NFT Ecosystems in review – BeInCrypto’s editors take a look at the five best NFT ecosystems that got impressive results in 2021.
NFT ecosystem # 5: WAX
At number five we have WAX, a blockchain that was created specifically for NFTs. It contains everything businesses and designers need to share their collections with the world. WAX supports a whole range of NFT activities: games, marketplaces, dApps, and exchanges can all run on a decentralized blockchain system.
According to DappRadar, WAX supports six marketplaces. The most popular of these is AtomicMarket, which has a trading volume of $312 million since its launch in early 2021. But the most impressive result for AtomicMarket is the number of traders – over 800,000 have traded NFT on the platform, making it the second most popular after Axie Infinity.
NFT Ecosystems: Most Popular WAX Collections
The three most popular collections featured on WAX are Farmers World, Farming Tales and Alien Worlds, but only the first manages to make it into the top 20 collections, reaching the 13th bestseller of all time.
However, the whole situation may change soon, as WAX has received very solid support from Amazon. The online retailer announced last week that it has invested in Dibbs, a sports card marketplace that is built on WAX. Through this collaboration, WAX could become one of the most successful NFT blockchains in 2022.
NFT ecosystem # 4: SOLANA
At number four we have Solana. This year has seen tremendous growth in cryptocurrency adoption for Solana. Although the project has only been around for a year, a large community has already formed in and around its ecosystem.
At the launch of Solana, it was stated that it would be a blockchain focused on financial transactions, having a faster transaction processing speed and less overhead than Ethereum. While this is still the main feature of the project, NFTs have also become an important part of the Solana ecosystem .
Solana has five marketplaces, two of which are in the top 10 of all marketplaces. Solanart, Magic Eden, Solana Monkey Business, DigitalEyes Market and Solsea provide access to a large number of collections and have attracted around 115,000 users to date. This is the lowest score of our top 5. According to DappRadar, the trading volume in these markets is just over $ 1 billion, while CryptoSlam has a figure of $ 800 million. The Solana Markets have captured the attention of the wealthiest NFT traders, which bodes well for future collections released on these platforms.
NFT ecosystems: Solana Collections
As for the collections themselves, presented at Solana, they are not very popular. None have managed to make it to the top 20, and many are very similar to those found on Ethereum. Examples are Degenerate Ape Academy and Solana Monkey Business. The Aurory collection has the highest ratings on Solanart and has its origins in the play-to-earn computer game. In terms of all-time sales, Aurory ranks 36th.
However, Solana’s NFTs are gaining ground among celebrities. For example, former US First Lady Melania Trump announced that she would create her own NFT collection on the Solana blockchain, with a starting price of one SOL for each NFT.
Basketball legend Michael Jordan is also set to join the NFT hype. According to BasketballNetwork, Jordan and his partners will launch a new app called HEIR in 2022. The goal of the project is to become the main platform for fans and collectors who want to create and trade NFTs. HEIR will be built on the Solana blockchain, and the project has already raised $ 10 million from early investors like Lonzo Ball and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
NFTs will be a major driver of Solana’s growth next year, especially with sports celebrities lining up to get involved. And the next NFT blockchain on our list is also aiming to gain market share in sports.
At #3: FLOW
At number three we have FLOW. The design of the Flow blockchain is based on games and digital assets. It was developed by the team at Dapper Labs, which has several successful projects under its belt such as CryptoKitties and Dapper Wallet.
Dapper Labs was founded in 2018 and, like Solana, has several strong partnerships. Their long list includes names like the NBA, Warner Music Group, and the UFC. The similarity to Solana comes from the fact that Dapper has attracted some incredibly large investors – Google Ventures, Samsung, and Andreesen Horowitz. And these are just the most famous of them.
However, this is where the similarities end. Flow takes a different approach to development in the NFT space. It relies more on premium and branded content and games.
NFT Ecosystems: NFT Markets
The Flow blockchain only has two NFT markets – NBA Top Shot and Starly. Starly is a relative newcomer with less than $ 400,000 in earnings, while the NBA Top Shot is definitely the blockchain gem.
The NBA Top Shot ranked third in the NFT market and attracted nearly half a million traders. The NBA-branded collection and design aimed at mass adoption have led to rapid platform growth that shows no sign of slowing down. Flow has the most transactions, surpassing Ronin, which has almost three times as many users.
As a reminder, NBA Top Shots is a Proof of Concept (PoC). The NFL is already building a trading floor called NFL All Day. If he succeeds in NBA success, Flow could become one of the top three NFT blockchains.
And that’s not all: European football leagues are also keen to take part in the action, which La Liga is planning to join. If this yields good results, then the Premier League could follow its example, the global reach of which could lead Flow to leadership in the blockchain space.
AT # 2: RONIN
We’re almost at the top of our list of the best NFT blockchains of 2021. Second place rightfully goes to Ronin – the Ethereum side chain. Ronin is the basic structure of the Axie Infinity game as gas charges flow through it when players exchange AXS tokens.
Ronin itself is made in the same way as many other Tier 1 blockchains. It is no different from Ethereum or even PayPal and eBay.
Many see the move to Ronin as a defining moment for Axie’s growth, as the blockchain bypassed the Ethereum network and allowed for faster transactions and lower fees. Axie is currently the only game on the Ronin Network, but in the future the developers plan to host new games as well as other types of dApps. An example of this is Katana, Ronin’s own decentralized exchange.
NFT ecosystems: Popularity
The Ronin blockchain is not even a year old, but the popularity of the game behind it has attracted nearly 1.5 million traders who traded a staggering $3.8bn. This is by far the largest trading volume for a single collection.
Now the main phenomenon is Axie. It is the leader among all games up for grabs. As of this writing, 2.5 million people play it every month. The Pokémon-inspired NFT game is a stable source of income even in less developed economies such as the Philippines and Venezuela. The latter actually represents 40% of all Axie users.
But the biggest problem with Ronin right now is that the team only relies on one mega-successful project, Axie. For example, all the other NFT blockchains in our top have several projects in development or rely on the creation of many communities. Time will tell who took the right approach.
First place: Ethereum
First place goes to Ethereum – the original NFT ecosystem and the undisputed leader of the cryptosphere. Over 90% of digital assets on the network are ERC-721 tokens, including Axie Infinity, which as we mentioned is the Ethereum side chain.
We’re sure we’ve all heard of the Cryptopunks and Bored Apes NFT collections. According to Cryptoslam, the latter has sales of more than $1.8bn, which is an insane figure for a novelty in the crypto space.
Due to the fact that a large number of NFTs have been created on the Ethereum blockchain over the past year, gas charges have also increased. This led to the rise of Solana, a competitor to Ethereum, as well as the emergence of the Ronin side chain. But Ethereum is working on a solution to this situation and is preparing to move to the Proof of Stake (PoS) algorithm next year. After that, the network will likely become more scalable and gas prices will decrease.
Building blocks
Now let’s take a look at what the building blocks of the Ethereum NFT ecosystem are.
And we should start with OpenSea – the biggest NFT market right now. OpenSea’s total trading volume is $ 13.2 billion, more than all other markets combined. Of course, many of them focus on individual collections or don’t have a lot of NFTs in them, while OpenSea tries to accommodate as many non-fungible tokens as possible.
The Ethereum NFT ecosystem itself is already very strong, because it includes more than a dozen trading platforms, and the total sales volume is more than $11bn. In terms of the number of Ethereum users, only Ronin is second, but their connection is likely to lead to sustainable growth the number of people buying and selling NFTs on the Ethereum network.
Two marketplaces worth mentioning are Decentraland and Sandbox. We’ve had reviews for both platforms before, but now I’d like to highlight them as projects from the Metaverse. 2022 could be the year of lightning-fast growth in the Metaverse, so keep an eye out for these two – they could be driving the growth of the Ethereum NFT market.
