NFTs came out years ago, we are talking way back i.e., 2012. But NFTs blew up in the early months of 2021 and nobody knows why or how. If you don’t know what we are talking about or what NFTs are you are missing out!
In this article, we will talk about the Top 10 NFT Projects for 2021 to give you an insight into the digital world of NFTs.
The hype about NFTs is as real as it can get with the arts (and even a tweet) getting sold for millions of dollars. Whaaat…? Yes, everyone is talking about it. And it’s for a reason. Read on to know more…
What is NFT?
NFT stands for non-fungible tokens.
You must be wondering what is a non-fungible token, right?
Non-fungible tokens are one-of-a-kind i.e., unique digital assets.
How do you know it’s unique?
Well, the data related to the unit (NFT) is stored on a digital ledger i.e., a blockchain that authenticates the uniqueness of the digital asset and makes it irreplaceable.
Think of it like traditional art but instead of it being physical it exists digitally. And art… well not so much… haha…
NFTs are mostly photo, video, audio, and other types of digital files.
Can a tweet be an NFT? YES!! Well, it is if you are the founder of Twitter…😉
NFTs can be anything. But, then again who doesn’t want something rare?
We are listing down the top 10 NFT projects, their NFTs, sales, ranks, etcetera.
In short, we will tell you what the hype is all about!
TOP 10 NFT PROJECTS TO INVEST IN FOR 2021:
1. Crypto Punks
Crypto Punks is the first one on our list of top 10 NFT Projects. Crypto Punks is created as one of the first NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain back in June 2017. Created by a two-person team called Larva Labs consisting of software developers Matt Hall and John Watkinson.
The Crypto punks are pixel art images of mostly punk humans and also include apes, zombies, and aliens. The Crypto punks have 10,000 algorithmically and uniquely generated punks on the Ethereum blockchain.
Initially claimed quickly for free by people with an Ethereum wallet, now these 10,000 punks are available in the market for you to buy, sell, bid on. Not all 10,000 punks are available in the market for sale or bid. The total value of sales (lifetime) has reached $1.38billion (518.71K ETH) with an average sale price of 45.08 ETH ($135,842.04) of punk over the last year.
2. Axie Infinity
Axie Infinity is an NFT-based online video game wherein you need at least 3 Axies (NFT creatures) to play the game. Developed by Sky Mavis in 2017, this NFT project has made over $2 billion as the total value of sales (lifetime) as per DappRadar and also made it in our list of top 10 NFT projects.
Axie Infinity is an Ethereum based play-to-earn game, not a collectible. Players can create axies using AXS tokens and SLP utility tokens earned by playing the game. The Axies’ starting price is around $150-200.
This NFT based game has 1.5 million daily active players. With more than $751 million, the game’s collection represents about 83% of the total volume of NFT Game sales in August.
3. Bored Ape Yacht Club
The next one in our list of top 10 NFT projects is BAYC (Bored Ape Yacht Club). BAYC created by Yuga Labs was officially launched on April 30th, 2021 and succeeded in making a name for itself quickly in a few months.
BAYC has a semi-randomly generated collection of 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs based on the Ethereum blockchain. The NFTs collection has bored apes characterized with distinct avatars such as sailor-hat, laser-eyes, leopard print, etcetera. Going with the theme of BORED apes, the ape avatars have similar yet distinct expressions of boredom.
1% of these collectibles i.e., a set of 101 bored apes NFTs were sold for $24.4 million. BAYC made a big name for itself right after its debut and the lowest price of ape stands at $149,000. The total sale volume of BAYC is $532 million (177.4 K ETH) as per CryptoSlam.
BAYC recently started a Bored Ape Kennel Club where they offered free dog NFTs for adoption to the owners of ape. Cute!
4. Mutant Ape Yacht Club
Mutant Ape Yacht Club is a collection of 20,000 mutant apes available for Bored Apes’ holders. BAYC raised $96 million in a public sale of 10,000 Mutant Apes (3ETH) in one hour on August 28th, 2021.
The remaining 10,000 characters were airdropped for free as vials of mutant serum to the existing bored ape owners. The serums namely M1 and M2 result in Mutant Ape with traits of original ape while Mega Mutant M3 serum results in a completely different Mutant ape making it rare and valuable.
The total sales volume of MAYC stands at $278 million (83K ETH) according to CryptoSlam.
Hmm…Interesting…! BAYC definitely knows how to keep people engrossed in their NFTs and get in our list of top 10 NFT projects with 2 projects.
5. Art Blocks
Art Blocks is next in our list of top 10 NFT projects. It is an NFT project based on the Ethereum blockchain created by Erick Calderon. He started working on the idea of Art Blocks back in 2018 while the first version of Art Blocks was launched in November 2020.
Art Blocks has a collection of Generative arts wherein generative artists experiment with the algorithm going back and forth (a certain number of times) until they find the output perfect and thus creating random but unique art.
Art Blocks Curated is a category featuring special projects approved by the Curation board. The arts are created by renowned artists who create arts that are artistically and technically beautiful and innovative.
Art Blocks made a huge impact in the NFT market in August 2021 with $403 million worth of sales and a total sales volume (lifetime) of $917 million (300K ETH). Art Blocks has around 99,000 NFTs with a wide price range for the arts. The most expensive NFT was sold for roughly $5.8 million (1800 ETH) while the cheapest NFT is listed at $5,900 (1.9 ETH).
6. Cool Cats
The next in our list of top 10 NFT projects is the Cool Cats. Launched in July 2021, Cool Cats has become one of the fastest-growing NFTs in volume.
Cool Cats launched the first generation of 10,000 programmatically and randomly created NFTs from over 300,000 options. The artwork of the cool cats is lively, fresh, engaging i.e., cool and thus making it PFP (Profile Picture) worthy.
With an initial purchase amount of 0.20 ETH, the minimum price of Cool Cats NFT has increased from 2.8 ETH to 10.75 ETH ($33K) over the last 30 days according to the data of Coingecko. The total sales volume (lifetime) of Cool Cats is $125 million (41K ETH).
Hoping and planning to create a Cool Cat ecosystem, Cool Cats is focused on the growth and future prospects of the project. Allow me to tell you breeding cats is definitely on the table for the second generation of Cool Cats NFTs.
7. Creature World
Creature World was launched on August 29th, 2021 by 21-year-old New York Artist Danny Cole. Creature World has quickly made its way in the ranking chart of NFTs and our top 10 NFT projects list.
Creature World has 10,000 unique creatures NFTs for this project with a mint cost of 0.08 ETH. The sales volume of Creature World NFTs witnessed an increase of 1,164% in its sales volume ($6.4 million) in one day, owing to former basketball player Shaquille O’Neal’s purchase of the creature and using it as his PFP.
With an all-time sales volume of $71 million (22K ETH), Creature World ranks 21st on CryptoSlam for NFT projects. The rank of Creature World for the last 24 hours and 7 days on CryptoSlam is 10th and 7th respectively.
8. Meebits
The next in our top 10 project list is a project by the Larva Labs, the creators of CryptoPunks. Meebits NFTs are a collection of 20,000 unique 3D voxel characters generated by a custom generative algorithm on the Ethereum blockchain.
11,000 Meebits NFTs were reserved for Crypto Punks and Autoglyphs owners while the remaining 9,000 Meebits NFTs were launched for public sale in a Dutch auction on May 24th, 2021 and were sold out within 24 hours.
The total sales volume of Meebits is $217 million (70K ETH) and ranks 8th on CryptoSlam. The highest price paid for a single item on all the platforms across NFTs is 420 ETH or $1.4 million (approx.) for Meebit#8598.
9. Loot (for adventurers)
Launched on August 27th, 2021 by the co-founder of Vine, Dom Hoffmann, Loot is the new exciting Ethereum based NFT project.
The concept of this project is quite different from the others mentioned in our Top 10 NFT projects list. It’s a community-based project where instead of creating NFTs games or art, people can create loot bags consisting of 8 unique words/items (adventurer weapons or magical items).
There are 8000 loot bags in total and the words appearing in the bags are classified as Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary and Mythic that determines the functions and score of each word/item.
These 8 unique words provide the base and the collectors/community can build it up from there (visuals, back-stories for their item). Introduced with just Ethereum gas fee payment, Loot has already reached a total sales volume of $250 million (66K ETH).
10. PUNKS Comic
The last project in our list of Top 10 NFT Projects is PUNKS Comic. PUNKS Comic as the name suggests is an NFT Comic series drawn by Chris Wahl (Marvel & DC Comics artist).
Introduced by Pixel Vault in May 2021, PUNKS Comic’s mint cost was 0.2 ETH ($720). The owners of PUNKS Comic can own future assets by either burning or staking their comics. Staking gets the owners $PUNKS tokens (24 months period spread) and fractional ownership of 16 CryptoPunks while Burning results in owners getting a Founder’s DAO (ownership of $PUNKS tokens and other crypto assets).
As per CryptoSlam, PUNKS Comic ranks 13th for NFT Projects with the total sales volume of $113 (34K ETH).
Conclusion:
This brings us to the end of our Top 10 NFT Project List. Hope you find this article interesting and helpful in giving an insight into the world of NFTs.
Write to us in the comment section down below if you have any queries or confusion, we’d be happy to help.
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DISCLAIMER: This article is not financial advice. NFTs come with their own risks and returns, careful research and due diligence are advised before making any investment-related decision.
