lot of hype surrounding a project. 

Delayed reveals also deter some people from investing in a collection simply because they want to control how their avatar looks. When people don’t get the avatar they want, they can end up dumping their tokens on OpenSea for below-market rates – bad news for both buyers and creators. 

How To Get Whitelisted For Presales

Whether or not you agree with the delayed reveal system, it’s currently here to stay. One way to potentially up your chances of getting better tokens is by getting whitelisted for presales. This means getting early access to minting hours or days before a collection goes public. 

Early mint prices are often lower than public selling prices. There is less competition during a presale as well, meaning that gas prices won’t be shooting up too.

However, getting on a whitelist can take a lot of work. Most projects reward whitelist spots to buyers who are active members of the community and often hype up a new release on social media. 

The Bottom Line

The reveal is the most exciting part of a new NFT project. And with pre-reveals becoming more commonplace, the reveal has also become one of the most anxiety-inducing phases. 

If you want to start your own NFT collection, Tokenfy can help. Check out our site today and learn how our NFT launchpad can help you kickstart your own NFT project today!