The rise of NFTs

Wow, 2021 has been an incredible year for NFTs…in Q1/2021, $2 billion of NFTs sales were recorded which was a 2,100% increase from Q1/2020 (when only $93 million were traded)! And Q3/2021, recorded sales of $10.7 billion dollars!

NFTs have clearly benefited from the crypto frenzy that we have seen in the last 12 months.

So, for those who are new to the NFT world, what are they?

NFT stands for non-fungible Token and they are a unique, non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a digital ledger using blockchain technology to establish proof of ownership. NFTs are collectable digital assets which are being used for many sectors such as art, gaming, music, real estate, entertainment, sport, and many more.

In simple terms, NFTs are digital tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum, but an NFT is unique and can not be exchanged like-for-like, and thus non-fungible. All kinds of easily reproduced digital files can be stored as NFTs in order to identify the original copy.

NFTs can be made from almost anything unique that can be stored digitally and which in essence holds value. Instead of receiving a physical collectible, an NFT owner gets a JPEG file with the proof that you own the original copy.

NFTs sit on a blockchain ledger maintaining the unique identity and ownership of the NFTs. And the NFT that identifies the ownership of the digital asset can be bought and sold, and the price is determined primarily by market demand.

Each NFT comprises a smart contract which provides the license to use the digital asset. What is amazing with NFTs is that the original creator also gets a percentage of future sales in addition to the original sale value. Given the high demand for many types of NFTs, NFT collections are often released as “drops” so the buyers must be quick on the day and time of the drop and be registered, have enough cryptocurrency in their wallet, and ready to buy. After the purchase, NFTs they are traded on many NFT portals such as Opensea, Rarible, Nifty Gateway, and many more.

What is amazing is that NFTs have created a new asset class for almost anybody. No longer is art only available to the “elite”!

Here are some interesting stats about NFT owners and the huge growth potential:

4,662.5M internet users

2,890M facebook users

300M discord users

189.2M twitter users

10.1M defi users

0.3M opensea (NFT marketplace) users

0.0009% of internet users own an NFT (Sept. 2021)

So we are just in the VERY early days of massive growth in this industry! Very exciting times… time to get on-board!

Homo Spacien Team