Last year, something astonishing happened in the non-fungible tokens (NFT) realm: Market size reached $41 billion —just as valuable as the art world’s market. 2021 became, no doubt, the year of NFTs as they went from a sub-billion-dollar industry to a multi-decabillion business, as Messari’s analyst Mason Nystrom put it.
Collections such as CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club became viral and made their owners build a barrier of status around them. But more than that, NFTs have become a crypto world proxy for retail investors with under-$10,000 transactions representing over 75% of the market.
According to a Chainalysis report, in the nine months between late February and November last year, 360,000 NFT owners held 2.7 million NFTs between them. Within this group, almost 9% —32,400 wallets— seized 80% of the value of the market.
This year, things continue to evolve at a riveting pace in the NFT world and the fight is also fought in the Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) arena, where Design Bundles has extracted the most popular ones on the search engine by monthly global searches.
Axie Infinity – 3.86 Million Global Searches (CRYPTO: AXS)
According to Design Bundles data, Axie Infinity is the most Googled NFT so far in 2022. The ethereum-based (CRYPTO: ETH) video game took the search engine by storm given the sheer increase in popularity among investors and net surfers alike.
In late February, Axie Infinity set an NFT sales record of $4 billion on 2 million traders with a sold collectibles average price of $198.
“Axie Infinity’s growth has been considerable since six months ago its trading volume stood at $1.1 billion,” according to Crypto Potato.
The Sandbox – 553,000 Global Searches (CRYPTO: SAND)
The Sandbox reached the second spot on Google as it hit over half a million searches since December 2021. The leading gaming virtual world had an upswing on February 22 when rapper Snoop Dog announced the launch of his collection called “The Doggies” —comprising 10,000 playable NFTs conceived by the star himself.
SAND’s price went up by 10% on the announcement and saw a 3.17% increase in 24 hours on March 2, and hit $3.35. The cryptocurrency’s surge that day followed a 2.0% jump the previous week —at the time of writing, SAND’s all-time high is $8.40.
NBA Top Shot – 477,000 Global Searches
The virtual trading cards of NBA moments shot up to third place in terms of Google searches. Creator Dapper Labs says that ever since its introduction, NBA Top Shot has generated over $230 million in sales, “although most of this has come from traders exchanging the collectibles after their initial sale.”
Lars Rensing, CEO of blockchain service provider Protokol, said: “It’s a nice evolution and good to see that people are still doing collectibles, even during this time.”
In the space of 30 days up until January 22, NBA Top Shot surged by 72% in terms of secondary market sales with $53.8 million, according to CryptoSlam data. Dapper Labs also expanded its NFT range by launching the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) collectibles.
Sorare – 417,000 Global Searches
It was for only 60,000 Google searches that Sorare did not come head to head with NBA Top Shot on this list. Sorare has also made its way into sports —the English Premier League is set to auction its first NFT license, and the company is aiming to secure a deal to produce the collectibles.
With regards to inquiries by the U.K. Gambling Commission over Sorare’s gambling license, a company spokesperson said: “It’s completely natural that regulators would want to scrutinize emerging trends, or new technologies, and act in the interests of consumers.”
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