When the history books are written, and the documentaries are made on the formative days of NFTs, Jimmy McNelis, aka j1mmy.eth, will hold a special place in history as a creator, as a passionate advocate, and for having one of the greatest NFT collections of all time.
An NFT OG who started his journey on Dec. 5, 2017, when he purchased his first CryptoKitty, the 45-year-old American is also the founder of Avastars, an early PFP project from February 2020 that set the scene for intellectual property (IP) rights being given to holders.
That was popularized by Bored Ape Yacht Club and the 2021 PFP mania that saw IP rights for holders becoming the standard for most projects. Avastars was also a pioneer in putting the project on-chain, inspired by Autoglyphs, which minted 10 months earlier.
J1mmy also has an almost unrivaled NFT collection worth around $150 million at the peak. The astonishing collection includes eight Autoglyphs, 19 Chromie Squiggles, 30 Bored Apes, five CryptoPunks, 11 Gazers, 61 Meebits, 114 CyberBrokers and a Twin Flame by Justin Aversano.
“At its peak it was about $150 million. Whether or not that was actually liquid but $150 million was on one of the wallet portfolio sites. Today, it’s probably 1/10th of that,” says j1mmy.

