What Are NFT Whitelists And How To Get On One?

Getting your hand on NFTs from the very start when they are minted is a great way to ensure the maximization of your potential benefits.

Naturally, every trader wishes to buy low and sell high. Popular NFTs are often at their lowest price just after the initial launch. However, only a selected few will have the opportunity to get an NFT at the mint price.

Those selected few are often projects’ early supporters who have secured a spot on the whitelist. Keep reading this article to understand how NFT whitelists work, what benefits they hold, and how you can become part of projects’ whitelists.

What is NFT Whitelist And Why Is It Important?

An NFT whitelist is a pre-approved list of people (or, more precisely, their crypto wallet addresses) who are guaranteed the purchase of an NFT at a mint price.

Finding an NFT project early and getting yourself a whitelist spot helps you avoid the extreme secondary prices and high transaction fees for popular NFTs.

Some of the main reasons why whitelists have become so popular both among projects and users:

Rewarding Early Supporters

As discussed, the whitelist provides an opportunity for selected community members to get early access to the upcoming NFT release.

Entry requirements to secure a whitelist spot are usually either being an early group member or performing some simple tasks such as engaging on projects’ social media, etc.

Boosting Projects’ Potential

NFT whitelists pave the way for the number of unique holders of the NFT project to be higher by offering a low price to enter. By doing so, the project will be much more balanced and healthier, thus having a higher chance of success.

Avoiding Gas Wars

Gas fees are crypto users’ worst enemy, especially when getting caught up in gas wars - a situation where many traders compete to be the first to get their transaction approved.

When a new and popular project used to mint, the high network traffic triggered a surge of gas fees, and only a handful of people could afford them and have a chance of a successful transaction.

By introducing a whitelist and providing early access, it’s possible to avoid that. Without fighting for a spot among thousands of other users, whitelisted people can complete the mint with reasonable gas fees.

Preventing Whale Activity

At times, NFT projects fall victim to whale activity. For example, a whale could purchase a lot of NFTs and therefore have too much power over the whole project. Other times, whales purchase a huge number of NFTs at the mint price just to dump them on secondary marketplaces.

By having a whitelist, you have the ability to be in control of how your mint process is going to run. For instance, you can limit the number of NFTs one crypto wallet is able to purchase at the mint price.

Whitelist Process Explained

Getting whitelisted consists of the following steps:

• To provide early access to newly minted NFTs for whitelist spot holders, users’ digital wallet addresses are gathered. The blockchain the NFT exists on will determine which wallet address should be given for the whitelist.
• Before being guaranteed a place on the whitelist, users need their wallet addresses to be approved by the project. This process usually eliminates whales and spam accounts.
• Getting approved and whitelisted for the launch of an NFT project means that your provided cryptocurrency wallet address is added to a list with special minting privileges.
• The date and time for minting a new token is assigned by the project. Often whitelisted users are given a few days for the mint, but this varies from project to project.
• At the announced time, whitelisters can log into their accounts and mint the NFTs.

How To Get An NFT Whitelist Spot

While now you know what the Whitelisting process looks like, the important question of how to actually get a whitelist spot for projects remains. Let's take a look at which steps to take to be considered for whitelists.

Discover good pre-launch projects

Getting on a project’s whitelist requires showing your interest in the project well before its’ launch. As pre-launch projects are not talked about as much as the ones that are already on the market, you need to put a little more effort into finding the projects of your interest.

Follow NFT influencers and experts on Twitter and subscribe to YouTube channels with a strong NFT focus. This helps you stay in the loop of what’s happening in the NFT sphere in general and make more well-informed decisions.

Join the project’s Discord channel

Discord social platform is used by most NFT projects as a gathering place for their community. Discord servers are the place to find announcements and updates about a specific NFT project and interact with the project founders and developers as well as with other community members.

So once you have found a project you are interested in, join their Discord channel. Usually, you will find the link to the server on the project’s Twitter page or website.

Discord is also a great way to gather additional information before making a commitment to the project. But once you feel comfortable, you can ask to join the whitelist.

To find information about whitelist spots, check the “announcements”  section. If there’s no information regarding that, reach out to other group members and see if someone can guide you in the right direction.

Follow social media channels and be active

Following projects’ social media channels is definitely a good idea to gather more information about the upcoming NFT launch.

Most NFT projects are active on Twitter as it provides projects with an ideal platform to share announcements, use pinned tweets for the most important info, discuss the roadmap, and much more.

By following the NFT project Twitter as well as the founders' and designers' accounts, you can ensure you’re not missing out on crucial information to make the best decision on whether you want to be associated with the project or not.

Furthermore, Twitter enables you to actively participate in various discussions and share informative content as well as fan art. By actively engaging on social media, you show your support for the project and are one step closer to landing the spot on the project’s whitelist.

Meet the eligibility criteria

As mentioned above, for most NFT whitelists, participants must prove they meet certain eligibility requirements.

Each project has its own specific application process. The most common requirements for joining NFT whitelists are:

• Filling out an online form
• Inviting new users to the projects’ Discord server
• Sharing the word about the project on social media
• Participating in the project events and games

Once you have done what is necessary to apply for the spot on the NFT projects’ whitelist and your application is approved, you will be asked for your crypto wallet’s details. If your wallet address is verified, you have secured your place on the whitelist and will receive a time slot to mint your NFT.

To Sum Up

With the NFT market growing popularity, it’s harder than ever to get your hands on your desired NFTs at a reasonable price. But if you have found a great project, don’t hesitate to put in some work to get on their whitelist.

Joining an NFT whitelist provides traders the opportunity to have early access to the NFTs they are most interested in without having to pay huge amounts on secondary marketplaces and deal with gas wars.

So if you have found a project you are excited about, make an effort to show the creators your commitment to the project and be a step closer to being one of the people receiving the privilege of being one of the first to mint their NFTs.