Largest NFT drops and sales in 2021
The term NFT, or non-fungible token, became such a major buzzword in 2021 that Collins Dictionary named it the word of the year, and Google searches for NFTs reached new highs. According to Cointelegraph Research, the word has a market worth around $17 billion. With a trading volume that recently topped $10 billion, the NFT marketplace OpenSea is in charge of executing the majority of these transactions. The potential of NFTs extends far beyond art to include music, sports memorabilia, and video games, and their utility includes both ownership and exclusive access to special functions and features.
The following collections stood out, not just for their numbers but also their developing communities, ranging from CryptoPunks and Beeple's collage to NBA Top Shot and RTFKT. According to DappRadar, CryptoPunks dominate the NFTs. The collection began in 2017 before the ERC-721 NFT standard was established. Since then, CryptoPunks' popularity and value on the secondary market have skyrocketed, thanks to Larva Labs' free distribution of all 10,000 punks to Ethereum users. With 756,984 Ether (ETH) ($3.03 billion) traded on OpenSea, CryptoPunks has the greatest trading volume. It is the most valuable NFT collection due to its increasing worth and historical significance.
Related: Punks VS Apes: It's a fight for NFT dominance
With 266,843 Eth ($1.07 billion) in history trading volume, Bored Ape Yacht Club, or BAYC, is the collection with the second greatest historical trading volume. An NFT can be used as a Yacht Club membership card if you possess one of the 10,000 Bored Apes. It grants members-only admission to THE BATHROOM, the Bored Ape Kennel Club, and the Mutant Ape Yacht Club. A spike in OpenSea sales in November appears to be linked to a more than 900 percent increase in the number of Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFTs sold.
Other collections with huge sales in 2021 include but not limited to Pak, RTFKT, Jadu Hoverboards and Jetpacks, FLUF World, VeeFriends, Axie Infinity, NBA Top Shot, and Beeple.