The rich, famous and influential began collecting or issuing NFTs in 2021. By May, monthly sales volume reached $360 million. Shortly thereafter, a deep downturn in the crypto markets briefly ended the NFT euphoria, causing daily volumes to drop significantly — a reduction of up to 90% from their highest levels. By July, NFTs rebounded and once again reached record-breaking highs, astonishingly attaining $2.6 billion in total volume in August on Ethereum alone based on data from NonFungible.com.

While Ethereum continues to dominate NFT market activity, there is interest growing in alternative layer-one blockchains due to their cheaper transaction fees and faster block times.

Ethereum holds approximately 80% of NFT sales volumes in 2021, but only 37% of total NFT traders. This is a reflection of the higher average NFT valuations on Ethereum and larger transaction fees. Flow and Wax both hold a large share of total traders, 32% and 25%, respectively, but with significantly less volume. Their cheaper transaction fees enable lower-priced NFT transactions and use cases for high-volume applications such as games.

A breakdown of transactions by popular NFT categories, discussed in section 1.3 of the report, reveals that early sales were dominated by collectibles such as CryptoKitties and CryptoPunks. In late 2019, the gaming NFT category surged in transaction count, as player bases expanded on games such as F1 Delta Time, Gods Unchained and Decentraland.

In mid-2020, the number of transactions that included sports and metaverse NFT projects began climbing as these platforms increased in popularity. Around the same time, art NFTs also drew increased attention, peaking in January 2021 with Beeple’s record-breaking sale.

The rich, famous and influential began collecting or issuing NFTs in 2021. By May, monthly sales volume reached $360 million. Shortly thereafter, a deep downturn in the crypto markets briefly ended the NFT euphoria, causing daily volumes to drop significantly — a reduction of up to 90% from their highest levels. By July, NFTs rebounded and once again reached record-breaking highs, astonishingly attaining $2.6 billion in total volume in August on Ethereum alone based on data from NonFungible.com.

While Ethereum continues to dominate NFT market activity, there is interest growing in alternative layer-one blockchains due to their cheaper transaction fees and faster block times.

Ethereum holds approximately 80% of NFT sales volumes in 2021, but only 37% of total NFT traders. This is a reflection of the higher average NFT valuations on Ethereum and larger transaction fees. Flow and Wax both hold a large share of total traders, 32% and 25%, respectively, but with significantly less volume. Their cheaper transaction fees enable lower-priced NFT transactions and use cases for high-volume applications such as games.

A breakdown of transactions by popular NFT categories, discussed in section 1.3 of the report, reveals that early sales were dominated by collectibles such as CryptoKitties and CryptoPunks. In late 2019, the gaming NFT category surged in transaction count, as player bases expanded on games such as F1 Delta Time, Gods Unchained and Decentraland.

In mid-2020, the number of transactions that included sports and metaverse NFT projects began climbing as these platforms increased in popularity. Around the same time, art NFTs also drew increased attention, peaking in January 2021 with Beeple’s record-breaking sale.