chief intern & meme lord @UpshotHQ . Never financial advice. 


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NFT rarity refers to an NFT possessing a unique and uncommon combination of traits within a collection. The more uncommon an NFT’s traits are within its collection, the rarer it is considered, and the more valuable it can be. 

NFT collectors used to rely on NFT rarity tools to determine the rarity (and value) of their potential investments–but now some consider NFT rarity platforms to be outdated. 

Why? And what are the right alternatives to NFT rarity tools? 

This article will review what NFT rarity tools are, some of the best NFT rarity tools to try, and new NFT platforms that are providing rarity data along with deeper insights into the [maturing NFT markets](https://upshot.xyz/post/nft-markets-are-maturing). 

## What Does NFT Rarity Mean?

[NFTs are non-fungible digital assets](https://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1678476/FULLTEXT01.pdf) with unique identities. Since an NFT is considered a one-of-a-kind asset, it can be difficult to [determine the true value of every individual NFT](https://upshot.xyz/post/determining-what-matters-NFT-valuation) in the market.

A wide range of factors impacts the potential price of an NFT, including collection floor price, last sale price of the specific NFT, how active the community is, hype and more. As it sounds, NFT rarity refers to how rare an NFT is in the market and then within that specific collection. 

NFT rarity functions like real-world art. However, while a real-world artwork’s rarity depends on factors such as its history or creator’s story, an NFT’s rarity also depends on its unique traits which can be logged on chain.

When an NFT is newly minted (or uploaded on the blockchain), it is created with unique characteristics or properties that cannot be altered. These properties are called traits. Although every NFT is unique, they can still share traits. However, no two NFTs can be so identical that they share all of the same types of traits.  

A classic example of this is the popular Bored Ape collection. The [Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC)](https://www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/bored-ape-yacht-club-nfts-explained/) NFT project features cartoonized apes. While the collection uses the general idea of the ape as its theme, and a base NFT art style, no two apes are the same. Every ape sports a different skin (fur) color, expression, color, clothing, and accessory from the next. In a way, every ape is unique.

However, because some traits are limited within the BAYC collection, they are more difficult to come by. NFTs with these “limited” traits are referred to as rare assets.

## What Impacts NFT Rarity?
![rarity feature](//images.ctfassets.net/lhkcghnr8ql4/3vpG6bUeAWnwjaKzY670rO/9296f787bb2ec6d14b5584b11867f083/rarity_feature.png)

### Trait Rarity 

An NFT’s traits are referred to as its unique attributes. These traits are the features or characteristics that make up an NFT. While all NFTs have traits and can share the same traits with other NFTs within their collection, it is impossible to spot two NFTs with completely identical traits. 

NFTs with rarer traits or features in their collection are considered scarce and the most rare nfts in a colelction are often referred to as Grail NFTs. Because these rare traits are hard to come by, they are usually considered more valuable than the rest of the NFTs in that collection. 

An example is the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s (BAYC) psychedelic fur trait. Fondly known as “[Trippy Fur](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trippy-fur-apes-remain-top-113032328.html)”, the psychedelic fur trait is one of the rarest traits in the Bored Ape collection, currently only occurring 77 times in the whole BAYC collection. As a result, the apes with this trait in the BAYC collection are more expensive to buy. 

### Supply & Demand

The NFT market functions [based on supply and demand](https://medium.com/intotheblock/the-nft-market-cooldown-as-supply-and-demand-imbalances-140428f47c91). Rarer NFTs are usually coveted in the market and because the supply of these NFTs does not meet the market’s demand, they’re more valuable. 

Of course, the popularity of the collection as a whole needs to be taken into account. For instance, Bored Apes are an incredibly popular collection of 10,000 Bored Ape NFT. As of the time of this writing their Floor price is sitting around 60 ETH. This means the cheapest (least rare) NFT in the collection costs 60 apes. More rare apes with traits like trippy fur, or laser eyes will sell for far more. 

## What Are NFT Rarity Tools?

NFT rarity tools are rarity-measuring softwares/sites that aid colelctors in making purchases. . They are software solutions that calculate NFT rarity and rank NFTs based on the results of their calculations. They usually function like databases where users can search for specific tokens, see the traits, and the percentage of other NFTs in that colelction that have those traits. 

Rarity tools help collectors determine the rarity and value of individual tokens within their collection. They can show how rare a token is in comparison to others and what factors contribute to its rarity score.  Rarity platforms usually have their own proprietary scoring system, meaning that while rarity rankings might stay consistent across platforms, the rarity score can differ.

### NFT Rarity Tool Examples 

Some rarity tools collectors use include: 

#### 1.  Rarity Sniper

[Rarity Sniper](https://raritysniper.com/) has filtering and sorting features supporting NFTs across 18 blockchains, such as Eth, Polygon, and Cronos.  It uses the average of an NFT’s individual traits to assign it a rarity value.

Rarity Sniper also supports various marketplaces, so investors can purchase NFTs on the rarity lists directly. 

#### 2. Rarity.tools

[Rarity.tools](https://rarity.tools/) adopts a different rarity calculation method from Rarity Sniper. While the former combines the power of various features of an NFT to grade its rarity, rarity.tools allow users to calculate rarity using the four major calculation methods. These methods include the trait rarity model, the mean trait rarity model, the statistical rarity model, and the rarity score model.

#### 3. NFT Stats Rarity Tool

The [NFT Stats Rarity Tool](https://www.nft-stats.com/rarity) is a simple NFT rarity tool that offers an overview of NFT collections and rankings. This ranking features hot collections along with their rarity rankings and sales volume. NFT Stats enables investors to explore top collections sold up to 30 days ago.

## How Rarity Features Work in NFT Tools

There is no single calculation formula that can be adopted to determine an NFT’s rarity. Different rarity tools use different methods, meaning an NFT’s rarity score will most likely be different across many rarity tool platforms. 

Here are some of the most common ways rarity tools and many NFT platforms calculate NFT rarity. Each expresses slightly different information about an asset’s relative position within a collection.

### 1. Trait Rarity Ranking

In the trait ranking method, rarity tools score NFTs using their rarest traits. Essentially, the rarest trait will be assigned a number. The rarer that trait is, the higher the NFT’s trait rank on the rarity tool.

While this method is straightforward, it is flawed. By ranking an NFT based on its rarest trait, the rarity tool ignores all other traits that the NFT possesses. It does not collectively assess individual traits of an NFT but only focuses on the rarest trait it has.

### 2. Average Trait Rarity

The average trait rarity method is a more collective strategy. Rarity tools that use this method focus on averaging the value of the rarity of all the traits an NFT possesses. 

For instance, if an NFT has two traits of 20% and 40%, the average rarity will be the total divided by two, which is 30%.

The average trait rarity method might be more accommodating than trait rarity ranking, but it still has its limitations. Because the NFT tool considers the overall trait rarity without assessing a single trait, which means it may miss out on the rarest NFT in a collection. 

### 3. Statistical Rarity

Statistics rarity is becoming popular across several NFT rarity tool platforms. It is a bit more complicated because it involves calculating rarity by multiplying individual trait scores. 

In this case, an NFT with two traits, both of which are 20% and 10%, will have an overall score of 2% [20% x 10%]. This method similarly emphasizes the total rarity of the traits, like the average traits method.

## The Challenges of NFT Rarity Tools

NFT rarity tools solved a major problem for which they were designed: determining which NFT is most rare. By easily and quickly calculating an NFT’s rarity, they help investors make better trade decisions and enjoy more profit in the NFT marketplace.

While this was helpful as the NFT space began to grow, these platforms no longer offer the effective solutions they were designed for. Now, many elements beyond simple trait rarity have come to effect the [price of an NFT](https://upshot.xyz/post/explaining-nft-pricing-machine-learning). That's why the industry is starting to rely on powerful machine learning [NFT appraisal models](https://upshot.xyz/post/how-upshots-ml-models-work) like the one we're building at Upshot.

Additionally, many rarity platforms do not consider factors other than rarity to determine the value of an NFT. This severely limits the ability of NFT traders to accurately gauge the true value of NFTs in the market by solely using an NFT rarity platform. 

## NFT Rarity on the Upshot Platform

[Upshot](https://upshot.xyz/) isn’t a rarity tool: it’s an appraisal platform that determines NFT value by extracting and tracking features including metatraits, asset rarity, and historical trait values. 

Rarity usually refers to the rarity of an asset within a collection (as opposed to across collections). Trait rarity describes how common a particular trait value is as a function of how many assets within a collection express that trait. 

Since individual NFTs can have many traits, Upshot goes a further step to reduce a set of rarity traits into a single asset appraisal value. Our models consume a variety of the trait rarity statistics we discussed above and many other factors including the influence of the community, specific collectors, and past sales data  to map from the trait space to the asset pricing space. 

We can also estimate trait value directly by calculating the average sale price per trait and using similar statistics as calculating asset rarity. This allows us to infer the relative value of assets based on the historic values of their trait composition. This measurement closely resembles rarity but is also much better at discriminating between sets of traits that may be equally rare but have different realized values in terms of how they trade.

Finally, we wanted a model that could adapt to changes in the market by tracking recent average prices. Upshot can do this not only at the collection level but also by breaking up the determined rarity and value metrics into buckets and tracking prices within those. 

Upshot has adopted a holistic NFT rarity score so that we can provide NFT appraisals with the highest accuracy. And it’s working: our performance is industry-leading, with Median Absolute Percentage Errors (MAPE) for the more popular and liquid collections, typically between 3 - 8% and ~11% on average for less-liquid collections. 

## The Future of NFT Rarity Tools

As the NFT metaverse continues to grow, so does the need for tools that help investors make better choices in trading. Although NFT rarity tools were game-changing at their release, many NFT trading and analytics software offer NFT rarity within their platforms. 

Upshot’s [machine-learning-powered appraisal system](https://upshot.xyz/post/how-upshots-ml-models-work) automates the NFT valuation process. Investors gain deep insights into the NFT markets through Upshot’s appraisal of over 57 million NFTs and over 32,000 collections. A market aggregator, portfolio tracker, proprietary gmi grading, liquidity access, and more, Upshot unlocks access to limitless DeFi possibilities. 

Interested in discovering the rarity and value of your next potential collection? 

[Join Upshot](https://upshot.xyz) to enjoy unparalleled appraisals and much more. 


Learn about what NFT rarity tools offer as well as the latest NFT rarity tool options in the space. 

NFT Rarity Tools: Everything You Need to Know

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