Introduction
During the initial days of the launch of NFT, no one could ever predict that it will explode onto the scene in the coming years and the potential it will pose. It was narrowed down to the synonym of Art collectables. However, as time flies, people realize NFT is even more. And now, in 2021, this one-of-a-kind asset has become the fastest billion-dollar business in the crypto industry.
But, this doesn’t mean that this is the final and popular stage we are seeing of NFT. The ecosystem of these tokens is still mutating to make the crypto industry better. There are many ongoing projects which we can see in the NFT world and will continue to do so in the upcoming years.
Before discussing those projects, let’s first look at why NFT is so popular!
The rise in popularity of NFT
NFT, short for Non Fungible Tokens are the digital tokens that are created on Ethereum blockchain technology. As the name suggests, these kinds of tokens are indivisible, which cannot be divided into smaller units and cannot be replaced with other similar assets.
With the in-built digital code, NFTs are distinctive and in-exchangeable and can include the digital versions of assets, including sneakers, paintings, arts, GIFs, tweets, sports, paintings, highlights, and video games.
Although it was created way back in 2015, it started making headlines when crypto punks and crypto kitties were established in 2017. It became widely popular and stopped the growth of the Ethereum blockchain. But, it again went silent until 2020.
The NFT started rising in the first quarter of 2021 and it was estimated to be 26 times the growth. The features that have made NFT immensely widespread are:
- The data of this kind of token cannot be destroyed because they are stored on the blockchain.
- The owner of the NFT can be easily traceable with no involvement of a third party.
- The scarcity of NFT is a major element adding to the popularity of NFT.
- The unique code written on NFT makes it different and non-replaceable.
- None of the NFT can be saved even with the ‘Copy’ option.
Now, as we are now aware of the reason behind the popularity of NFT, let’s proceed further with the top 5 NFT projects of 2021
5 NFT Projects to know about
1. Beeple: Launched in 2021, Beeple is probably one of the well-known projects of this year. Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, has barely sold a few artworks in the real-life, has made $69 million by selling his digital artwork in the auction house organized by Christie.
This sale went viral, and this made Mike quite famous. Before this, his artworks were not even sold for $100 per print, but this recent sale on the NFT platform has made Mike one of the top three extravagant living artists globally.
The project name was “Everyday: The first 5000 days” which gained immense popularity and it was all because of the elements like uniqueness and non-fungible factors.
2. NBA Top Shot: NBA, in partnership with Dapper labs, owns one of the top projects of NFT, i.e. NBA Top Shot. This officially licensed blockchain application was launched for trading collectables that are built on Flow blockchain rather than Ethereum.
Here, the top videos, iconic moments in the basketball footage, are converted into NFT and are sold for exceptionally higher prices. Users can buy them and own them forever. NBA Top Shots also include information about player’s history and their statistics.
This project became an immense hit among basketball fanatics and reached a wider audience in a brief span of time.
3. Decentraland: Considered being one of the innovative projects of NFT, Decentraland is a digital platform that enables users to create and monetise applications and content. It is created on the Ethereum Blockchain where users can buy plots of virtual land, create customized avatars and can take part in trade rare and governance collectables.
This project uses MANA tokens by which the users can buy in-game assets and virtual land.
Decentraland is emerging as the biggest player in the world of NFT and these Mana tokens are almost at the tail end of reaching $1.
4. OpenSea: One of the major advantages of NFT marketplaces is that they deal with the trade of NFT 24/7. OpenSea is one of them which lists over 50 categories of rare assets for trading such as domain names, digital art, decentral and, cryptokitties, etc.
In just a month of August, OpenSea has made approximately 3.4 billion transactions volume and raised over 130 million solely as a fund.
This platform also allows developers to build marketplaces for their digital assets on Ethereum and interoperation standards, including ERC1155 and ERC721, and earn commission via secondary items.
5. CryptoPunks: Created by John Watkinson and Matt Hall in New York, CryptoPunks is one of the earliest NFT projects. However, it becomes a colossal hit in 2021 with $1 billion in sales. The uniquely generated characters known as ‘Punks’ (Covid Aliens) have gained the attention of both the buyers and sellers and became viral on Social Media.
Here, users can trade punks and can earn thousands of dollars. In this project, each user owns a single punk and each of the punks has unique characteristics and features depending on the attributes.
Initially, in April, the minimum value of the crypto punks was 30 thousand but now the minimum value is increased to over 300 thousand.
Conclusion
With the growth of NFT at such a high pace, it is quite possible that we could see a lot of upcoming projects in the coming future. Although, NFT still has a long way to go, and what makes it exciting is the surprising updates it brings for the users.