2021: The Year of NFTs! A Review of the Top 10 NFT Projects in 2021

NFT had a glorious year in 2021, with its unexpected rise to fame leading the way for the crypto industry. From being relatively unknown to a household term, NFT even claimed the title of "Collins Dictionary's Word of the Year" in 2021. According to statistics, the usage of the term NFT increased by 110,000% over the course of the year.

(This article is authorized to be reproduced from BlockBeats, titled "Review of 2021: The Year of NFT – Top 10 Things You Need to Know About NFT," original article here)

In 2021, NFT also witnessed various breakout events and underwent multiple transformations. Today, BlockBeats has compiled a list of the top 10 NFT events of 2021 in chronological order.

NBA Top Shot

In early 2021, NBA Top Shot became the first to popularize NFTs.

Although NBA Top Shot had been testing since mid-2020, it wasn't until January 2021 that it exploded in popularity. These digital basketball cards attracted attention and active participation from numerous NFT enthusiasts, NBA fans, and physical basketball card collectors. At its peak, daily trading volume on NBA Top Shot reached $45 million. As of the time of writing, the total secondary market trading volume on NBA Top Shot has reached $811 million.

Among them, the highest-priced digital basketball card was a dunk by the famous player LeBron James during the 2020 Finals, which sold for $230,000.

Hashmasks

In February 2021, following NBA Top Shot, the next project to have a huge impact in the NFT space was Hashmasks.

The emergence of Hashmasks made people marvel at how blind box sales could be applied to NFTs, and the joint curve of the sale price generated a significant amount of FOMO. Hashmasks also introduced the concept of allowing people to participate in the collaborative process by naming their own collections, and the Name Change Token was the first to show how NFT collectibles could be combined with tokenomics.

Hashmasks' birth marked the beginning of the NFT series collecting frenzy. As of the time of writing, Hashmasks' secondary market trading volume has reached $83.4 million. The 9939th Hashmasks set a record for the highest transaction amount in the series, approximately $1.59 million.

Everydays : The First 5000 Days

In March 2021, artist Beeple's NFT artwork "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" landed at the prestigious auction house Christie's and sold for a record-breaking $69 million. This piece became the third highest-selling artwork by a living artist at the time.

This event caused a stir in the crypto art, NFT, and traditional art circles. It shifted the focus from the financial impact of NFTs, such as with NBA Top Shot, to recognizing the importance of NFTs as a new medium for digital art.

This masterpiece, composed of 5,000 daily creations by Beeple, led many NFT enthusiasts to proclaim the arrival of a great NFT revolution and the dawn of the NFT era.

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