Last year, NFT didn’t even have its name on the top 50 searching keywords. But with the blooming of the crypto market, this virtual signature has surged up dramatically to become 2021 world’s most popular keyword (indexed by Collins Dictionary).
The 2nd place is for “cheugy,” and “climate anxiety” took 3rd place. From 4th to 10th, we find “crypto,” “double-vaxxed,” “hybrid working,” “metaverse,” “neopronoun,” “pingdemic,” finally is “regencycore.”
NFT stands for “non-fungible token,” “a unique digital certificate, registered in a blockchain, that is used to record the ownership of an asset such as an artwork or a collectible,” according to a post published on Wednesday by Collins.
As Collin reported, “NFT” has witnessed a “meteoric” rise in popularity this year, gaining 11,000% usage in 2021. Collins added “NFT” is a “unique technicolor collision of art, technology, and commerce… that has broken through the Covid noise.”
Alex Beecroft, Collins’s learning managing director shows how surprised an abbreviation to experience such a rapid rise in usage:
“The data we have from the Collins Corpus reflects the remarkable ascendancy of the NFT in 2021… NFTs seem to be everywhere, from the arts sections to the financial pages and in galleries and auction houses, and across social media platforms. Whether the NFT will have a lasting influence is yet to be determined, but its sudden presence in conversations around the world makes it very clear our word of the year.”
In Collin’s ranking, the digital revolution is also captured in another candidate for Word of the Year: “crypto,” abbreviates for “cryptocurrency,” digital money that is challenging traditional forms of money.
As Collins notes, “NFT” may not have a lasting impact as we step into 2022. But as long as NFTs and Blockchain keep leading the track, we suspect the abbreviation itself will continue to break another record.