NFT Market Sees over $23 Billion in Trading Volume in 2021

The non-fungible tokens(NFTs) market has reportedly generated over $23 billion in trading volume in 2021, its best year on record, which sees a significant jump comparing to less than $100 million recorded last year.

According to the data compiled by the Lithuania-based blockchain analytics company DappRadar, by tracking more than 30 networks that support decentralized applications, it is estimated that the number of unique active wallets engaging with NFTs on a daily basis went up from 5,000 in the beginning of the year to around 140,000 at year's end.

As digital artworks that are stored on blockchains, NFTs are auctioned and can be purchased with cryptocurrencies and can be held on decentralized wallets. These digital images are popular among both artists and investors because of the authenticity and easy transfer of its ownership.

Many popular artists, sport-persons and celebrities are now launching their NFTs, while in the past couple of years they simply purchased these asstes, which is pushing more demand in the sector. Moreover, many brands have also entered this field. For example, luxury fashion houses such as Gucci, D&G, and Burberry presented their first virtual wearables, and Nike went as far as acquiring a virtual sneaker and collectibles startup. All of these above have in large part helped pave the way for digital collectibles to break into the mainstream article world.

Top auction houses, including Christie's and Sotheby's, are now selling these digital arts. The top-selling NFT of 2021 was The First 5000 Days by the digital artist Beeple that was sold for $69.3 million. The digital image was essentially a giant collage of 5,000 images that Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, started creating on May 1, 2007. Beeple's latest NFT Human One was sold for $29 million in November this year and was the second top-selling NFT in 2021. The third one was Bored Ape Yacht Club--a collection of 10,000 NFTs that was bought for $26.2 million at an auction by the UK-based auction house Sotheby's.

"With all of these elements in play, and hundreds of exciting projects launching by the day, the demand for NFTs spiked to unprecedented levels．The pieces from specific collections are viewed as value storage units and sparked another exciting trend: fractionalization of NFTs," DappRadar stated.