NFT is a virtual asset that helps keep track of a certain digital item – such as a piece of art or a video game avatar – on the blockchain. In the past year, with the tremendous growth of virtual spaces and digital trading, NFT has grown into a billion dollar industry. The study from BNP Paribas-owned research firm L’Atelier says that in 2021, NFTs trade is up 21,000% from a total of $82 million in 2020.
According to research by Nonfungible.com, in 2021, more than 2.5 million crypto wallets belonged to NFT holders or traders, up from just 89,000 a year earlier. The number of NFT buyers also increased to 2.3 million from 75,000.
“We’ve seen exponential growth over the past year,” Gauthier Zuppinger, co-founder of Nonfungible.com, told CNBC.
The profits earned from NFTs exchange has also skyrocketed. Investors generated a total of $5.4 billion in profits just from selling NFTs, following Nonfungible.com data.
NFT’s most popular category is collectibles, which accounted for $8.4 billion in sales. In-game NFTs such as Axie Infinity represent second place with more than 5.2 billion dollars in revenue.
At the end of last year, with the appearance of Metaverse, there has been a stronger shift of virtual assets. Sales of digital lands and other projects in this virtual space reached $514 million.
Advertising around the metaverse also reaped huge profits after Facebook transferred its brand to Meta and Nike’s purchase of RTFKT, a famous virtual sneakers company.
What next?
Going forward, Zuppinger doesn’t expect the overall value of NFT transactions to rise as dramatically this year. Volumes have averaged around $687 million per week so far in 2022, he said, slightly up from an average of $620 million a week in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Talking about NFTs in 2022, Zuppinger does not expect the overall value of virtual asset transactions to increase dramatically as in last year. Trading volumes averaged around $687 million per week so far in 2022, up slightly from the $620 million average a week in Q4 2021.
“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.” he added.
The Nonfungible.com founder predicts in 2022, more large companies and financial institutions will jump on to the NFTs brandwagon, just like Visa and Nike did in 2022.
What about you? What do you think about the future of NFTs? Discuss with us via:
- Cryptory Insights: https://t.me/CryptoryInsights
- Cryptory Global Community: https://t.me/CryptoryCommunity
- Vietnamese Telegram channel: https://t.me/cryptory_vncomm
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CryptoryNetwork
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/CryptoryNetwork