In 2021 we see the beginning of a revolution in finance and innovation, the NFT. It has become a buzzword in the tech world, even being named Keyword of the Year by the Collins Dictionary, and Google searches have skyrocketed to record levels.

The NFT is a $ 17 billion market. OpenSea is responsible for handling most of these transactions, with the transaction volume recently topping $ 10 billion.

NFT’s potential extends well beyond art and encompasses music, sports collectibles and gaming items, while its usefulness includes ownership and exclusive access to functions and features.

From CryptoPunks and Beeple collages to NBA Top Shot and RTFKT, the collections are not only outstanding in terms of volume, but also have an extremely growing community.

In this article, we take a look at the top 10 NFT collections and sales this year.

CryptoPunks – Larva Labs

CryptoPunks is a symbol of NFT, which was introduced in 2017 before the NFT standard ERC-721. Larva Labs released all 10,000 punks for free to Ethereum users, and since then the popularity and value of CryptoPunks in the secondary market have exploded.

Source: Larva Labs

In June 2021, an alien (alien) punk sold at Sotheby’s for $ 11.75 million. In August, Visa acquired $ 150,000 worth of CryptoPunk for its corporate collection, and Hollywood agency UTA signed an agreement to use CryptoPunks in mainstream media. This was a record month for CryptoPunks, selling $ 400 million. In September, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian attended the Met Gala Coat of arms- CryptoPunk is pinned to the shirt.

CryptoPunks recorded the highest trading volume on OpenSea with 756,984 ethers ($ 3.03 billion). Its growing value and historical relevance make it the leading NFT collection.

Bored Ape Yacht Club – Yuga Labs

The collection with the second highest trading volume in history is the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) with 266,843 ETH ($ 1.07 billion).

On its website, the core team at Yuga Labs consists of four friends who “want to make some monkeys”. The main artist of BAYC is All See Seneca. As the owner of one of 10,000 Bored Apes, an NFT can double as a Yacht Club membership and only grant the member access to THE BATHROOM, Bored Ape Kennel Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC).

In September, Sotheby’s sold a collection of 107 BAYC NFTs, including 101 Bored Apes and six Mutant Apes, for $ 24.4 million. This is the third highest sale of off-chain NFT artwork on an auction house to date after Beeple’s NFT works. In November, the surge in OpenSea sales appeared to be related to an increase in BAYC and MAYC-NFT sales of over 900%, possibly due to well-known buyers like Jimmy Fallon, Post Malone, the introduce BAYC NFT in a music video and the cover of Bored Ape and Mutant Ape for Rolling Stone magazine. Most recently, BAYC was part of a four-way partnership between PUNKS Comic, Gmoney and Adidas Originals to launch Adidas’ NFT project “Into the Metaverse”.

On Tuesday, BAYC’s NFT exceeded the CryptoPunks price floor for the first time, showing public optimism about its future.

Beeple

Artist Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple, holds the record for the most expensive digital artwork ever sold at a public NFT auction, according to Art Market Research.

After auction house Christie’s sold $ 69.3 million for Beeples “Everdays: The First 5000 Days” in March 2021, Beeples “HUMAN ONE” sold for $ 28.9 million in November LED display. It can be viewed physically, unlike most NFTs that live in digital wallets. According to Christie’s, the image material on the screen is regularly edited and updated by Winkelmann using the blockchain in response to current events.

Beeple became a household name in 2021, especially after winning GQ’s Maddox Gallery Artist of the Year in September and speaking to Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show.

Axie Infinity – Sky Mavis

Axie Infinity broke records when the game became the first DApp to exceed $ 2 billion in NFT transaction volume that year, according to an industry report by DappRadar Q3. Axie ranks second after CryptoPunks in terms of trading volume. The game recently moved to a ronin sidechain solution and had revenue of over $ 776 million in the third quarter.

Source: Axie Infinity

Axies are characters that are used to battle other players, battle opponents, and complete daily quests. These NFTs can be bred (minted), bought, and sold, and are valued for their rarity and in-game use. In November, a piece of land in the NFT monster fighting game was sold for 550 ETH ($ 2.3 million).

Axie Infinity Co-Founder Jeff “Jiho” Zirlin spoke during a panel discussion at the NFT BZL conference earlier this month about his belief that “we are in a battle for the future of the internet and grassroots communities like Axie have an impact big corporations have it ”, alluding to the corporations Facebook and Apple.

Axie Infinity was first founded in 2018 and is currently leading the gaming industry as a pioneer in the play-to-earn (P2E) movement. And since the start of the staking program, which allows users to hold AXS tokens, Axie Infinity Shards has been attracting more and more players.

NBA Top Shot – Dapper Labs

NBA Top Shot is a popular fantasy basketball NFT game that first launched in late 2020. As the first sports collectible game of its kind, users can collect, trade, and sell cards as a digital token that represents their favorite NBA players and moments. Highlights can be used to complete challenges or organize in cabinets for display

Source: NBA Top Shot

This summer, Top Shot collectors who personally attended NBA Summer League games in Las Vegas were able to purchase moments live in the arena. It also welcomed the WNBA to Top Shot and presented its first WNBA packdrop.

Officially licensed by the National Basketball Association, NBA Top Shot was developed by Dapper Labs and is based on the Flow blockchain. According to DappRadar, the historical trading volume is $ 750.4 million. The three best-selling NFTs are LeBron James NFTs from the 2019-2020 Los Angeles Lakers season.

VeeFriends – Gary Vaynerchuk

Behind VeeFriends is businessman Gary Vaynerchuk, also known as Gary Vee, who is both the artist and the founder of the project. His hand-drawn animal doodles sold out at auction for $ 51 million the first week in May. After 90 days, VeeFriends had total sales of $ 91 million. With an additional $ 40 million, Vaynerchuk receives 10% royalties on every secondary transaction. In October, Christie’s auctioned five VeeFriend figures for more than $ 1.2 million.

The VeeFriends Collection is made up of 10,255 NFT characters, and each NFT represents intellectual property. The advantage of owning VeeFriend is the three-year admission to the multi-day VeeCon super conference. An NFT called “Hangout Hawk” even has the option of having mentoring sessions with Vaynerchuk. A collector, YouTuber Dan Markham, swapped his Tesla Roadster for the NFT by cartoonist Eli Burton “Positive Porcupine”. In the chain Twitter Next up, VeeFriends will showcase its latest partnerships with companies from card game maker Uno to department store Nordstrom.

FLUF world

FLUF World is a collection of metaverse-enabled 3D avatars called FLUF that works as an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain. FLUF is a program-controlled generated rabbit avatar. In an interview, the New Zealand-based founders of FLUF World shared their approach to joining the Metaverse. “We strongly believe that Web 3.0 Metaverse is an innovative, community-led vision,” they said, adding:

“When you start with stories and build them into characters, people fall in love with those characters. And we really wanted to build them up so that they were dynamic and engaging. It’s not a static work of art. You can name them according to your mood or mood, change the background or add new music. All of this data is stored in the chain. And the users are part of our co-creation journey. ”

During Miami Arts Week, FLUF World hosted a FLUF in-house event to showcase FLUF pop star AngelBaby, who performed the first ever live fusion concert for both actual and virtual attendees. The FLUF House hosts events that bring real world artists into the Metaverse, which is FLUF World’s way of staying connected to the real world.

Users can purchase virtual real estate called Burrows which will serve as a meeting place for FLUF and other avatars. The latest addition to FLUF World includes 9,669 party bears that sold out within 10 minutes of launch for users looking for a new avatar to explore the metaverse alongside the existing FLUF and Spider Thingies.

Jadu hoverboards and jetpacks – Jadu AR Inc.

Canadian singer Grimes, seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton and legendary American rapper Snoop Dogg all have in common with developer Jadu, they are all behind a series of NFT Jadu rare hoverboards that allow players to fly around the Metaverse using augmented reality (AR). The NFT 6,666 Hoverboard Collection marks the company’s second NFT sale. The first, consisting of 1,111 Jadu Jetpacks, sold out in 20 seconds with a total trading volume of 2,632 ETH ($ 10.5 million).

The Jadu Hoverboard Collection has generated a total trading volume of 1,873 ETH ($ 7.5 million) since its inception. Recently, Jadu raised $ 7 million in a seed round …