Over the past couple of years, there hasn’t been a bigger hype creator than the NFT space. NFT stands for “non-fungible token,” which is another word for “unique” or “not interchangeable.” Uniqueness means rarity, and rarity often translates to value, which is the most basic reason why the price of certain NFTs have been skyrocketing over the past couple of years. This blockchain solution has many use cases, most of which could be super useful for society. But here, we will focus only on those that have certain speculative value.
Things kicked off with the tokenization of Internet memes and their subsequent sales for astronomical sums, then spread to the artistic scene and from there to the sports and entertainment industries. Nowadays, practically every personal or corporate brand launched at least one NFT collection. At the same time, tokens from the top 10 NFT collections, which we are going to present in this article, became legitimate investment vehicles capable of generating profits for their owners through speculations on designated marketplaces.
The current NFT market is often compared by the skeptics to the infamous Tulip mania of 1634 - 1637 in the Netherlands, while the proponents are calling it the gateway for digital artists, musicians, and other representatives of the creative class to true recognition and prosperity. Be that as it may, it’s definitely worth having your skin in this game - any of the tokens from the collections listed below are worth having in your digital wallet either for a quick “flip” for profit or for keeps as the novel digital art.
Everything according to the standard
The uniqueness of NFTs is determined by their token standard that defines the characteristics of the underlying smart contract. For some time, Ethereum held the monopoly on NFTs since the overwhelming majority of them were minted on that network. But as the blockchain space kept evolving, other blockchains began introducing their solutions.
- ERC-721 and ERC-1155 - the former is the most popular token standard for NFTs which may represent ownership of any form of asset; the latter is a more dynamic token standard that allows performing different operations with tokens like transacting and merging.
- BEP-721 is the token standard for Binance Smart Chain that bears plenty of similarities with ERC-721 but offers faster and cheaper transactions.
- TZIP-12 standard is attributed to the Tezos blockchain - it allows embedding a hash from IPFS into an NFT.
Main types of NFTs and their prospects as investment vehicles
For the yesterday’s outsiders who are only dipping their feet into the NFTs waters, these digital assets are associated mostly with various forms of digital art, from memes to something far more complex and sophisticated like Beeple’s collection “Everyday’s: the First 5000 Days” which consists of the corresponding number of digital images that form a collage. A quick reminder that this particular collection was purchased at the Christie’s auction by a connoisseur of NFT from India Vignesh Sundaresan, better known in crypto circles as MetaKovan, who paid a staggering $69.3 million. The works of Beeple and items from the CryptoPunks collection still top the most expensive NFTs lists, but the priciest of them all is the NFT collection by the anonymous artist Pak which was bought for $91 million by a group of 30.000 collectors. But apart from artful non-fungible tokens, there are other types of NFTs that possess investment appeal.
One of the best features of non-fungible tokens is their ability to undeniably confirm ownership rights and serve as a protector against copyright infringement, the problem that’s relevant for both art and music that also becomes actively tokenized. Musicians and bands like Kings of Leon, Snoop Dogg, and Grimes have all released exclusive tracks or albums via NFTs.
Sports collectibles represent another avenue where non-fungible tokens can shine in their full glory. Even before the invention of blockchain, these collectibles had been enormously popular among sports fans - rare cards were sold for the price of a nice suburban house. The rise of NFTs has given the collectibles market another boost thanks once again to such features as provable uniqueness and ownership rights. We reckon that sports collectibles is the second best investment option with regard to NFTs behind digital art.
NFTs have also found great utility in such areas as ticketing, domain names, in-game virtual assets, virtual land, and digital identity but their investment prospects aren’t as great as those of art and collectibles.
The most popular NFT marketplaces
By now, you should have got a good understanding that NFTs hold great investment prospects. So the question remains, where one can buy this or that token? If you have enough crypto in a digital wallet like MetaMask, buying non-fungible tokens won’t be any more problematic than making any other purchase with crypto, and it can be done on one of the following online platforms.
- OpenSea - the biggest and the most popular NFT marketplace that sells many types of tokens, including domain names. Mostly supports tokens of ERC721 and ERC1155 standards, but the platform is becoming multi-chain as it has recently integrated the Polygon network.
- Rarible - another popular marketplace that offers practically all types of tokens. But here, the collectors can buy digital items only with the platform's native token RARI.
- SuperRare - the third most popular NFT marketplace that has close ties with the iconic auction house Christie’s. It’s focused mostly on selling very rare single-edition tokens that may hold a substantial investment potential.
Bored Ape Yacht Club
Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is without a doubt the most popular NFT collection of the past two years. The collection consists of 10,000 tokens owned by over 6,300 collectors who were willing to go way above the floor price of 132 ETH to get a fancied token that depicts a variation of stylish and bored-looking apes. The Ethereum-based selection of NFTs has already generated the trading volume of 537.1K ETH on OpenSea, with the most expensive items - BAYC 2087 - sold for a whopping 769 ETH.
The collection was created and launched by Yuga Labs, the Miami-based blockchain firm that specializes in non-fungible tokens and digital collectibles, in collaboration with anonymous developers like Garmagel and Gordon Goner. The latter was the one who announced the first BAYC sale on Discord last year on 23 April. Despite being a relatively small business with no more than 50 employees, Yuga Labs boasts a valuation of $4 billion after the latest seed round that took place at the end of March. Apart from BAYC, Yuga Labs are also associated with such NFT collections as Meebits, Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC), CryptoPunks, and the latest NFT collection called Otherside.
The value of BAYC doesn’t lie in the artwork alone. Each NFT has some utility to it as it grants access to the virtual collaborative graffiti board called The Bathroom where each user with at least one ape in the wallet can periodically paint a pixel on a bathroom wall that serves as a canvas. Other perks include access to an exclusive Discord channel populated by celebrity owners of BAYC tokens, such as Eminem, Justin Bieber, Neymar, and Jimmy Kimmel. The developers promise to unlock other features over the course of the completion of the project's roadmap.
CryptoPunks
CryptoPunks along with CryptoKitties are generally viewed as the “firestarters,” the NFT collections that have set off the recent tsunami of hype around these tokens. The collection of 10,000 pixelated characters with unique visual traits, created by Larva Labs, saw the world in 2017 when crypto has only begun entering the mainstream.
What’s fascinating about this collection is that for some time upon its release all these tokens of the ERC-721 standard were available for free to anyone who had an Ethereum wallet. And that is probably the shiniest example of how one can make a fortune out of nothing because now some of these punks are worth a pile of money. The most expensive token - CryptoPunk 7523 - went for $11.75 million at Sotheby’s. And if you would like to become the owner of the cheapest token available for sale, you would have around $171,600 or 60.95 ETH to spare, which is the price of the cheapest one - CryptoPunk 5152.
Pudgy Penguins
This is an NFT collection fashioned after BAYC in the sense that it features many - 8,888 to be precise - variations of cute and stylish animals. The collection had been a bomb right after the release as it generated a daily trading volume of $14 million.
But after a while, the popularity of Pudgy Penguins began to die down due to the unwillingness of the team to contribute to the further development of the project. This led to the acquisition of the entire collection for 750 ETH (about $3 million) by a group of anonymous investors who intend to breathe new life into the collection and its community. Right now, the floor price of a Pudgy Penguin is 1.85 ETH.
Otherdeed for Otherside
Last week, Yuga Labs shook the NFT space once again with the release of the collection called Otherdeed for Otherside, which is selling like hotcakes right now, generating an average daily trading volume of around 20,000 ETH. It’s more than three-fold bigger than the second most traded NFT collection, the reviewed BAYC with a volume of 6,000 ETH per day.
Otherdeed tokens represent land plots and deeds to virtual lands in the emerging metaverse world dubbed Otherside, also developed by Yuga Labs. Right now, there are 55,000 NFTs for sale on OpenSea at the floor price of 3.4 ETH. Right after the mint, all NFTs were sold at a flat price of 305 Apecoin (APE) and created a frenzy so big that the Ethereum network got clogged and its gas fees skyrocketed again. Obviously, it’s the hottest NFT collection at the moment by all merits.
Azuki & Beanz
If you belong to the global army of anime fans, then you might consider buying one, or more, out of 10,000 NFTs from the ultra-popular collection Azuki. The collection created by Churi Labs saw the world at the beginning of the year and has almost immediately risen to the greatest heights of popularity which translated to the estimated market capitalization of 280,500 ETH.
Since Azuki is already an established brand in the NFT space, the floor price for this collection is quite steep - 28.97 ETH, with the average price being around 32 ETH. Like most NFTs in this selection, they carry certain utility, which in this case is the access to a collaboration space called The Garden as well as exclusive drops, live events, and streetwear collections. Recently, Churi Labs launched a side collection called Beanz which depicts small plants that grow in The Garden - they are supposed to be sidekicks to main NFT characters. The floor price for the Beanz collection is 5.98 ETH.
WIN NFT HORSE
This collection represents an alternative to those issued on the Ethereum blockchain that currently occupy OpenSea. WIN NFT HORSE is an interesting collection created on TRON blockchain and sold on the BSC marketplace - it’s an integral part of the eponymous GameFi project that was created in collaboration with APENFT and Winklink.
As the name suggests, each token from this collection represents a horse of a different breed that can be used in four types of horse racing competitions where winners receive lucrative rewards. Additionally, these tokens can be used to breed new horses and trade with other NFT owners. WIN NFT HORSE is going through a sales boom right now with sales volume being up over 6,000%. These tokens are still quite cheap with a floor price of $200.
Meebits
The collection of 20,000 3D voxel characters was created through the proprietary generative algorithm by Larva Labs, the same studio that brought CryptoPunks. What’s interesting is that owners of punk NFTs can claim Meebits for free, which is an opportunity to scoop two blue-chip NFTs in one buy - not a bad deal at all. Otherwise, be prepared to pay the floor price of 6.85 ETH, while the average price for this collection stands at 7.2 ETH.
With a Meebit NFT, the owner gets access to the company’s own marketplace where these tokens can be traded without gas fees. Additionally, a collector gets an asset pack that allows animating and rendering the character or using it as an avatar in the virtual world.
Moonbirds
Monbirds is another young collection - launched on April 21 - that has immediately risen to the NFT stardom. It’s an assemblage of 10,000 pixelated owls that can be used as profile pictures (PFP) and have a number of utility traits. Each token unlocks access to an exclusive club called PROOF Collective, a private Discord channel, future NFT drops, and grants governance rights through the Parliament feature.
Moonbirds also have another interesting feature called Nesting which is conceptually similar to holding or staking - the longer one keeps a token in the wallet without listing it for sale, the more benefits he gets from the PROOF community. Moonbirds have firmly settled in the top 10 NFT collections across the entire space with an estimated market capitalization of 320,800 ETH. The floor price here is also quite high - 28.8 ETH.
Doodles
Doodles is another popular PFP project that consists of 10,000 generative avatars each with its own visual traits. The collection was released in October 2021 at the mint price of 0.123 ETH. Right now, the floor price for this collection stands at 21 ETH with the average trading price being 24 ETH.
As for their utility, each NFT grants its owner governance rights within the Doodle DAO and gives access to various community-centered features and an array of virtual products such as the Doodlebank. In February, the team launched a side project dubbed Doodles in Space that can be obtained for free by any holder of a Doodle NFT or bought at OpenSea, Nifty Gateway, and LooksRare.
Clone X and other collections by RTFKT
NFTs from RTFKT - the blockchain project that popped up in 2020 - are a bit more artful than the algorithm-generated images in most other collections on that list. This firm successfully merges sports, fashion, non-fungible tokens, and art. The result was the acquisition by the major global brand that is Nike, which occurred at the beginning of the year.
The project became popular thanks to exclusive designs of virtual sneakers which were gathered in the collection called Nike CryptoKicks that can be bought at OpenSea for around 1.7 ETH per token. RTFKT also did well in the creation of avatar NFTs which it did in collaboration with the artist X Takashi Murakami. At the moment, it’s one of the most popular NFT collections across the industry with a market capitalization of 403,536 ETH. The floor price for this collection is as high as 18.5 ETH but there is a good possibility that it will double in less than a year.
Bottom line
Even though NFTs have been around since 2017, they are still shrouded in controversy. Some deem them nonsensical, the overpriced JPGs with little to no utility. Others see these tokens as the gateway to the new form of ownership, the digital one. We are more inclined towards the second opinion because we are only at the dawn of metaverse development, and with NFTs being its integral part, the value of such tokens might soar far beyond today’s impressive amounts.
In this article, we weren’t shilling for any of these collections or creators but tried to show general trends in this space. Obviously, other NFT collections will skyrocket in the near future, but the ones presented here will certainly maintain their high value through the metaverse times.
