NFT market size declined further during 2023, as the market was one-third from what it was in March 2022. Investments and trading in these digital assets hit its lowest level in weeks. This may be due to growing regulatory pressure in 2023 on digital assets and a declining sentiment after the fall of crypto exchanges in late 2022. The annual market cap of NFTs grew sizably between 2020 and 2021, revealing a volatile market.

As of December 2024, the CryptoPunks collection recorded the highest market capitalization among all profile picture (PFP) non-fungible tokens (NFTs). As of that month, the market cap of CryptoPunks NFTs available on the Ethereum blockchain and listed on OpenSea was worth roughly 1.7 billion U.S. dollars. The Bored Ape Yacht Club collection ranked second on the list, with a market cap of nearly 809 million U.S. dollars. PFP NFTs refer to non-fungible tokens commonly used as profile pictures on social media accounts.

As of December 6, 2024, the market cap of Art Blocks NFT projects available on the Ethereum blockchain and listed on OpenSea was worth roughly 232 million U.S. dollars. Art Blocks is an online art platform focusing on generative art. It allows users to pick a style and randomly generate on the Ethereum blockchain different combinations of NFT-based digital artworks via an algorithm.

As of December 2024, Chromie Squiggle by Snowfro was the non-fungible token (NFT) collection in the art segment with the highest market capitalization, at roughly 238 million U.S. dollars. Chromie Squiggle is part of Art Blocks, an online art platform founded by artist Snowfro that focuses on generative art.

As of December 5, 2024, the market cap of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT projects available on the Ethereum blockchain and listed on OpenSea was worth roughly 809 million U.S. dollars. As of that month, Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible tokens reported one of the highest market caps of profile picture (PFP) NFT collections worldwide. PFP NFTs refer to non-fungible tokens commonly used as profile pictures on social media accounts.

Most of the largest NFTs in September 2023 are those that received lots of media attention in 2022. Examples include art collections CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club - which revolve around randomly generated pictures of digital avatars and virtual monkeys, respectively. Metaverse related NFTs - The Sandbox and Decentraland, which represent virtual land and real estate inside those two worlds - also ranked relatively high. Talin, by comparison, is a more unknown NFT in this ranking. The 3D art piece collection focuses on spiritual talismans.

Transactions in NFTs were significantly lower in 2024 than during the summer of 2021 when several tokens gained popularity. Most of these transactions were likely related to play-to-earn Vietnamese video game Axie Infinity, which became the world's most valuable NFT collection in August 2021 - although its sales volume did decline since. The gaming segment reported the highest sales volume of the non-fungible token (NFT) market in 2020, with over six times the sales in sports projects. The overall market cap of NFTs in 2024, however, was noticeably smaller. NFT in 2024: Searching for legitimacy While cryptocurrency and Bitcoin saw their interest surge in early 2024 after the acceptance of Bitcoin ETFs in the United States, the NFT market has been struggling. For the larger audience, non-fungible tokens still seemed to be confusing what they are supposed to do, whereas crypto increasingly found legitimacy. The slowdown in the NFT market led one of the world's largest NFT marketplaces, OpenSea, to lay off large parts of its staff in October 2023. Solana to pave the way for NFTs? One of the blockchain networks that is closely affiliated with NFTs in 2024 is that of Solana. The monthly sales volume of this blockchain outperformed that of Ethereum in January 2024, causing Solana's market share in the overall crypto market to reach its highest value ever. Solana's position comes from relatively low costs but especially high transaction speeds and the sizable airdrops from multiple projects. This attracted significant amounts of capital, further fuelling the network. Solana's growth may provide the framework for the NFT market as a whole, as it slowly seeks to take over Ethereum's position in this part of the decentralized digital asset world.

The market cap from NFT multiverse Decentraland was worth between 800 million and 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in September 2021 alone. Originally developed in Argentina, the 3D virtual reality platform is built on top of the Ethereum blockchain and combined elements of a marketplace, an online video game, and cryptocurrencies. In the game, people explore and build like Minecraft but some of the players own parts of the game world or its real estate - called LAND - which can be bought or sold using the game's cryptocurrency - called MANA - in the in-game marketplace, along with wearables and other in-game clothing for the players' digital characters. Similar to NFT game Alien Worlds, ownership of LAND gives players a say on what will happen on their plots - as visitors and brands add value to LAND. In way, Decentraland resembles property development.

From April 2021 to February 2025, the number of sales involving non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the art segment declined significantly. As of April 15, 2021, roughly 28,400 NFTs were sold in the art segment during the previous 30 days. While total sales peaked at around 117,400 as of August 15, 2021, they have experienced an overall decreasing trend since then. As of February 15, 2025, the aggregated number of sales recorded on the Ethereum, Ronin, and Flow blockchains over 30 days was approximately 2,200. What is the sales value of art and collectibles NFTs? In 2023, the global sales value of art and collectibles NFTs declined sharply over the previous year, with these two segments generating, combined, roughly 7.5 billion U.S. dollars. That year, collectibles were by far the most profitable NFT segment, accounting for over 80 percent of total sales. What are the most popular NFT collections? In 2024, CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club were the profile picture non-fungible tokens with the highest market cap. These collections, also known as PFP NFTs, refer to those non-fungible tokens that have often been used as profile pictures on social media. When focusing on the art segment, Chromie Squiggle by Snowfro was the NFT art collection with the highest market cap in 2024.

Out of the big soccer clubs worldwide that offer fan tokens, Paris Saint-Germain's market cap was over 20 million U.S. dollars higher than that of FC Barcelona. Fan tokens from the Catalan club became especially popular in April 2021 after they were listed on crypto trading platform Binance - explaining the sudden growth in market cap around that time. The market cap increase for PSG is less clear, although there have been reports that Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi received "a large amount of" cryptocurrency fan tokens as a signing on fee at the French club. Regardless, fan tokens - or NFTs issued by sports clubs that grant owners special perks or give them (limited) ownership over their favorite team, and can be bought and traded like cryptocurrencies - became increasingly popular in 2021. This development originally started in Italy to spread to Spain and Turkey, with AS Roma and Manchester City becoming the latest clubs to join in this trend.

The market cap of Decentraland's MANA token - used to power one of the world's most well-known decentralized metaverses - peaked in November 2022. The value reached that month was a consequence of both a heavy interest in NFT games from August onwards, as well as the rebranding of Facebook in Meta. The latter, especially, introduced many to the concept of what a "metaverse" could be. This spilled over to already existing metaverses like Decentraland, as many wanted to jump on board this newest digital trend. MANA is the Ethereum-based cryptocurrency found within the Decentraland metaverse, with which users can buy goods and services within this virtual world. Most famously, MANA allows people to buy LAND tokens - or virtual plots of land on which they can build their own real estate.

The market cap of NFT, or non-fungible tokens, shows a fast moving development, growing more than 3,000 percent between 2020 and 2021. The source of these figures states that coming up with a market capitalization for a market this young is "a tricky exercise" and even mentions this particular estimate is "conservative". The volatile nature of developments in this new market can also be seen in the transaction volume of NFT for various segments as well as the market size of NFT within the same segments: Transactions declined for gaming, whilst value grew for arts. This latter aspect was demonstrated in early 2021, when an NFT digital artwork was sold in an auction for roughly 69 million U.S. dollars - making it the third-most expensive art piece ever sold from a living artist.

Blockchain approved: the application of NFT Non-fungible tokens refer to unique, non-transferable digital assets stored in blockchain. This one-of-a-kind asset is something that cannot be tinkered with, but can still be traded as an asset or bought with a cryptocurrency such as Ethereum. Essentially, this makes an NFT a digital certificate of authenticity: The token serves as a unique code connected to a file, allowing to distinguish the original file from copies floating around on the Internet. This relatively new technology allows for various applications. Several famous examples of where NFT was used include the aforementioned 69m USD auction sale, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey selling his very first tweet through NFT marketplace Valuables or sports platform Top Shot - where basketball fans can buy and collect packs of NBA highlights. NFT is also used for investments, with an investor specializing in this technology ranking among Europe's biggest Fintech investors in the seed stage.

2021: the cryptocurrency Renaissance The NFT art auction occurred in a year where the price of several cryptocurrencies grew significantly, and general interest in crypto or blockchain reached new heights. The price for a single Bitcoin, for instance, hit an all-time high of 60,000 U.S. dollars in March 2021, slightly over a month after Tesla announced it had bought 1.5 billion U.S. dollars worth of the world's most well-known cryptocurrency and it planned to accept Bitcoin as a payment method for its Model 3 car.

Beeple's First 5000 Days digital artwork was by far the most expensive non-fungible token (NFT) sold in 2021 at the time of publication, with most other projects stemming from gaming and collectibles. Mike Winkelmann's piece was also significantly more expensive than other art pieces, with Hairy's #1/1 being sold for roughly 550 ETH (or 1,000 U.S. dollars) on March 14, 2021. Note the significant price difference between this piece and the collectible CryptoPunk 6487 on February 22: Both sold for around 550 ETH, but their value in USD varied significantly due to both the Ethereum price as the transactions cost for the cryptocurrency - something referred to as the Ethereum gas price. It is this price difference that increasingly led people in 2021 to see NFT, or non-fungible tokens, as a viable tool for investment. Indeed, the NFT market cap grew nearly ten-fold between 2018 and 2020.

A league table of the 120 cryptocurrencies with the highest market cap reveals how diverse each crypto is and potentially how much risk is involved when investing in one. Bitcoin (BTC), for instance, had a so-called "high cap" - a market cap worth more than 10 billion U.S. dollars - indicating this crypto project has a certain track record or, at the very least, is considered a major player in the cryptocurrency space. This is different in Decentralize Finance (DeFi), where Bitcoin is only a relatively new player. A concentrated market The number of existing cryptocurrencies is several thousands, even if most have a limited significance. Indeed, Bitcoin and Ethereum account for nearly 75 percent of the entire crypto market capitalization. As crypto is relatively easy to create, the range of projects varies significantly - from improving payments to solving real-world issues, but also meme coins and more speculative investments. Crypto is not considered a payment method While often talked about as an investment vehicle, cryptocurrencies have not yet established a clear use case in day-to-day life. Central bankers found that usefulness of crypto in domestic payments or remittances to be negligible. A forecast for the world's main online payment methods took a similar stance: It predicts that cryptocurrency would only take up 0.2 percent of total transaction value by 2027.

Cash and deposits, as well as bonds, loans, and ETFs are expected to be the most likely financial products to see tokenization by 2030. This is according to a forecast made in the summer of 2024, which gathered data from multiple different sources. It did so to estimate roughly how big and what financial products would most likely be adopting real-world asset (RWA) tokenization in the future. The topic of tokenization on the blockchain received much attention since 2024 - with market size estimates varying significantly between sources - as the finance industry seeks ways to improve its technical capabilities and deal with increasing amounts of regulation.

Both total transactions as well as unique buyers of NFT collectible NBA Top Shot were significantly higher in 2021 than in 2020. The partnership between the NBA and Dapper Labs - creators of another popular NFT called CryptoKitties - deals with virtual basketball cards: These cards consist of video clips or "moments" of specific players in the NBA, including the likes of LeBron James, Luka Doncic, and Steph Curry, and can either be bought directly from Top Shot through pack drops or be traded on an online marketplace. Noticeable is the growth in unique buyers in March 2021, whereas transaction volume stayed relatively the same. The source does not clarify why this specific month led to a big growth in the player base, although it is around the time that the traditional All-Star Game occurs. Regardless, NBA Top Shot stands out as one of the biggest NFTs there is, with some sources stating the collectible reached a market cap that was worth more than one billion U.S. dollars.

Respondents from the United States, UK, Canada, and Germany were much less likely to have or buy NFTs in 2022 than adults from other countries in the world. Comparing results from several Google Surveys held across the world in September 2022 reveals that non-fungible tokens were especially popular in Southeast Asia and Latin America. Although the source admits the methodology used is not flawless, the position of certain countries in this ranking is noticeable. Take, for instance, the Philippines: The country hit the news as it decided to making earnings from NFT game Axie Infinity - originally from Vietnam - taxable, causing sales made within Axie Infinity to decline. Indeed, the source suspects that the high percentage observed in some countries are "likely" caused by gaming NFTs or metaverses, online games where people can earn money by playing the game of trading the game's in-house cryptocurrency. Another example of such a platform is Argentina's Decentraland, a 3D virtual reality platform where users can - amongst other things - buy and sell virtual real estate called LAND. The market cap of this particular metaverse jumped to over four billion U.S. dollars in October 2021, as the platform became increasingly popular.

Ethereum's price history suggests that that crypto was worth significantly less in 2022 than during late 2021, although nowhere near the lowest price recorded. Much like Bitcoin (BTC), the price of ETH went up in 2021 but for different reasons altogether: Ethereum, for instance, hit the news when a digital art piece was sold as the world's most expensive NFT for over 38,000 ETH - or 69.3 million U.S. dollars. Unlike Bitcoin - of which the price growth was fueled by the IPO of the U.S.' biggest crypto trader Coinbase - the rally on Ethereum came from technological developments that caused much excitement among traders. First, the so-called 'Berlin update' rolled out on the Ethereum network in April 2021, an update which would eventually lead to the Ethereum Merge in 2022 and reduced ETH gas prices - or reduced transaction fees. The collapse of FTX in late 2022, however, changed much for the cryptocurrency. As of March 25, 2025, Ethereum was worth 2,067.76 U.S. dollars - significantly less than the 4,400 U.S. dollars by the end of 2021.Ethereum's future and the DeFi industry Price developments on Ethereum are difficult to predict, but cannot be seen without the world of DeFi - or Decentralized Finance. This industry used technology to remove intermediaries between parties in a financial transaction. One example includes crypto wallets such as Coinbase Wallet that grew in popularity in recent years, with other examples including smart contractor Uniswap, Maker (responsible for stablecoin DAI), money lender Dharma and market protocol Compound. Ethereum's future developments are tied with this industry: Unlike Bitcoin and Ripple, Ethereum is technically not a currency but an open-source software platform for blockchain applications - with Ether being the cryptocurrency that is used inside the Ethereum network. Essentially, Ethereum facilitates DeFi - meaning that if DeFi does well, so does Ethereum.NFTs: the most well-known application of EthereumNFTs or non-fungible tokens grew nearly ten-fold between 2018 and 2020, as can be seen in the market cap of NFTs worldwide. These digital blockchain assets can essentially function as a unique code connected to a digital file, allowing to distinguish the original file from any potential copies. This application is especially prominent in crypto art, although there are other applications: gaming, sports and collectibles are other segments where NFT sales occur.

Bitcoin dominance steadily declined in April 2024 to below 50 percent, amid rumors of central banks halting or potentially lowering interest rates in the future. Within the crypto world, this so-called "dominance" ratio is one of the oldest and most investigated metrics available. It measures the coin's market cap relative to the overall crypto market — effectively showing how strong Bitcoin compared to all the other cryptocurrencies that are not BTC, called "altcoins". Why dominance matters is because market caps of any crypto can change relatively quickly, either due to sudden price changes or a change of recorded trading volume. Essentially, the figure somewhat resembles a trading sentiment, revealing whether Bitcoin investors are responding to certain events or whether Bitcoin is losing out on functions offered by, for example, stablecoins or NFT tokens. "Dominance" criticism: Ethereum and stablecoin The interpretation of the Bitcoin metric is not without its criticism. When first conceived, Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency to be created and had a substantial market share within all cryptocurrencies? The overall share of stablecoins, such as Tether, as well as Ethereum increasingly start to resemble that of Bitcoin, however. Some analysts argue against this comparison. For one, they point towards the large influence of trading activity between Bitcoin and Ethereum in the dominance metric. Second, they argue that stablecoins can be traded in for Bitcoin and Ethereum, essentially showing how much investors are willing to engage with "regular" cryptocurrency. A rally around Bitcoin in late 2023? By December 2023, the Bitcoin price reached roughly 41,000 U.S. dollars — the first time in 20 months such a value was reached. A weaker U.S. dollar, speculation on decreasing interest rates, and a potential Bitcoin ETF approval are believed to be at the heart of this price increase. Whether this will hold in 2024 is unclear: The monthly interest rate from the U.S. Fed is speculated to decrease in 2024, despite a vow of "higher for longer". In December 2023, the thought of decreasing interest rates and the potential of a Bitcoin ETF fuelled market sentiment towards riskier assets.

NBA Top Shot moments involving LeBron James were bought and sold for for much more money than that of several upcoming and younger NBA stars combined. Dallas Mavericks' Luka Doncic and Zion Williamson from New Orleans Pelicans made up the second and third position - with the latter especially being a player who had a more recent breakthrough in the basketball world when compared to other high-ranking players in this list. NFT collectible NBA Top Shot deals with virtual basketball cards. They are video clips or "moments" of specific players in the NBA and can either be bought directly from Top Shot through pack drops or be traded on an online marketplace. Top Shot stands out as one of the biggest NFTs there is, with some sources stating the collectible reached a market cap that was worth more than one billion U.S. dollars.