By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 25th, 2024
According to the report from Nonfungible.com, more than 2.5 million people own wallets with an NFT inside in 2021.
The sales of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) in the past year grew over 21,000% from 2020 as it topped the $17 billion valuation. According to the Yearly NFT Market Report from Nonfungible.com, the total NFT profits realized when reselling or buying also soared from $12 million in 2020 to $5.4 billion in 2021.
The market report was developed in conjunction with research firm L’Atelier, owned by the French international banking group, the leading European bank in terms of business and profitability, BNP Paribas SA (EPA: BNP). Per the finding, a number of high-profile NFT sales were recorded last year, as investors went all out to be a part of the growing digital asset class.
In March last year, Mike Winkelmann, a digital artist known as Beeple sold the world’s most expensive NFT dubbed Everydays: The First 5000 Days for more than $69 million. While this remains the biggest NFT sale to date, there have also been tons of high-profile sales from the same artist, and iconic collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), and CryptoPunks amongst others.
The enthusiasm by investors to be a part of the NFT revolution spread across all blockchain protocols including Ethereum (ETH), Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Avalanche (AVAX), and Terra (LUNA) amongst others. The boom recorded in the NFT world surged with a number of marketplaces launched in the past year across these protocols.
The hype that surrounded the NFT ecosystem in 2021 also enjoined massive embrace from celebrities with the likes of football star Neymar Junior owning a Bored Ape. Others including Snoop Dogg, and Jimmy Fallon were also amongst the prominent figures in the space.
NFT Sales Sustainability and the Future of Digital Arts
According to the report from Nonfungible.com, more than 2.5 million people own wallets with an NFT inside in 2021, a very bogus figure when compared with the 89,000 recorded for the prior year. The data published also showed the total NFT buyers surged from 75,000 to 2.3 million.
While the NFT sales and the entire data published showed an impressive leap in the adoption level of these asset classes, the question now lies on the sustainability of NFTs in terms of continuous investment from collectors as well as the future of digital art.
Gauthier Zuppinger, co-founder of Nonfungible.com believes the high transaction figures in the NFT world will not necessarily translate to a sustained trend in the future.
“What is interesting is that we are seeing less people, less buyers, less sales,” Zuppinger said. “The global community may have decreased because of speculation and a loss of interest in collectibles. But the global market is still really high and the value of some of these assets has continued to increase.”
While NFT and the metaverse world may have some points of intersection, the focus is gradually shifting away from the former and into the latter, with this likely to be a major trend in the coming years.