Kaleidoscope 2021: Booming NFT, These Are The Most Popular Non-Fungible Tokens Of The Year

6 Most Popular NFT Projects in 2021 (NFT Now)

JAKARTA – The popularity of non-fungible tokens (NFT) during 2021 experienced an astonishing growth. NFT has changed the face of contemporary art today. The explosion of blockchain-based digital art was marked by the sale of Mike Winkelmann (Beeple)'s The First 5,000 Days for 69 million US dollars at the famous London auction house, Sotheby's.

The popularity of NFT has skyrocketed after Facebook changed the company name to Meta which focuses on developing the virtual world of the metaverse. With the presence of the metaverse, all items there will use the NFT collection. Not only that, NFT is also starting to be used in various games play to earn or GameFi.

Reporting from CoinMarketCap Alexandria, not all NFT collections are as expensive as Beeple's works that were sold in early 2021. However, the price of the cheapest NFT collection will start to skyrocket in 2021. For example, Crypto Punks which in 2020 is trading in the range of 600 to 3,500 US dollars. In 2021, NFT Crypto Punks are trading between USD 480,000 to USD 1.25 million.

Based on the nftpricefloor.com report, the base prices for the two most important NFT collections namely Crypto Punks and Bored Ape Yacht Club are 65 ETH and 54 ETH. The two collections accounted for more than US$100 million in sales volume in 2021. Although NFT's sales volume had decreased last summer, the most popular collections tended to maintain their value.

Here are the most popular NFT collections of 2021 that you should know:

1. Crypto Punks

Crypto Punks was launched by Larva Labs in 2017. CryptoPunks is an NFT collection on the Ethereum blockchain. The project was launched in June 2017. Its developer, Larva Labs has only a two-person team consisting of Canadian software developers Matt Hall and John Watkinson. This NFT collection is sold on the Opensea.io marketplace.

According to information listed on Opensea, CryptoPunks launched 10,000 items in mid-2017 and became one of the inspirations for the ERC-721 standard. They have been exhibited at venues such as The New York Times, Christie's of London, Art|Basel Miami, and The PBS NewsHour.

2. The Bored Ape Yacht Club

The Bored Ape Yacht Club is an NFT collection of 10,000 unique apes launched in May 2021 for 0.08 ETH per NFT. The team managed to build a very dedicated community with an active Discord that attracted some big names. Two spin-offs from the original, Bored Ape Kennel Club, where the apes receive a free pet dog, and the Mutant Ape Yacht Club, a collection of mutated apes, also did well, though not as much as the original.

3. Meebits

Meebits are 20,000 unique 3D voxel characters, created by a special generative algorithm, then registered on the Ethereum blockchain. Meetbit launched at the same time as Crypto Punks launch and initially ran into a bit of a snag as half of the collection went into the hands of Crypto Punk holders. However, the unique 3D voxel characters hold up well, even though their base price is 2.6 ETH well below their peak price.

4. Nouns

According to the official website nouns.wtf, the Nouns collection is an attempt to increase the formation of an on-chain avatar community, where each avatar is equally rare.

Every day, one avatar is auctioned off. Thus, scarcity is built into the project by design. Nouns is perhaps the most unusual NFT project and generates almost no trading volume, also because its base price is at a hefty 55 ETH.

5. Loot

Loot is a project that generated a huge sensation during its launch last September. Unlike most other NFT collections, this is not a PFP collection, but a text based token that you can build around anything you want. This deliberate ambiguity and simplicity is well received in the crypto community. Soon, a community formed around the project and started building utilities around the text-based token.

6. Mekaverse

Mekaverse is almost the opposite of Loot, as it was probably the most anticipated NFT launch, generating a huge amount of hype in the run-up. 120,000 people tried to score one of the robots, leading to a very healthy 5 ETH base price soon after launch. However, as is often the case, the hype ended up not living up to expectations, and the Mekaverse suffered a fairly brutal drop to a 0.69 ETH bottom price at the time of writing.

These are the 6 most popular NFT projects throughout 2021 as summarized from CoinMarketCap Alexandria and various other sources. The skyrocketing popularity of NFT has also been accompanied by the entry of top artists and a number of large companies into the digital art industry.