The NFT revolution is upon us. Many content creators, businesses, and other tech industry luminaries are jumping on NFTs, with some of your favourite celebrities likely owning or buying them. Why is this happening? Well, it’s because NFTs represent exciting possibilities for artists in the ownership space; many have said that it will be easier for artists to make a profit from their work if they’re selling NFT collections.
With that in mind, if you’re looking to get into the NFT space yourself, then you might be wondering what the best way to find rare NFTs is. After all, a rare NFT is going to be worth more. Think of them like real, physical works of art; if a work of art is rare, it sells for more money at auction, right? An NFT is no different. Here’s our primer on how you can find the rarest NFTs with online tools.
What is an NFT?

Before we begin, let’s just go a little into what exactly an NFT is. It stands for “non-fungible token”, and the best way to explain it is this. If I drop a £10/$10 note on the floor and you hand me another £10/$10 note, then the note I have is of equal value to the one I dropped. An NFT, however, cannot be replaced; it is utterly unique, verified in terms of ownership by the digital ledger (the blockchain). NFTs usually take the form of unique artworks, but they can also be audio clips, text, or any other digital asset. With that out of the way, let’s look at how you can find rare NFTs!
Use online tools like RaritySniffer to find rare NFTs

You can use RaritySniffer to help you find the rarest and best NFTs available for purchase. The site can easily show you the rarity score of your favourite NFTs or collections in just a few seconds after reveal, so you can see just how much your collection is worth. Collections are being added to RaritySniffer all the time, and the process for adding yours is super-simple, too. There’s no point in dealing in NFTs if you aren’t going to express an interest in NFT rarity, so make sure that you’re using the best tool around in order to help you categorise your collection!
What exactly is NFT rarity?

“Rarity” refers, of course, to how rare an NFT or collection is, but there’s a little more to it than that. Let’s take the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection, which is one of the most famous around, as an example. Certain kinds of apes are rarer than others; the apes wearing certain items of clothing, for example, or the ones with a certain expression on their faces. CryptoPunks, too, would be a good way to explain NFT rarity; male CryptoPunks are extremely common, but those with more specific and unique traits would be rarer, which would make them more valuable.
Another factor that influences NFT rarity is the artist or creator of the piece. Sometimes, the public profile of the person or organisation that created the NFT collection will factor heavily into its rarity; if the creator is already famous, for example, as with Snoop Dogg’s NFT collection, then that collection might subsequently be worth more than if the creator is relatively unknown. It’s always worth looking into this information before you make a purchase.
How do you determine NFT rarity?

Determining NFT rarity is a fairly simple process. You’re essentially looking for how unique the core NFT is, as well as how in-demand it is. Uniqueness is easy to determine; you can calculate, within any given NFT collection, how many of the individual pieces possess a trait, and then use that information to analyse the rarity of the NFT based on how many unique traits it possesses.
This isn’t always perfect; sometimes, as with BAYC, apes are rarer than others even though they don’t possess as many unique traits. However, that’s where tools like RaritySniffer come in; they can help by using sophisticated analysis techniques where conventional mathematics might not work.
Another method would be looking at whether an NFT has a purpose outside of simply providing an artwork for the buyer. For example, some bands are now issuing backstage passes or premium seating arrangements via NFTs. These NFTs will inherently be worth more than others, because they offer a tangible benefit. This will, of course, assume that the band is famous and that their tickets are in demand, because if they’re not, then the concept falls down somewhat.
What dictates NFT value other than rarity?

There are other variables we must look at if we want to understand how much an NFT is worth. Rarity is a very important statistic, but we also need to look at the speculative market and how it’s currently performing. Cryptocurrency, NFTs, and anything else on the blockchain is subject to rapid fluctuation; that’s just how the market operates. That means the value of an NFT, and of all NFTs in general, can actually drop or skyrocket pretty quickly, so you’ll need to be on your financial toes.
There are other stats to look out for, too, including the liquidity of the NFT (whether it holds its value during trading processes), the history of its ownership, and whether it is linked to a tangible benefit or not. However, the bottom line is this: an NFT that is rarer – whether that’s because it’s a smaller collection, or because your particular NFT has a unique combination of traits – will sell for more, by and large, and that’s why you should use tools like RaritySniffer to hunt down NFT rarity.