What is a whitelist and what is it for?

Whitelist is a list of pre-approved wallet addresses that will receive special guaranteed access to new NFTs once they are released.

To be whitelisted means that you have gone through the process/steps, as defined by the NFT project team, of getting your ETH address pre-approved to mint an NFT at some predefined date and time. Whitelisting also allows supporters to avoid "gas wars".

A gas war is a term to describe a ridiculous surge in gas price - everyone is trying to get transactions confirmed within a small window of time, which encourages users to set their gas prices higher and higher, thereby raising the required gwei beyond reasonable expectations. Gas wars can be truly shocking — transaction fees alone can run into thousands of dollars.

To be whitelisted for a project, you usually need to join the selected project's Discord group.

For NFT, whitelisting is the process of obtaining a crypto wallet address pre-approved for a future NFT mint at a predetermined date and time. For example, some projects may allow whitelisted addresses to mint NFTs at any time within a 48-hour period.

What is a whitelist used for?

• Reward Early Supporters

The whitelist not only guarantees the participant a place for the mint token, but also it can allow the user to reduce the price of NFT or even get it for free. This also encourages supporters to stay engaged and promote the project.

• Preventing Gas Wars

The creator of the project can create a window of time on a particular day in which the NFT can be minted. 

Whitelisted users can pick their own time to mint the NFTs within the given time period. This way, transactions are spread out, avoiding competition, and in turn, eliminating gas wars.

How to get on the NFT Whitelist

There are 3 main steps to getting whitelisted for an NFT project. Let's look at all the steps one by one!

1. Find a project before they launch

Actively search for new collections on Telegram chats and Twitter. Follow NFT influencers on it, and join and participate in their posts and communities.

There are several sites on the network that publish up-to-date summaries about great NFT projects. Rarity.tools is a good place to keep a tab on all the latest drops.

So you've spotted a really cool project and you're desperate to be a part of it - but everyone else wants it too, and offers are limited. How to get into the list of "favorites"?

2. Join the project’s Discord group

The first thing you need to do is check out the project's Discord server - that's where you'll most likely find the details. Each project's Discord can be organized differently, but you can usually find information on how to whitelist in the "Announcement" section if there is no separate "whitelist" section.

It is important to remember that scammers are everywhere. Be careful with any direct messages you may receive from random people. Also, be careful with any links people send you.

3. Follow the instructions for getting whitelisted

The conditions for getting whitelisted will vary from project to project, but as a rule, the tasks will be to promote the collection in some way. Users may be asked to participate in several activities such as:

• Getting a certain level and inviting a certain number of friends to the Discord server

• Creation of fan art, memes, stories, and songs for the project

• Activity in the social networks of the project, especially on Twitter, through likes, comments, and reposts

• In some cases, project participants are asked to add the name of the project to their nickname and change the avatar to any sneak-peek of the project

• There are projects that ask just to be active in Discord chats, while not just spamming, but actually answering newcomers' questions about the project, thereby benefiting it

• There are projects that award points for participating in AMA Sessions, for holding events that support the marketing of the collection, and so on. Thus, the whitelist is received by those participants who first scored a certain number of points.

Having fulfilled all the conditions and received the long-awaited whitelist, you must share the public address of your wallet on the discord server in a special tab for further NFT mint.

At this stage, some participants may have a question, where can I get the public address of my wallet?!🤔

Let's look at this issue and describe a few simple steps for obtaining a public wallet address using the example of MetaMask:

1. To get your ETH address, open MetaMask and login

2. Click on the 3 vertical dots icon.

3. Select [Account Details] in the pop-up menu.

4. Finally, click on the Copy icon to copy your Metamask wallet address or scan the QR code.

Congratulations, you did it!

In order not to fall into the hands of scammers and to protect your assets, it is highly recommended to have a separate wallet designed for creating NFTs, which will contain only the necessary amount of funds for minting NFTs.