Top 10 NFTs of 2021: Crypto's Journey to the Mainstream

Original Title: "Reviewing the NFT Year of 2021: The Top Ten NFTs You Need to Know"

Written by: 0x13, Rhythm BlockBeats

NFTs shone brightly in 2021, and no one expected that Crypto's breakout journey in 2021 would begin with NFTs. From being overlooked to becoming widely recognized, even selected as the Collins Dictionary's Word of the Year, statistics show that the usage of the term NFT grew by 110,000% over the course of 2021.

In 2021, NFTs also experienced numerous breakout events and transformations. Today, Rhythm BlockBeats organizes a recap of the top ten NFTs of 2021 chronologically.

NBA Top Shot

At the beginning of 2021, NBA Top Shot fired the first shot in the NFT breakout.

Although NBA Top Shot began testing in mid-2020, it didn't fully explode until January 2021. These digital trading cards attracted the attention and active participation of many NFT enthusiasts, NBA fans, and physical trading card collectors. At its peak, NBA Top Shot's daily trading volume reached $45 million. As of the time of writing, the total trading volume in the NBA Top Shot secondary market has reached $811 million.

The highest transaction for a digital trading card was a dunk by the famous player LeBron James in the 2020 Finals, which sold for $230,000.

Hashmasks

In February 2021, Hashmasks was born as the next project to have a huge impact on the NFT space after NBA Top Shot.

The emergence of Hashmasks surprised people by showing that the blind box sales model could be applied to NFTs, and the joint pricing curve generated significant FOMO. Hashmasks also made people realize for the first time that they could participate in the co-creation of works by naming their collections, and the Name Change Token introduced the idea that NFT collectibles could be combined with token economics.

It can be said that the birth of Hashmasks opened the curtain on the NFT collectible craze. As of the time of writing, the secondary market trading volume for Hashmasks reached $83.4 million. Among them, Hashmask #9939 set the record for the highest transaction in the entire series, approximately $1.59 million.

Everydays: The First 5000 Days

Next, in March 2021, artist Beeple's crypto artwork "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" landed at the prestigious auction house Christie's and sold for a staggering $69 million, making it the third-highest artwork sold by a living artist at the time.

This event caused a huge stir across various fields, including the crypto art circle, the NFT community, and the traditional art world. At that time, mainstream media coverage of NFTs was still focused on the wealth effect of NBA Top Shot and whether NFTs were a new type of scam. Beeple and his work's breakout made people begin to recognize how important NFTs as a new medium are for digital art.

This masterpiece, composed of 5000 daily creations by Beeple, led countless NFT followers to exclaim, "This is a great NFT revolution," and "The era of NFTs has arrived."

Bored Ape Yacht Club

Then, in early May, the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) was born. BAYC can undoubtedly be said to be the best-performing NFT series of 2021, whether in terms of price increase, recognition, or social capital, BAYC elevated the concept of NFT avatar collectibles to previously unimaginable heights.

Today, well-known figures from various fields, such as Stephen Curry and Post Malone, have purchased BAYC, which has continued to gain higher popularity, with the floor price climbing to 51.9 ETH, approximately $210,000.

By the end of the year, the direct confrontation between BAYC and CryptoPunks also attracted countless attention. BAYC granted copyright to collectors, allowing them to use the ape images to create merchandise and derivatives; in contrast, the production team of CryptoPunks, Larva Labs, chose not to grant copyright to collectors.

This sparked ongoing debates between the two communities, and during the discussions, some CryptoPunks collectors switched sides, causing the floor price of CryptoPunks to drop significantly.

In fact, if these avatars are viewed purely as "collectibles," retaining copyright is entirely understandable. However, in the Web3 era, these avatars have become "digital identities" for collectors, and not being able to control one's own "identity" contradicts the ethos of Web3. Moreover, Larva Labs directly licensed some "digital identities" to film companies as movie characters.

One major reason for BAYC's explosive popularity is that collectors used their ape images to create numerous merchandise, and this spontaneous, widespread promotion has helped BAYC accumulate greater recognition.

As of the time of writing, the total trading volume in the Bored Ape Yacht Club secondary market has reached $898 million, with the highest transaction amounting to approximately $2.4376 million.

Art Blocks

Art Blocks is a generative art platform launched in 2020, but it only began to gain recognition in June 2021 and set a monthly trading volume record in August, reaching $627 million.

Generative art has become a mainstream art category in the context of crypto art. Unlike traditional forms such as oil painting and sketching, generative art relies on code and often incorporates randomness from computers, making it a blend of human creativity, order, randomness, emotion, and rationality.

Many of the codes used in generative art are open-source, allowing anyone using the same code to generate the same works. By adding their own artistic thoughts to the open-source code, artists can create a new set of artworks. The creative model and philosophy of generative art align well with Crypto and Web3.

As of the time of writing, the total trading volume in the Art Blocks secondary market has reached $1.12 billion, with the highest transaction record set by the 109th piece in the Ringer series, amounting to $6.9065 million.

Nouns

By August 2021, the development of NFTs had reached a new stage. From Hashmasks to BAYC to Nouns, we can see that for NFT series, people's pursuit of aesthetics has gradually diminished, while social capital has become increasingly important. The acquisition and appreciation of social capital are becoming less related to the appearance of NFTs; what matters more is who is using the same series of avatars and who is in the community.

The issuance of Nouns NFTs differs from the common practice of issuing 10,000 pieces at once; Nouns adopts a model of auctioning one piece daily and has established Nouns DAO, where Nouns NFTs are the only way to join the DAO and participate in proposals and governance. All auction proceeds go to the DAO treasury. Like BAYC, Nouns also encourages the creation of peripheral projects, and the emergence of projects like Noadz, Nouns Vox, Noundles, and HeadDAO has brought more attention to Nouns.

The number 1 NFT in the Nouns series set a historical record for transaction volume, selling for 613.37 ETH, approximately $2.4851 million, during its auction on August 8.

Loot (for Adventurers)

In September, a project that will definitely be recorded in NFT history was born: Loot (for Adventurers).

The founder of Loot (for Adventurers) is the renowned Dom Hofmann, who launched the short video app Vine in 2012 and was acquired by Twitter for $30 million in 2016, the same year that TikTok was just born.

Loot's explosive popularity is due to its breaking of existing models. The issuance model is based on free minting through contracts rather than official sales, and the secondary market royalty rate is set to 0; in terms of community building, other NFTs typically have a product first to attract people to join the community, whereas Loot attracts people to join the community first and then collaboratively creates a product.

Previously, people had to accept the "image" provided by the project party as their digital avatar in the metaverse, and only after obtaining this digital avatar could they join the project's community, waiting for the project party to decide what utility to assign to the NFT or what benefits to distribute to holders.

What Loot does is reverse this model, allowing the community to create a widely accepted image as a digital avatar and collectively decide how to empower it, rather than simply obeying a project party. This paradigm shift has led to a very optimistic outlook on the project's future.

However, due to Loot's lack of mechanisms to capture subsequent value, the current performance in the secondary market has not met expectations. Nevertheless, the paradigm shift brought by Loot has given us a new understanding of NFTs and communities.

As of the time of writing, the secondary market trading volume for Loot is approximately $268 million, with the highest transaction amounting to about $1.7034 million.

Merge

In December, the work Merge by crypto artist Pak attracted people's attention.

Looking at the NFT itself, a black background with a small circle led many to question, "Is this even art?" In fact, people have always held such a "prejudice" against Pak.

The "small circle" released by Pak will merge with the "small circles" that collectors originally owned with each transaction; the more they merge, the larger the "small circle" becomes, and later, these "small circles" can be exchanged for ASH tokens issued by Pak according to certain rules.

This merging mechanism not only allows interaction between NFTs and collectors but also serves a deflationary purpose. Moreover, Merge breaks the original process of "buy first, then fragment," transforming it into a "buy fragments first, then merge" model. Additionally, the connection between Merge and ASH gives the artwork financial attributes, while tokens gain artistic attributes.

From the CUBE made of small cubes to the initially blank LostPoets, people often think, "I could make that too." Indeed, from the appearance of a single NFT, there is almost no barrier to entry. However, Pak cannot be simply categorized as a "visual artist." Compared to visuals, the mechanism design of Pak's works is more appealing, making it possible to say that those NFTs combined with the entire gameplay mechanism constitute "a work of art." Pak is a "digital conceptual artist."

The total trading volume for Merge reached $92 million, surpassing Beeple's achievements at Christie's, and Pak's total trading volume also exceeded Beeple's, ranking first among all crypto artists.

RTFKT

Following this shocking news, the digital streetwear brand and Web3 unicorn RTFKT was acquired by traditional industry giant Nike. This news caused the prices of the CLONE X avatar series NFTs issued by RTFKT to double.

RTFKT's previously launched various 1/1 sneakers, collaborations with artists like FEWOCIOUS, and sneaker series for CryptoPunks holders have all received high praise. The collaboration with street artist Takashi Murakami on CLONE X also attracted significant attention, making the news of RTFKT's acquisition by Nike a sensation and a hot topic of discussion.

Some believe this is a good thing, proving that NFTs have an increasingly significant influence worldwide; others argue that it is not as exciting as most people think, as the Web3 unicorn has ultimately been "recruited."

As of the time of writing, the total trading volume for CLONE X blind boxes in the secondary market is 24,600 ETH, and the total trading volume for avatar NFTs in the secondary market is 42,100 ETH, totaling approximately $266 million, with the collaboration NFT between Takashi Murakami and RTFKT setting the record for the highest transaction amount, approximately $1.17 million.

adidas Originals Into the Metaverse

Also in December, Nike's competitor adidas made significant moves in the NFT space.

The adidas brand under the three stripes may collaborate with BAYC, G-Money, and PUNKSComic to release the "Into the Metaverse" NFT in mid-December, selling a total of 29,620 NFTs, generating sales of 5,924 ETH, approximately $23 million.

Unlike many traditional industry giants that released NFTs, adidas's collaboration with NFT projects was not only well-received but also praised. adidas did not just release NFTs to make a quick profit and then return to traditional Web2 business; instead, they chose to develop long-term in Web3. The official statement from adidas indicated that this release is just the beginning, and they will continue to empower NFTs in the future. Currently, the announced benefits for NFT holders include the opportunity to receive three iconic physical garments related to the NFT for free in 2022.

As of the time of writing, in less than a week, the secondary market trading volume for adidas Originals Into the Metaverse NFTs has reached $47.18 million, surpassing many veteran NFT projects like CryptoKitties.

2021 was a year of rapid development for NFTs. The speed of Crypto's development is already faster than that of traditional industries, and the cultural attributes of NFTs, which make it easier to break out than other Crypto sectors, have attracted people who had never paid attention to NFTs or even Crypto before, allowing NFTs to undergo several transformations in just one year.

As for what NFTs will become in the future, no one can draw a definitive conclusion, but it is foreseeable that existing high-quality projects will continue to advance along the paths they have paved and attract more people to join, while more new projects will explore the boundaries of NFTs and venture into areas we cannot yet imagine today.