What is ICL ? – No.1 NFT Alpha Group in Japan

In the global NFT space, alpha groups have played a key role in the expansion of the market. Alpha groups allow their members to share information about various NFT projects and opportunities.

Surprisingly, there hadn’t been any NFT alpha communities established in Japan until recently. This was mainly due to its small market size and the slow growth of the industry there. However, as some Japanese influencers and celebrities started to enter the NFT space, the need for high-quality private alpha groups started to grow.

Taking advantage of the current trend, Ikehaya, a Japanese NFT/business influencer, set up the ICL alpha group.

In this article, I will give you details about ICL so that you can understand how this community might influence and help grow the Japanese NFT market in the future.

Full disclosure: I’m a collaboration manager of ICL at the time of writing. This post may contain affiliate links for your convenience.

You can join ICL from here (see below for the translation of payment pages).

What is ICL?

Originally, Ikehaya founded ICL (Ikehaya Cryptocurrency Lab) in February 2021 for members to learn and share exclusive information on the following topics:

ICL started with a small number of crypto enthusiasts as Ikehaya catered to only experienced investors by prohibiting beginners from joining.

Over time, it gained a strong reputation and became one of the most significant private crypto investment groups in Japan. ICL has over 3100 members at the time of writing.

“As the global NFT market started growing, it was a natural move for me to focus more on NFTs. Already having many knowledgable and wealthy crypto investors in the community, I was confident that I could create an alpha group that would influence and help expand the Japanese NFT market,” Ikehaya said.

Ikehaya set up NFT-specific channels within ICL in August 2022.

Who is Ikehaya?

Ikehaya is a business and web marketing influencer with a total of over 450,000 social media followers in Japan.

He is well-known as the founder of NinjaDAO and the lead marketer of the CryptoNinja Partners (CNP) collection. NinjaDAO is the biggest NFT community in Japan, with over 60,000 members at the time of writing. CNP is the No.1 generative collection by market capitalization in Japan.

He had been a cryptocurrency enthusiast since early 2017 and has a wealth of knowledge across DeFi, blockchain games, and NFTs. He also owns CryptoPunks and BAYC.

He is one of the rare influencers who managed to evolve over time and kept expanding his follower base.

おーー、、日本市場の売買が明らかに増えてますね！

1日で2桁ETHの出来高が4プロジェクト。全体でも150ETH超え！

もしこのペースが1ヶ月続けば、月間出来高10億円くらい。前月比2倍の成長。凄まじい成長産業です。 pic.twitter.com/MI0qk3lPt2

— 🍺 ikehaya (@IHayato) September 8, 2022

ICL: Hub for Japanese NFT Collections

Apart from regular NFT channels, there are two closed alpha channels within the ICL community. The criteria* for gaining access to these channels are:

*criteria are subject to change without notice.

About 300 members have access to the Alpha-Diamond & 1000 members to the Alpha-Standard channels at the time of writing.

“The Japanese NFT market is still in its infancy and has much potential to expand from here. I believe that the ICL will play a key role in the growth of the Japanese market, ” Ikehaya commented.

It is worth noting that as ICL’s reputation strengthened, founders and marketers of Japanese NFT collections started to join the community. As a result, the group has become a hub for the founders to connect and form alliances.

How About Allowlists?

The ICL members get access to various allowlists of Japanese NFT collections. However, the aim of ICL is to provide a community where members can share information and support each other. Thus, allowlists distribution is considered an extra perk that members can receive.

That being said, the fine reputation of the group makes it a desirable community for allowlist distributions. As a result, collections like Live Like A Cat, Aopanda party, and Shikibu World have provided allowlists to ICL members. More collections like XANA: Penpenz is expected to give out the AL to the group.

Houou Collection

The group is in the process of creating its own fully on-chain generative collection, Houou (鳳凰).

How to Join ICL?

You can join ICL here with a one-time joining fee of ¥98,000 (about 0.5ETH). Please see below for the translation of the payment pages.

The group originally started with only Japanese channels. However, due to the demand from overseas investors, the English channel was created in late 2022.

“Once the Japanese market grows, our global presence will naturally increase,” Ikehaya says. “We hope to have a positive influence on the global NFT market expansion by connecting with overseas investors in the near future”.

It is fair to say that high-quality alpha groups like Proof Collective have assisted in educating investors and contributed to the growth of the global NFT space.

So, could ICL become the Japanese Proof Collective?

I’ll keep you updated!

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