- NFT sales had a breakthrough year in 2021, and over the past 12 months, volume has hit $22 billion.
- The NFT market is dominated by a handful of standout leaders due to their popularity and rarity.
- These were the five best-selling digital collectibles that helped drive $335 million in NFT sales over the past week.
The cryptocurrency boom over the past few years has helped propel a newer market to record heights: digital collectibles known as NFTs.
In fact, total NFT sales volume hit $22 billion over the past year as artists, investors, and entrepreneurs descend upon the nascent Web3 space.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique, irreplaceable, mostly digital items that users buy and sell online.
NFTs use blockchain technology to keep a digital record of ownership, similar to cryptocurrencies. They were first launched on ethereum, the same blockchain that supports the cryptocurrency ether, and most NFTs can still only be purchased using ether.
Despite the ongoing sell-off in cryptocurrencies, NFT sales have held up relatively well. In the past week alone, sales hit $335 million, according to data from NonFungible.com.
With NFT sales soaring, these were the five best-selling collections over the past week, according to NonFungible.
5. Cool Cats
7-Day Sales Volume: $4.5 million
Number of Sales: 148
Highest Sale Price: $50,205
Explainer: "Cool Cats are a collection of programmatically, randomly generated NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain. The 1st generation consists of 10,000 randomly assembled cats from over 300k total options. Cool Cats that have a variety of outfits, faces and colors – all cats are cool, but completed outfit cats are the coolest."
4. Doodles
7-Day Sales Volume: $5.4 million
Number of Sales: 144
Highest Sale Price: $137,882
Explainer: "Doodles come in a joyful range of colors, traits, and sizes with a collection size of 10,000. Doodles are a funky bunch that like to role play or transmogrify themselves into delicious treats. Holding a Doodle allows you to participate in coordinating the Doodles Community Treasury."
3. The Sandbox
7-Day Sales Volume: $7.8 million
Number of Sales: 606
Highest Sale Price: $54,720
Explainer: "The Sandbox is a community-driven UGC-voxel platform where users own their LAND and host their creative magic."
2. Bored Ape Yacht Club
7-Day Sales Volume: $36.3 million
Number of Sales: 484
Highest Sale Price: $431,007
Explainer: "BAYC is a collection of 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs -- unique digital collectibles living on the Ethereum blockchain. Your Bored Ape doubles as your Yacht Club membership card, and grants access to members-only benefits."
1. CryptoPunks
7-Day Sales Volume: $37.0 million
Number of Sales: 57
Highest Sale Price: $354,317
Explainer: "10,000 unique collectible characters with proof of ownership stored on the Ethereum blockchain. The project that inspired the modern CryptoArt movement."