The NFT market has grown very strongly in 2021, with many potential projects. Below are the 5 outstanding NFT ecosystems of the past year.

#5: WAX

In fifth place is WAX, the blockchain created specifically for NFTs. It has everything businesses and creators need to share their collections with the world. WAX supports all Gaming, Marketplace, dApp and Exchange NFTs that can operate on a decentralized blockchain system.

According to DappRadar, WAX supports six markets. The most popular of these is AtomicMarket, which has seen $312 million in trading volume since its launch in early 2021. It is the second most popular project on the market after Axie Infinity.

The most popular WAX collection

The three most popular collections on WAX are Farmers World, Farming Tales, and Alien Worlds. But only Farmers World made the top 20 collections list and ranked #13 on the list of best-selling NFT collections of all time.

However, the whole situation could change soon as WAX has received very solid support from Amazon. Last week, the online retailer announced that it had invested in Dibbs, the sports card marketplace built on top of WAX. This partnership allows WAX to become one of the most successful NFT blockchains by 2022.

#4: SOLANA

In fourth place we have Solana. The project has seen tremendous growth with the adoption of SOL. Although it has only been around for a year, Solana has already formed a strong community in and around its ecosystem.

When launching Solana, the project announced that it would be a blockchain focused on financial transactions, with faster transaction processing speed and less overhead than Ethereum. While this is still the main feature of the project, NFT has also become an important part of the Solana ecosystem.

Solana has five markets, two of which are in the top 10. With Solanart, Magic Eden, Solana Monkey Business, DigitalEyes Market and Solsea, users can access a variety of collections and have attracted approximately 115,000 users to date. This ranks as the lowest number of users in the top 5.

According to DappRadar, the trading volume on these markets is just over $1 billion, while CryptoSlam hits $800 million. However, the Solana market has attracted the attention of the wealthiest NFT traders, which bodes well for future collections to be released on these platforms.

Solana NFT ecosystem collections

The collections presented at Solana are not very popular. None of the collections made the top 20, many of which are very similar to those on Ethereum. Like Degenerate Ape Academy and Solana Monkey Business. The Aurory Collection has the highest ratings on Solanart and is derived from the computer play-to-earn game. In terms of revenue, Aurory is currently ranked 36th in the market.

However, Solana NFT attracts many celebrities. For example, former First Lady of the United States Melania Trump announced that she will create her own collection of NFTs on the Solana blockchain, with prices starting at 1 SOL per NFT.

Basketball legend Michael Jordan will also enter this market. According to BasketballNetwork, Jordan and his partners will launch a new app called HEIR in 2022. The goal of the project is to become the primary platform for fans and collectors looking to start and trade an NFT business. HEIR is being built on the Solana blockchain, and the project has raised $10 million from early investors including Lonzo Ball and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

NFT will be a key driver of Solana’s growth over the coming year, particularly among athletes looking to get involved.

The next NFT blockchain on the list also aims to gain market share in esports.

#3: RIVER

In third place is FLOW. Flow blockchain design is based on games and digital assets. It is developed by the team at Dapper Labs who have created several successful projects such as CryptoKitties and Dapper Wallet.

Founded in 2018, Dapper Labs, like Solana, has a number of solid partnerships including the NBA, Warner Music Group and the UFC.

Much like Solana, Dapper has attracted some extremely popular investors like Google Ventures, Samsung, and Andreesen Horowitz.

However, the two ecosystems only have so much in common. Flow takes a different approach to growing in the NFT space. It focuses more on premium brands and the gaming market.

Flow ecosystem NFT marketplace

Flow Blockchain has only two NFT marketplaces, NBA Top Shot and Starly. Starly is a relatively new market under $400,000 in revenue, while NBA Top Shot is definitely the crown jewel of the blockchain.

NBA Top Shot ranks third in the NFT market, attracting nearly half a million traders. The NBA brand’s collection and design has been embraced by the crowd and has helped the platform grow at a rapid pace with no signs of slowing down.

NBA Top Shots is a Proof of Concept (PoC) project. The NFL created an exchange called NFL All Day. If it’s as successful as the NBA, then Flow could become one of the top three NFT blockchains.

And that’s not all, European football associations also want to get involved as La Liga plans to enter the market. If this yields good results, the Premier League could follow. By participating in major tournaments like these, the global reach can help Flow rise to the top of the blockchain space.

#2: RONIN

Second place goes to Ronin, an Ethereum sidechain. Ronin is the basic structure of the Axie Infinity game, gas fees will flow through this project when players trade AXS tokens.

Ronin itself is built similarly to many other Layer 1 blockchains, it is no different than Ethereum or even PayPal and eBay.

Many believe switching to Ronin is the right decision for Axie’s growth, as the blockchain bypasses the Ethereum network and allows for faster transactions with lower fees. Axie is currently the only game on the Ronin Network, but in the future the developers plan to host new games as well as other types of dApps such as Katana, Ronin’s own decentralized exchange.

Popularity of Ronin NFT ecosystem

The Ronin blockchain is less than a year old but has surged in popularity thanks to the game Axie Infinity, which has attracted almost 1.5 million traders with a staggering trading volume of up to $3.8 billion. This is the largest transaction volume for a collection.

Axie is the brand that made Ronin famous. This is the top game among all play to earn games. Currently, Axie attracts 2.5 million players monthly. Pokémon-inspired NFT games have become a steady source of revenue in less developed economies like the Philippines and Venezuela, with Venezuela accounting for 40% of Axie’s total users.

But the biggest problem with Ronin right now is that the entire development team relies on one hugely successful project, Axie. Meanwhile, all other top NFT blockchains have some kind of project in development or are relying on the creation of multiple communities.

#1: Ethereum

The top spot goes to Ethereum, the original NFT ecosystem and the undisputed leader in the crypto world. Over 90% of digital assets on the network are ERC-721 tokens, including Axie Infinity (Ethereum sidechain).

Surely NFT enthusiasts have heard about the Cryptopunks and Bored Apes collection. In it, Bored Apes generated over $1.8 billion in revenue, an insane number for a crypto first.

As a large number of NFTs were created on the Ethereum blockchain over the past year, gas fees have also increased. This led to the emergence of Solana, a competitor to Ethereum, as well as the emergence of the Ronin sidechain. But Ethereum is working on a solution to this situation and is preparing to move to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm next year. Then perhaps the network will be more open and gas fees will fall.

Ethereum NFT ecosystem

We start with OpenSea, currently the largest NFT marketplace. Total OpenSea trading volume has reached $13.2 billion, more than all other markets combined. Of course, some other projects focus on single collections or don’t really include many NFTs, while OpenSea tries to provide as many NFTs as possible.

Ethereum’s NFT ecosystem itself is already very strong, encompassing dozens of trading platforms and over $11 billion in total revenue. Considering the rapidly growing number of Ethereum users and users connecting to the sidechain – Ronin, the number of people buying and selling NFTs on the Ethereum network is likely to grow steadily.

Two other notable NFT marketplaces are Decentraland and Sandbox, however they function as Metaverse projects. 2022 could be the year of lightning-fast growth in the Metaverse space, so these two projects could be the driving force behind the growth of Ethereum’s NFT market.

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