DappRadar, One of the Leading Decentralized Application Stores, Has Released Its 2021 Report.
NFTs and Decentralized Applications (dApps) took over in 2021. Compared to 2020, dApp usage grew 7x to 2.7 million daily active users. Not only just dApps, NFTs saw massive growth. Reaching USD $23B in total sales across marketplaces this year alone, there is no doubt that NFTs are here to stay.
DappRadar Head of Finance and Research Modesta Masoit even make their prediction for next year’s craze.
“We’ve seen crucial progression in the dapp space this year, placing us on the cusp of mass adoption. While 2020 was ‘The Year of DeFi’, 2021 is certainly ‘The Year of NFTs’, with gaming thrown in in bulk over the last quarter. As these three categories converge, 2022 will, I expect, come to be known as ‘The Year of the Metaverse’”.
The Year of NFTs
With projects releasing daily this year, and massive companies like:
- Nike
- Coca-Cola
- Adidas
- Gucci
stepping into the industry, the NFT space grew exponentially. With trading volume hitting $23B, the Top 100 NFT Collection floor market cap reached USD $16.7B.
What Was the Catalyst for This Growth?
NBA Top Shot. DapperLabs and Flow blockchain’s NBA highlight collecting marketplace saw USD $226 million in volume in February of this year alone. This accounted for 46% of the total recorded NFT trading volume to that point.
From there, NFT mania took off. In the first six months of 2021, the NFT space saw USD $2.5B in total trades. But, as as the market went into Q3, the market exploded. The release of the most popular projects currently available, like:
- Cool Cats
- CyberKongz
- MAYC
- Loot
- Art Blocks Curated
created a surge in the market that saw USD $10.7B in Q3 alone.
Why Can’t I Screenshot NFTs?
The idea of NFTs coming with a sort of utility baked into each unique NFT in the collection came about this year. Larva Labs airdropped Meebits to all CryptoPunks holders this past May.
With the release of Bored Apes Yacht Club at the end of April, the idea of community-driven collections was now plausible. These NFTs granted access into exclusive communities and gave access to exclusive events and drops.
Games driven by NFT ownership gave further utility to collectors this year. The idea of Play-to-earn games and the “Metaverse” became household topics this year, especially for NFT collectors. NFTs that gave keys to Play-to-earn games contributed 22% to the Q3 explosion mentioned before.
The Play-To-Earn Revolution
The growth of play-to-earn (P2E) games was almost unfathomable this year. In March of this year, DappRadar states Axie Infinity had 20k Daily Active Users. At this time, daily active users have surpassed 2.5 million. In other words, a 12,400% increase. Axie itself accounted for 19.5% of the $10.6B in total trading volume seen in Q3.
Splinterlands also saw incredible growth this year. The P2E game on the Hive chain, became the most played game this year based on on-chain data. Seeing 350,000 daily active wallets currently, the player base has grown 1406% since release. All of these wallets did 1.65 million transactions in Q3, mostly stemming from the SPS token release.
Where Are We Going With NFTS in 2022?
The term “Metaverse” may very well be the most used word in 2022. The DappRadar report describes the metaverse as:
“The metaverse looks to become the parallel reality where we socialize, trade, play, and even work. This space will transform our current lifestyle as it can create a whole new economy to meet the virtual society’s developing digital needs and preferences”.
With the announcement of Facebook’s rebranding to Meta, the value of Metaverse-related assets skyrocketed. From October to November, after the Meta announcement, trading volume surged 719% month over month.
Of the Top 100 NFT project floor market cap mentioned before, 25% of that figure is represented by virtual real estate. That represents a total market floor cap of $4 billion at the time of writing.
Not only just land, but metaverse tokens saw massive growth as well this year.
The top performing tokens this year:
GALA +31,552%
AXS +20,830%
SAND +14,872%
CUBE +4,877%
MANA +4,635%
Recap
The DappRadar report was quite lengthy. Coming in at 46 pages, there was plenty of fantastic content hidden within. But where are we going from here?
One thing is for sure, NFTs aren’t going anywhere. With the influx of cash, we’ve seen put into the ecosystem over the last 6 months, there is no doubt that the market believes in the future of this tech.
What should you be investing in going into 2022?
Metaverse land and gamefi tokens. With the trends, we are seeing in both of those areas, and the amount of whale and VC money we’ve seen flow into both this year, this seems like the play of the future. Metaverse land, tokens and accessories, as well as P2E tokens and NFT pieces, are set to see a surge in 2022. Don’t miss out.
Note: Remember always to do your research, make your own decisions, and invest in projects that interest you!
Follow our new Altcoin Buzz Public NFT Wallet to keep an eye on collections we’re buying, selling, and holding! Use this as a jumping-off point for your research.
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