In Brief:
- The sales of NFTs increased more than eightfold during the third quarter of 2021
- Quarter 3’s figure was up from $1.3 billion in Q2 and $1.2 billion in Q1.
Data from market tracker DappRadar shows that sales of non-fungible tokens (NFT) increased more than eightfold during the third quarter of 2021 as the crypto assets frenzy reached new highs.
Q3’s figure was up from Q2’s $1.3 billion and Q1’s $1.2 billion. The price rises of cryptocurrencies during the COVID-19 pandemic are usually cited as one reason for the growth of the NFT market, since people purchase NFTs with cryptocurrencies, but cryptocurrency supporters say the assets “stand alone.”
CryptoSlam, another market tracker that excludes “off-chain” sales, estimates total sales volume for the remainder of 2021 at $9.6 billion. DappRadar places the total at $13.2 billion, which includes multiple blockchains and “off-chain” transactions.
While NonFungible.com, which only tracks NFTs on Ethereum blockchain, estimates a total volume of $7 billion in 2021.
Christie’s sold a digital collage for $69.3 million in March, the highest known NFT sale. No NFT has come close to this price since, but auction houses still hold NFT sales, much of which fetch millions.
In the third quarter, Art Blocks, a U.S.-based company saw especially high growth which sells NFTs consisting of algorithmically-generated digital artwork. In September, the average Art Blocks price climbed to roughly $15,100 per NFT, up from $3,300 in July.
Recently, an Art Blocks NFT, Ringers #109, sold for 2100 Ethereum worth $7 million at that time. It became the most expensive NFT of the Art Blocks project.
Almost half of all NFTs sold in Q3 were priced between $101 and $1,000, 20% were priced between $1,001 and $10,000, and 17% were priced below $100.
Additionally, gaming-related non-financial tokens also surged, with blockchain-based Axie Infinity leading “play-to-earn” revenues with $776 million.
