NFThistory is about to conquer a booming market

The blockchain ecosystem has been rapidly growing for the past few years. There are ups and downs of course, but it seems that the technology is here to stay as more and more corporations and other relevant stakeholders are investing a lot of time and resources into the adoption of the technology.

NFTs emerged in 2017 with the so-called CryptoKitties, and the market has seen significant growth since then. Given the recent rise in popularity, our expectation is that further explosive growth is inevitable in the coming years. Let’s take a look at the numbers:

• In 2017, the NFT industry market cap was measured at around $30 million.
• Despite the fact that 2018 was not the best year in the crypto investment industry, the market cap of NFT increased by almost 500%.
• In 2019, NFT’s market cap reached more than $210 million.
• In 2020, NFT transactions tripled, while the market cap was at around $338 million.
• In the first two months of 2021, NFT trading volume reached $342 million, exceeding the volume of the previous year..

We can see that the NFT market has been rapidly growing year by year. However, other figures show the rise in popularity among users as well:

• By 2020, the number of active wallets nearly doubled.
• More than $2 billion was spent on NFTs during the first quarter of 2021, which is an increase of about 2100% from Q4 2020.

Besides the clear growth in numbers, it is also crucial to mention that the NFT industry is on its way towards mainstream adoption. Many celebrities, top corporations and bands have stepped into the industry. A few examples:

• YouTuber Logan Paul sold 1,772 NFTs for $3.5 million;
• NBA Top Shot, an NFT marketplace for basketball highlight reels, has cleared $95 million in sales;
• A card of Paris Saint-Germain forward Kylian Mbappé was sold for $66,850;
• In March 2021, Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, sold his first tweet as an NFT for over $2.9 million;
• Kings of Leon released their new album in the form of NFTs.
• The most expensive NFT ever sold at auction to date was Beeple NFT that was purchased for over $60 million.