Short for Non-Fungible token, NFT is simply a digital asset, but with the surety that the particular asset is only one in the whole world, there’s no duplicate. And it can’t be copied and sold as authentic either. Think of this as the Mona Lisa painting that Leonardo Da Vinci created. It’s a one-of-a-kind painting, and no one in the world can come up with another original version of it because Leo only made one. There can be replicas, but they don’t have any value in front of the original one. NFTs are just like that as well, but instead of being physical, they’re digital assets.
NFTs can be anything ranging from art, music to photos and videos – anything that’s digital can be NFT – people have even sold their tweets for millions of dollars. However, NFT is not the asset itself; it is the code that’s assigned to a particular asset. So the person purchasing an NFT asset gets the authenticity certificate, making it easier to distinguish the original versus a fake. And when you buy an NFT, its information is saved in a blockchain, letting everyone know that you are the owner of the original asset, even if there are duplicates spread across the internet.
With the explosive growth in the crypto space, the NFT market is also seeing a steep increase in popularity, and people are actively engaging in the sale and purchase of the NFTs. And since crypto is getting bigger with time, more people are using it to make payments. Therefore, it’s no surprise that most NFT payments are made via crypto, directly connecting its growth with that of crypto. Here are a few statistics to help you get an idea of the impact NFTs are making around the globe:
Top NFT Statistics:
- An NFT named ‘Everyday: The First 5,000 Days’ was sold for $69 million by Beeple in 2021 who is a digital artist.
- NFTs are typically used to prove ownership of different digital file formats, including GIFs, MP3s, and JPEGs.
- The global transaction market cap for NFTs was over $40 million in 2018, which rose to $141 million in 2019 and then a whopping $339 million in 2020.
- Although NFTs have come to mainstream nowadays, it is believed they have been around for some time; since 2012, according to some people.
- One of the most popular NFTs is the first tweet of Jack Dorsey (Twitter’s Founder), which was auctioned off for around $3 million.
So Where’s the Future of NFT Headed? Let’s Look at 2021’s Stats:
Although we’re still in 2021, a sharp rise in the growth of NFT can already be seen. These non-fungible digital assets have become very common nowadays, with more and more of them being created, auctioned, and sold. The interesting part is; people are eager to pay top dollar for a digital asset they can call their own. Let’s look at some fresh NFT stats for 2021:
- The value of gaming NFTs declined in 2021 but increased for art
- Big brands like Taco Bell started selling their own NFTs
- The monthly sales of an NFT auction platform; OpenSea, went over $95 million in February 2021
- Ethereum based NFT trading volume exceeded $400 million in total by March 2021
- NFT sales volume increased to $2.5 billion by June 2021
Let’s See Some of the NFTs that Sold For Unbelievable Prices:
It can be a little challenging to wrap your head around the fact that some NFTs can be sold for so much, even though they may not seem that extraordinary. But who are we to object? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? That being said, let’s spin our heads with these mind-boggling NFT sale stats:
- An NFT for Antoni Tudisco and Steve Aoki called Hairy was auctioned for $888,888
- A trading card game by NBA called Top Shots has already made over $230 million selling NFTs
- CryptoPunk #6965, a pixel art character by Larva Labs, sold for around $1.54 million
- A GIF called The Nyan Cat was auctioned for $590,000
Most Popular NFT Categories: Art & Gaming
If you look at the stats mentioned above, you’ll see that gaming (NBA’s Top Shots) and art (CryptoPunk) sold for millions of dollars. This is what you need to look at when searching for a trend in the NFT space – art and gaming are the hottest categories right now. Let’s see some of the stats in these two niches for better understanding:
- Art and gaming based NFTs had millions of dollars of worth in 2021 alone
- Beeple, a graphic designer and an artist, sold his creation for more than $69 million using an auction house called Christie’s
- Artists can sell their arts in the form of NFTs and get maximum money for that. However, in some cases, if that art is sold again, the artist may even get royalties for it.
- A band called Kings of Leon sold their album as an NFT and made over $2 million in 2021
- A car called Bahrain Edition 2020 from the game F1 Delta Time was sold for 2.65 million REVV, which is the cryptocurrency of the game.
Some Negatives of NFTs:
Even though there are a lot of positives of NFTs, and their value seems to have a compounding effect over the years, it’s not always rainbows and unicorns. There are several drawbacks of these non-fungible digital assets that everyone should be aware of. Let’s have a look at them below:
- Some critics have said that NFTs won’t keep their original value for long, and some even went on to say they are not really worth anything
- NFTs are digital assets and mostly sold online, so hackers and scammers can jump into auctions and start taking advantage of people
- It’s incredibly challenging to verify that an NFT seller is also its original creator
- When you purchase an NFT, you receive a key and password. In case you lose it, you lose the ownership and authenticity certificate of the NFT, rendering the asset useless for you.
Although NFTs are nothing more than pieces of codes that identify digital assets and their owners, they’ve now become collector’s items, and people are willing to spend several million dollars to own them.
The scarcity and uniqueness of these assets make them so expensive. However, whether they’ll keep on growing with time or become a forgotten FAD of the past still remains an unanswered question.
