Alongside DeFi, NFTs remain at the frontline of the cryptosphere, causing a widespread hysteria that can only be compared to the ICO boom in 2017. For most of the time, however, NFTs have trailed DeFi in terms of interest, but that has now changed. They have hit stratospheric points of late, and search engine results conform to this.
An unfolding love affair between art, real estate, collectible enthusiasts, and the metaverse birthed one of the biggest factions of the digital asset space. NFT data aggregator, Non-Fungible reported in 2020 that the industry grew by 300% from the previous year. At the time of the report, the NFT industry was reportedly worth about $250 million.
The growth ever since then has been nothing short of staggering. Enthusiasts have doled out millions of dollars for digital artworks, celebrity NFTs, digitized albums, rare collectibles, and tweets. Yes, tweets…
Many are dumbstruck by the recent craze, wondering why anyone will splurge such mammoth figures on digital items. Perhaps this accounts for the recent surge in NFT searches.
Queries for NFTs have blazed past DeFi, after remaining in its shadow for a long time. DeFi search count peaked between January 1st to 6th before declining and intersecting with NFTs late last month. NFT searches have ballooned since then. Its current search count is almost three times that of DeFi.
CryptoPotato recently reported that NFT searches recently eclipsed those of “ICO” recorded in its peak period. From all indications, NFTs are presently the biggest phenomenon in the industry and are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
While skeptics argue NFTs are a bubble, enthusiasts remain unfazed as they continue to splurge enormous sums to acquire tokenized assets.
Yesterday, Beeple’s auction for “The First 5000 Days” digital artwork ended. A breathtaking sum of $69 million emerged as the winning bid for the highly coveted NFT. The avant-garde features a combination of 5000 artworks on a single canvas. The brain behind the piece, Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple, created each of the digital art that make up the piece in the last 5000 days.
Non-NFT fans can’t seem to wrap their heads around these figures, but NFT owners understand these assets can be worth a fortune in the future. A demonstrable example is the returns on CryptoPunks. One of the nine alien CryptoPunks, which was purchased for $15k in 2018, just sold for $8 million. That is a startling 53,000% return. If this doesn’t reflect the future potentials of the industry, it is difficult to tell what else will.