The year 2021 saw a record sales of Non-fungible Tokens (NFT) as a total of $25 billion crypto assets were sold, data from DappRadar has shown.
DappRadar is a platform that allows users to track, analyze, and discover decentralized applications (dapps). It tracks over 3,000 dapps across ten blockchains, including Ethereum, EOS, ONT, and TRON.
The data from DappRadar however showed that in the fourth quarter of the year 2021, the rush for NFTs slowed down.
NFT, which stands for a non-fungible token, is basically a one-of-a-kind digital asset that belongs to you and you only.
The most popular NFTs right now include artwork and music. The digital asset can also be videos and tweets.
Prices of NFTs in the past year surged so quickly that investors started selling the assets within days of purchasing them to lock in profits before prices slump.
DappRadar’s data showed that sales of NFT digital assets reached $24.9 billion in 2021, compared to $94.9 million in 2020.
Among assets sold were popular cartoon tokens sold for millions of dollars. Musical and fine artists around the world also jumped on the wagon, to exchange their digital works for crypto payments.
An NFT artwork last year, under the Christie’s Sale, sold for a record $69.3 million. Some of the biggest global retailers have also ventured into the space to sell off their digital content.
For instance, the fashion industry with big players like Gucci, Tommy Hilfiger, Adidas has released their own NFT collections for digital auctioning.
Although DappRadar shows sales of NFTs hit $24.9 billion in 2021, NonFungible.com for example, which tracks the Ethereum blockchain, put 2021 sales at $15.7 billion.
The data from one platform to another may vary as transactions taking place ‘off-chain’, which include NFT art sales held at auction houses are not recorded digitally on DappRadar and NonFungible.com, or at any other crypto exchange platform.