Sam Gellman, aka NFT Statistics, aka punk9059, is a prominent figure in the NFT space, known for his ability to create charts and provide valuable insights into volatile markets.
In 2023, Gellman worked for Proof and hosted the “Proof Daily Countdown,” a 10-15 minute all-you-need-to-know show that resonated well with true believers of NFTs.
With the recent acquisition of Proof and Moonbirds, Gellman has joined the team at Memeland, reuniting with Ray Chan, someone he’s known for the last 12 years.
His journey into NFTs started in the mania of 2021 when a handful of Gellman’s TradFi friends urged him to look into CryptoPunks. After some initial resistance, Gellman fell down the rabbit hole and has hardly come up for air since.
“During Covid, they started really aggressively recommending CryptoPunks. I thought the first three or four of them were idiots, and then when the fifth person said it, I started to get FOMO,” says Gellman.
“That was kind of when I started to get involved in the game and ended up trying to research CryptoPunks and found that there just wasn’t a lot of data out there on it. I started building out my own data sets around CryptoPunks and that was basically the genesis of this account.”
Prior to becoming “NFT Statistics”, Gellman worked for Goldman Sachs for eight years and Uber for seven — he was one of the first 50 employees and responsible for its early expansion into markets outside of the U.S. and Canada, particularly in Asia.
“I launched London, launched Amsterdam, launched China, launched Singapore. I ended up running the team that launched Asian markets because I’d been living in Hong Kong and then I managed North Asia for a while, which is like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, all the countries up there.”
CryptoPunk #1163 – owned by NFTStats
The most volatile religion in the world
Prior to discovering NFTs, Gellman had actually worked for a crypto company for a few months but quit because he couldn’t buy into the crypto philosophy. He says the anti-establishment ethos of many parts of crypto culture never really resonated with him.
“I wasn’t that anti-establishment. I kind of enjoyed both the companies [Goldman Sachs and Uber] so there was a little bit of disconnect with the industry I felt for a while.”
Gellman doesn’t necessarily think “we’re early” and believes crypto is a little bit like a religion.
“We’re actually not early at all. Bitcoin is 15 years old, to some 15 years is early. Blockchain is older than Airbnb, it’s older than Uber, it’s not a new technology anymore. It’s had billions and billions of dollars thrown in it, so I don’t think we’re early necessarily, but I think that it’s been around long enough that you have to respect it,” says Gellman.
“Sometimes I say that crypto is the most volatile religion in the world. It’s people who are in the religion are not just in it but they are missionaries. They’re out there telling everyone about it and this is changing everything and then there are people who think that the people in this space are completely crazy and full of shit. I sit between those two and I think that kind of gives me credibility with both.”
Chromie Squiggle #1849 by Snowfro – owned by NFT Stats
NFTs are like nightclubs and the fickle nature of the attention economy
The shifting nature of what’s hot and what’s not in NFTs is something that Gellman has paid particularly close attention to. Whether it’s BAYC, Doodles, CloneX, Moonbirds, DeGods, Cool Cats or a whole raft of other projects that have been up and down, Gellman has a theory about fashionability in the space.
“One of the things I say is that NFTs are like nightclubs. It’s very hard to stay cool for a long time, and there will be a time when there are like three nightclubs and this was very much the case in Hong Kong. In 2008, there were three nightclubs where the line would be around the block, and you have to know someone who knew someone to get in and then three years later, no one ever goes to them, and they shut down.”
CryptoPunk #9059 – owned by NFTStats
The fickle nature of the attention economy is something the Colorado-based American believes anyone in NFTs and crypto needs to be very aware of, including the current memecoin meta.
“I think people love to talk about all the reasons that something pumped and all the reasons that it’s better, when at its core, it’s just the object of FOMO right now. FOMO is a very transitory characteristic that can go towards anything. It can go towards a lot of different types of objects.”
“Sometimes it goes toward coins, sometimes it goes toward JPEGs, sometimes it goes toward point systems. It goes all over the place, and I think the vast, vast majority of these memecoins are going to be worth zero in three months, and we’ll find…
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