Chainalysis has released their 2021 Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Market Report (report) detailing the current trends and investment tactics that has followed the market this year. The report comes after the most successful year for NFTs in terms of popularity and volume of transactions.
Chainalysis reports that USD$26.9 billion worth of cryptocurrencies have been transacted in relation to the NFTs created using the leading Ethereum smart contract standards for NFT collections, ERC-721 and ERC-1155.
The growth of NFTs has been shown in the increase in both total value sent and average transactions size, suggesting that NFTs as an asset are gaining value as they grow in popularity. Most users are buying NFTs on dedicated marketplaces with the largest marketplaces eclipsing USD$16 billion worth of volume so far in 2021.
The report breaks down a handful of popular NFTs based on weekly transaction volume. The most popular, boasting over USD$400,000,000 of volume in October is the Mutant Ape Yacht Club drop.
Notwithstanding the success of some of the NFTs below, the report finds only few collections that enjoy sustained success, such as CryptoPunks which has seen more than USD$3 billion volume since March this year.
The report also shows data that suggests people are spending more and more money on NFTs as larger transactions are becoming more common. At the beginning of March 2021, 'NFT collector-sized transactions' (between USD$10,000 and $100,000) accounted for 6% of transactions, it has now risen to just under 20% of all transactions as of 31 October 2021.
Also, the report outlines that, similar to cryptocurrencies, no one country has more than 40% of monthly web visits since March 2021. The numbers suggest NFTs have adopted global popularity with North America and Central and Southern Asia leading the web traffic of NFT marketplaces.
The report provides insights into what makes a successful NFT investor with supported statistics outlining volume, quantity and tactics. One thing that is clear from the report is that the popularity of NFTs is not built on hype, they are being traded by serious investors around the world.