Sales Volume Of NFTs Jumps To $2.5b In The First Half Of 2021

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) became popular this year after NFT sales by Jack Dorsey who sold his first tweet as an NFT, Elon Musk who sold a song about NFT as an NFT, and Beeple an artist who sold an NFT for $69 million at an auction – he holds the record for the highest sale of an NFT.

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are units of data stored on a digital ledger known as called a blockchain, that certifies a digital asset to be unique and therefore not interchangeable. NFTs can be used to represent anything from photos to videos, to artworks, etc. Owners of NFTs are recorded on a blockchain, allowing an NFT to be traded as a stand-in for the digital asset it represents.

In the first quarter of this year, NFT sales surpassed $2 billion. The market has seen quite some tremendous growth and NFT market value has tripled to exceed $250 million. Although in the second quarter NFT sales slowed down, advocates believe that there is still light at the end of the tunnel for NFT sales, and just like other markets that also experience downfall, this is just a phase for the NFT market.

NFT sales for the first quarter of this year stood at a record of $2.5 billion up from just $13.7 million in the first half of 2020, according to data from Marketplace. NFT sales have remained considerably high after gaining popularity this year, with numerous NFT sales platforms such as Sotheby’s and OpenSea making impressive NFT sales records.

For many, NFTs are an investment and for others (mostly enthusiasts) they are collectibles that have value. One of the most recent NFT sales is that of the source codes of the World Wide Web created by Sir Tim Bernes-Lee. It sold for $5.4 million on Sotheby’s surpassing analysts’ expectations of $3 million.

Although the sale of NFT in the second quarter cannot be described as impressive, NFT sales for the first half of this year can be described as impressive when juxtaposed with the figures from the same period last year.