Ex-TradFi guy VonMises has built up one of the best NFT collections on the planet by selling when he can, not when he has to.

When it comes to prolific NFT collectors, VonMises is in the upper echelon. His catchphrase “unquestionable provenance and provable scarcity” is the backbone of his conviction that NFTs are true game changers and haven’t even scratched the surface yet.

Coming from a traditional finance background with strong experience in an array of collectibles, VonMises’ name originates from Austrian-American economist Ludwig von Mises, who wrote extensively on the societal contributions of classical liberalism.

This concept of viewing the world resonates strongly with VonMises, the NFT collector, and was a big reason the American was lured into researching and ultimately buying Bitcoin back in 2011.

Having collected his first NFT, Gods Unchained, in October 2019, it wasn’t long after he stumbled upon CryptoPunks, an encounter that would ultimately change everything. He purchased 60 Punks in the first month after discovering them, including his first-ever,CryptoPunk #6039.

As his curiosity grew for NFTs, VonMises would not only catch Punks before they truly blew up, but he managed to mint 350 Chromie Squiggles and was early to many high-profile Art Blocks drops such as Fidenzas, Ringers and Gazers.

He also possessed five Autoglyphs at one point, with one of them (#392) selling for a whopping 375 ETH ($1.38 million) in October 2021. He currently has two Autoglyphs left.

Autoglyph #392 by Larva Labs — sold for 375 ETH ($1.38 million in October 2021).

“Gods Unchained got me interested in understanding the concept of NFTs and the trading aspect of it. As a card got into the meta of the game and became powerful, its price would change; it was almost like a baseball card where a rookie player starts doing really well. His card starts going up in value as people speculate on how he will do. Gods Unchained was just a training ground for when I discovered CryptoPunks. That’s when everything clicked, and things really changed,” VonMises says.

“When I looked at CryptoPunks for the first time, I completely knew that I was looking at something different, interesting and special in a lot of ways. I felt like my whole life had prepared me for that moment in the sense that here was something that was combining things that I was extremely passionate about.”

Having spent time in traditional finance, being very active in trading of all kinds of securities, having been involved in crypto since 2011 and having been collecting stuff my whole life, CryptoPunks really solidified all of those things into one, and I remember thinking, ‘Okay, this is for me.’”

The birth of his daughter and Punk collection

VonMises remembers the early days of getting involved with Punks vividly; he’d quit his job, COVID-19 had hit, and he and his wife had just had a baby. Despite his belief and aggressive action in scooping up a lot of Punks by anyone’s standards, VonMises compares his conviction to good friend Danny, aka “Seedphrase” — the owner of the only seven-trait CryptoPunk in the collection.

“I just had a baby, and I remember saying to my wife, ‘I know this might be a little bit crazy, but I’m starting to put some real money into this, and I want to make sure that I’m not being too reckless, given that I don’t have a job currently, and we just had a baby.’ I said, ‘I think this is one of the best collectibles I’ve ever seen.’”

“My wife said to me, ‘I don’t know enough about any of this stuff, but I know that you’ve been incredibly good at this stuff, and if this is what you think you should be buying, then you should be buying it.’ Hearing that from her was quite liberating, as you can imagine.”

“I was not able to be as aggressive as someone like Danny. Danny, at the time, was single with different responsibilities, and he’d also made a lot in crypto. He had a lot bigger balls. While I was very aggressive by almost anyone’s standards, I was not as aggressive as Danny was, unfortunately, but it was still a good trade.”

CryptoPunk #6039 by Larva Labs — owned by VonMises

VonMises’ legacy and mouth-watering collection

VonMises has quite the collection, a portfolio of mouth-watering pieces that would have any NFT enthusiast salivating. He still possesses 17 of his treasured CryptoPunks and 110 Chromie Squiggles and has exposure to artists such as XCOPY, Beeple, Tyler Hobbs and DEAFBEEF.

“I’m someone who strongly believes in the crypto ethos. I’m someone who is building a collection of historically significant and culturally relevant NFTs. I’m a blockchain historian in a sense. I’m mindful of my legacy in this space.”

His collection today also includes pieces from Gazers, Twin Flame, Bored Ape Yacht Club and more.

VonMises takes his collection very seriously and has intentions to continue to build out his legacy as a historic collector whose timing, conviction and passion for NFTs are researched and written about well into the future.

“I think about my daughter and how she is not going to view a CryptoPunk as a quote-unquote ‘digital asset’ or a digital piece of art. It’s just going to be art or an asset because she’s going to grow up in a world where there’s not going to need to be a differentiation,” VonMises says.

“I hope down the line that somebody who might be doing work or research on early blockchain assets comes across my collection and recognizes that I was all over the place, owned quite a bit of stuff and was in the right place at the right time. I hope I can leave a mark on the space like that.”

“I take the collection seriously and a lot of stuff I’ve been buying with the intention of probably never selling it. There’s obviously stuff that I buy to sell as well, but a lot of the collection is not meant to be sold and probably won’t be sold in my lifetime. It’s hard to predict the future, but my intention is to build a collection that hits on a lot of the major collections in this early period.”

Fidenza #917 by Tyler Hobbs — owned by VonMises.Fidenza #798 by Tyler Hobbs — owned by VonMises.Fidenza #198 by Tyler Hobbs — owned by VonMises.

Unquestionable provenance and provable scarcity — The NFT game changer

As a self-described blockchain historian, VonMises’ catchphrase “Unquestionable provenance and provable scarcity” articulates what he believes is a game-changing value proposition of NFTs.

Boasting a wealth of experience in the collectibles market, including baseball cards and coins, VonMises highlights how NFTs solve many of the issues physical art and collectibles face, such as durability, fakes and forgeries, and reliance on experts that are often tricked.

“Having been involved in baseball cards and coins and a lot of other collectibles that are reliant on insurance, vagarity and expert opinions, things can be altered and things can be forged and faked. With NFTs, you just don’t have to worry about that. It’s not something that people really appreciate right now but will come to appreciate significantly more down the line,” he says.

“I like to say in 100 years’ time, a 15-year-old with a laptop will be able to look at a CryptoPunk and with 100% authority be able to say this is an actual CryptoPunk, and that’s just very different than how every other collectible market works right now. It’s expert opinions; there’s sometimes contradictions; sometimes opinions change, and sometimes, the people that are faking it are doing such a good job that they know how to fool the experts.”

Already thinking far into the future, the valuable proposition of unquestionable provenance and provable scarcity only increases in importance, says VonMises.

“I think a thing that people really fail to understand is perfect provenance becomes more valuable with the passage of time, meaning in an industry that’s very nascent like NFTs, having perfect provenance that goes back three or four years is probably no big deal because, with any collectible, you should be able to have provenance for three or four years.”

“Where it really becomes super valuable is when you’re 50 or 100 years in the future. Because within a timeframe like that, who knows who’s messed around with stuff. For example, there are Warhol’s and master paintings that are hanging in people’s homes and hanging in museums that are fake every year. There are stories that come out regularly.”

People are not going to wake up one day and decide that unquestionable provenance and provable scarcity are not extremely desirable traits, especially in the collectibles and art markets. So, NFTs are not going away.”

Nostalgia and NFTs are up and to the right as each decade passes by

Acknowledging NFTs are still in their very early beginnings, VonMises believes nostalgia similar to unquestionable provenance will increase as the years and decades go on. He cites his own story of buying many of his first Punks right after his daughter was born and how there’s already an attachment to that moment in time.

“Every decade that goes by, the value of unquestionable provenance goes way up. Speaking of nostalgia, as I’ve stated, I started buying my first CryptoPunks right after the birth of my daughter, so there were many nights where I would have to get up at three or four o’clock in the morning to take care of something for her or help my wife. I remember checking them and looking at the CryptoPunks market and thinking about certain Punks. There’s plenty of Punks that I bought at extremely odd hours for exactly that reason. It was one of the reasons I bought 60 Punks in those first 30 days. I was constantly checking the marketplace for the ones that I wanted,” VonMises says.

“When we talk about nostalgia, people typically long for things from their youth or for times from their life when things were easier. People collect baseball cards because when they were kids, they collected baseball cards or Pokemon cards, or whatever. Then they become adults and they pay a lot of money for this stuff.”

“I think that the digital asset landscape right now is most likely too young to really have nostalgia. But it’s certainly a factor down the line. 20 years from now, the person who was 20 right now and couldn’t afford a CryptoPunk or Bored Ape or couldn’t afford a lot of the NFTs that they wanted might very well be the people that are chasing these assets and bidding them up.”

The 17 CryptoPunks VonMises owns.

Thesis as a collector and tapping into TradFi background

Drawing upon his deep understanding of markets in general, VonMises talks about his thesis as a collector, acknowledging he puts much of his traditional finance lens over crypto and NFT markets.

Despite his emotional connection to many of his NFTs, he still likes to sell into strength when the opportunities arise.

“There’s an old saying in traditional finance that applies tenfold to crypto and NFTs, and that is ‘Sell when you can — not when you have to.’ That’s a rule that I live by,” he says.

I was selling when I could. I was selling into strength. I sold quite a bit in 2021. I sold quite a bit in 2022. I’ve really paired back what I’ve sold now because we’ve gotten to a point where I think things are a little bit too cheap and enough people have exited the space that we probably are very close to a bottom, if not at the bottom already.”

“Right now, I’m willing to potentially nibble on a few things and fill in a few holes that I’ve been meaning to fill in. I want to be buying when everybody hates it and I want to be selling when everybody loves it. I don’t have a problem selling the strength, and while I’m attached to quite a few of the things in my collection, I’ve demonstrated that when the market warrants it, I’m able to sell with no problem.”

Chromie Squiggle #1770 by Snowfro — owned by VonMises.Chromie Squiggle #372 by Snowfro — owned by VonMises.Chromie Squiggle #357 by Snowfo — owned by VonMises.

VonMises highlights that the psychological aspects of markets can be brutal and really rattle a lot of participants, leading to buying and selling at the wrong times.

“The market, especially in the crypto space, is prone to very large drawdowns and very large swings. I don’t think this is a flaw; this is how markets work. Markets, in general, are meant to inflict a lot of pain and cause people to question their motives,” says VonMises.

“When I was in traditional finance, I used to say to the person who sat next to me that they’re shaking the tree, meaning the markets are meant to make it hard for you. They want people to sell at the lows and buy at the highs. The market psychology that gets used works. It causes people to do that if you don’t have a really strong thesis and belief as to why you own something — markets are meant to shake you out of those positions.”

Rapid Fire Q&A

Favorite 1-of-1 art piece you own?

“Probably a recent 1-of-1 Beeple I picked up.I also want to mention Flyswatter by Dangiuz. If you go to my X (Twitter) profile, it’s the banner piece. Flyswatter is probably my favorite 1-of-1 because it’s very reminiscent of the vibe of summer of 2021. I was sitting at my desk in front of my computer, and there’s this crazy world happening around me, and I’m a little bit scared. My gun is on the desk, but I’m in a very interesting spot.”

Flyswatter by Dangiuz — owned by VonMises.

Who are your top three favorite digital artists?

“XCOPY, Beeple and Tyler Hobbs.”

If you could only name one, what would be your absolute favorite NFT owned across all of your combined wallets?

“I’m probably going to be a cop-out here. I’ll say my profile CryptoPunk #1111 because it’s me. It’s my digital representation. When I am in this world, I’m VonMises.”

VonMises’ PFP — CryptoPunk #1111.

Who else’s collection outside of your own do you admire?

“Punk6529, I think that he’s done a lot with his personal collection. Cozomo de’ Medici obviously has a very impressive collection. I like the fact that both of those guys play in multiple spaces. They’re not just a generative art collector or a 1-of-1 collector; they’re very broad in both spaces. I feel like I’ve also had an influence with both of them; we collect a lot of the same things.”

Are there any up-and-coming artists who you would encourage readers to pay attention to?

“Kind of the same ilk as Matt Kane would be someone named James Bloom. I think he’s doing a lot of very interesting things. He’s kind of combining dynamic and generative art.

I think all his projects are very interesting, and they pull in data from the blockchain. That data changes the art in a dynamic way. It’s not just an artist that is using the provenance of blockchain. He’s actually using data from the blockchain to help change the way the art is viewed.”

Who would be your top three favorite followers on X for NFTs?

“1 DC Investor. I’m a huge fan of DC Investor. DC is someone who sees the world very similar to how I see it. He has a strong understanding of markets and has a similar long-term vision.

2 Punk6529. Simply a must-follow, of course.

3 Cozomo de’ Medici. I would probably say Cozomo because he gives so much good information and good calls.”

What would be your advice to someone just discovering NFTs now who has a lot of curiosity and wants to get their feet wet?

“Do a lot of research. I think that the biggest mistake that people make is they’re, like, ‘Oh well, I really like CryptoPunks, but I can’t afford it, so I’m going to buy these other five projects that are not CryptoPunks.’ You could get into Art Blocks; you could get into a lot of things, but the market in the high end, the true collectibles, are really where you want to focus on. I’d rather see somebody save up, wait, and then get a Punk, opposed to going out and spending the same amount of money over a six-month period and have very little to show for it.

I always would recommend that if you want to get involved in generative art, I would say you want to look at a Fidenza or Ringer. Or a Chromie Squiggle if you really want to get in at a little bit lower entry point, but I don’t like just buying anything because it’s Art Blocks because you can’t afford the better stuff. This can be a mistake. If you can’t afford the better stuff, you should probably wait.”

What is some advice for someone who’s trying to survive crypto for the long run?

“Do not under any circumstances ever use leverage in any way, shape or form. If you cannot handle an 80% drop in what you buy, don’t buy it because 80% drops in the space happen regularly. You can’t buy something in crypto and say, ‘Oh, I didn’t think it could go down 80%’ because you just ignored it, but you did know it was possible because it happens all the time.”