There has been a lot of discussion regarding the concept of “Gachiho” in the Japanese NFT space.
Literary, Gachiho means “hard-core holding,” so it is equivalent to HODL (Hold on for dear life) in English.
Gachiho is the new diamond hand culture that ICL, the largest alpha group in Japan, is trying to set in the Japanese NFT space. If you are new to the Japanese market, it is crucial for you to understand this concept to analyze each project accordingly.
Full disclosure: I’m a collaboration manager of ICL at the time of writing.
Why do Japanese Collections have Such Low Listing Rates?
If you have been researching the Japanese NFT market, you might have noticed that some collections have extremely low listing rates on OpenSea. For example, the Live Like A Cat collection has only a 0.2% listing rate, although its floor price has increased by 3,400x from the mint price of 0.001ETH. For CryptoNinja Partners, only 0.8% of the collection is listed on OpenSea even nine months after the release.
“Why do Japanese collections have such low listing rates?”
There are two main reasons:
- The average Japanese attitude toward investment is passive
- Japanese cultural background with content like anime and manga
The average Japanese financial literacy is low compared to other developed countries, as many have conservative attitudes toward investments. Thus Japanese people in general are less likely to engage in short-term trading activities.
In addition, Japan has a large consumer base for content like anime and manga. Because of this background, both adults and children actively consume such content services on daily basis. This results in us, the Japanese, having different attitudes toward PFP collections compared to overseas investors.
What did ICL Do to Set the “Gachiho” Culture?
These are three steps Ikehaya has taken to set the Gachiho culture in the Japanese market.
- Actively promote the idea of Gachiho in his Twitter spaces, tweets, and podcast shows
- Creates alliances among different projects by distributing Allowlists strategically
- Establish project categories and create channels accordingly within ICL
Coming up to the release of the “Live Like A Cat” collection, Ikehaya repeatedly mentioned “Gachiho” on social media. Since he is the top influencer in the Japanese NFT space, his followers and community members embraced the idea and assisted him in disseminating his thoughts.
As a lead marketer of the “Live Like A Cat (LLAC)” collection, Ikehaya decided to offer the allowlists to CryptoNinja Partners (CNP) owners and ICL members, known for being diamond hand investors in the Japanese NFT space. He then went through all applicants’ wallet addresses to eliminate investors who are likely to flip LLAC.
So far, Ikehaya’s strategy has proven effective as the price of LLAC has traded above 3 ETH since its initial mint at 0.001 ETH with a listing rate of only 0.2%.
“I wanted to create a system in which the Gachiho behavior gets rewarded. By offering the LLAC Allowlists to Gachiho holders, I could educate people to start investing with a long-term vision,” Ikehaya commented in the interview.
The below statistics show the investment style of LLAC holders.
To enhance the idea, Ikehaya created closed channels within ICL. Alpha-diamond is for members who own more than 10 CNPs, and alpha-standard is for members who own all CNP, LLAC, and APP, categorized as Gosanke (Big-3). Members in these channels receive priority for some allowlist distributions.
“The Japanese NFT market is still in its infancy, so embedding Gachiho culture is crucial for the industry growth, ” Ikehaya said. He believes that having too many flippers in the market prevents the healthy growth of NFT projects.
明日19時から、MemelandとICL（Ikehaya Crypto Labs）でAMAやりまーす！
ガチホ文化について語り合う予定です。Thanks @9gagceo ! Let’s chat about how to HODLing our collection💎https://t.co/g1z43o0Lb8 pic.twitter.com/3rh9Ypkxmt
— 🍺 ikehaya (@IHayato) January 11, 2023
“Imagine that everybody flips as soon as minting a new project. This behavior kills the project, and investors end up getting disappointed. That’s what happened to many of the overseas projects, and I’m determined to set a new culture in the Japanese NFT market.”
ICL: A Hub for Gachiho Projects
Since Ikehaya has been a passionate advocate of the Gachiho culture, ICL has attracted members with a similar investment style. Although it’s a private community with a joining fee, ICL currently has over 3,300 members, including many of the Japanese project founders and marketers.
It is becoming distinct that in the Japanese NFT space, projects sharing similar cultures are starting to form strong alliances.
In the global NFT space, alpha groups have played a key role in the expansion of the market. Alpha groups allow their me[…]
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