The cryptocurrency boom over the past few years has helped propel a newer market to record heights: digital collectibles known as NFTs.
The craze has pushed total NFT sales volume to $29 billion over the past year as artists, investors, and entrepreneurs descend upon the nascent Web3 space.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique, irreplaceable, mostly digital items that users buy and sell online.
NFTs use blockchain technology to keep a digital record of ownership, similar to cryptocurrencies. They were first launched on ethereum, the same blockchain that supports the cryptocurrency ether, and most NFTs can still only be purchased using ether.
A months-long sell-off in cryptocurrencies and the implosion of TerraUSD has taken a bite out of NFT sales more recently. Weekly NFT sales have declined by more than 80% from its early January peak of nearly $1 billion, according to data from NonFungible.com.
The past week has seen weekly NFT sales decline 13% to $167 million from $191 million in the prior week, as newer entrants like Meebits and Goblintown maintained their dominance over the familiar NFT collections of Bored Ape Yacht Club and Cryptopunks.
These were the five best-selling collections over the past week, according to NonFungible.
5. CryptoPunks
7-Day Sales Volume: $5.6 million
Number of 7-Day Sales: 67
Highest Sale Price: $357,000
Explainer: “10,000 unique collectible characters with proof of ownership stored on the Ethereum blockchain. The project that inspired the modern CryptoArt movement.”
4. Otherside
7-Day Sales Volume: $11.3 million
Number of Sales: 1,011
Highest Sale Price: $661,000
Explainer: “Otherside is a gamified, interoperable metaverse currently under development by Yuga Labs. Players will own the world, NFTs can become playable characters, and thousands will be able to play together in real time.”
3. Goblintown
7-Day Sales Volume: $24.8 million
Number of Sales: 6,362
Highest Sale Price: $51,000
Explainer: “A collection of 10,000 goblin NFTs inhabiting goblintown. There’s not much to say about the goblins of goblintown other than they’re sweaty and enjoy snacking on rats.”
2. Bored Ape Yacht Club
7-Day Sales Volume: $25.4 million
Number of Sales: 453
Highest Sale Price: $390,000
Explainer: “BAYC is a collection of 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs — unique digital collectibles living on the Ethereum blockchain. Your Bored Ape doubles as your Yacht Club membership card, and grants access to members-only benefits.”
1. Meebits
7-Day Sales Volume: $42.8 million
Number of Sales: 222
Highest Sale Price: $254,000
Explainer: “From the creators of CryptoPunks, presenting Meebits. The next-gen ‘OG’, 3D voxel avatars ready for any metaverse applications. Building upon the success of CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs to supply provably scarce and fairly distributed 3D character avatars.”
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