Trading in NFTs climbed 21,000% to almost $17 billion in 2022
Key takeaways:
- According to a statement from Nonfungible.com, trading in nonfungible tokens struck $17.6 billion the previous year, an addition of 21,000% from 2020, according to a report from Nonfungible.com.
- NFTs entered mainstream consciousness significantly, with stars and significant firms increasingly heating to the market.
- People also got better at earning money from NFTs, forging $5.4 billion in returns through sales of the tokens in 2021.
NFTs hit $17.6 billion:
Sales of nonfungible tokens leaped to almost $17 billion in 2021, according to the latest report from NFT data firm Nonfungible.com.
The study, set with BNP Paribas-owned research firm L’Atelier, said that trading in NFTs struck $17.6 billion the previous year, mirroring an eye-watering 21,000% wave from 2020′s total $82 million.
NFTs are tradable acquisitions that hold track of who owns a particular digital item — say, a work of art or video game avatar — on the blockchain.
They entered mainstream consciousness in a significant way the prior year.
A token depicting a collage by the digital artist Beeple sold for a record $69 million at a Christie’s auction, while popular collections like the Bored Ape Yacht Club have attracted superstar customers from Jimmy Fallon to Snoop Dogg.
“We’ve seen exponential development over the past year,” Gauthier Zuppinger, co-founder of Nonfungible.com, informed CNBC.
Nonfungible.com’s number for total NFT transactions in 2021 is lower than some other assessments. An earlier projection from blockchain research company Chainalysis put the figure at almost $40 billion.
Zuppinger says this is down to the firm’s process for measuring honest volumes of NFT trades. The Nonfungible.com data rules out dealings involving bots and wash trading, a method where investors simultaneously purchase and sell an investment to inflate market activity artificially.
While supporters believe NFTs are useful for proving digital content ownership, analysts say the market has drawn predatory conduct. Participants are usually motivated to speculate on costs, and there’s evidence of their growing use for money laundering and other scandalous activities.