NFTs had their best month ever in February, according to a report by DApp statistics trackers at DappRadar. Sales volume from the top three platforms grew to $342 million in February, up almost 400% from the $71 million recorded the month before.
Sports memorabilia platform NBA Top Shot dominated the sector and is now responsible for 67% of total NFT transaction volume. The other NFT DApps in the top three are OpenSea, a general crypto collectibles market and CryptoPunks, an Ethereum-based collectibles series. CryptoPunks generated all-time high sales of $79M with the floor price of punks increasing from $10,000 to an average of $32,000.
The DappRadar report also mentioned the tremendous rise in the popularity of generative art, which is art created at least in part by autonomous systems.
High gas fees on the Ethereum network saw several DeFi and NFT projects move off the platform in February, in favor of those with less costly transactions. Binance Chain recently surpassed Ethereum in terms of transaction volume and unique active wallet count and the report noted the rapid growth of several copycat NFT projects on Binance Chain, such as Binance Punks and Bashmarks.
Despite high gas fees, statistics from CryptoSlam show that seven of last month’s top 10 best-selling NFT products are still hosted on Ethereum. NBA Top Shot uses the Flow blockchain and the remaining two arehosted on WAX.
The fastest rising brand among the top 10 is CryptoKitties, which saw a resurgence in popularity as month-over-month sales increased over 1,300%. The newest entrant to place in CryptoSlam’s top 10 sales list is Capcom’s Street Fighter II series, which is currently #8, with $1.26 M in sales since its Feb. 16 launch.
NFTs garnered so much attention in the first six weeks of the year that CoinMarketCap added a dedicated section for the sect on Feb. 15.
A record price for a single NFT sale was set on Feb. 26 when a Beeple Crossroads NFT sold for $6.6 million, more than 100 times its original price.
On Mar. 2, a new NFT sales record was set when electronic music artist 3LAU sold $11.6 M worth of NFTs from his own website in a single evening. Only hours earlier, musician Grimes completed $5.8 M in NFT sales in 20 minutes.
Not everyone is impressed by the rapid rise of NFTs. On Mar. 2, Litecoin creator Charlie Lee compared the surge in NFT popularity to the ICO craze that occurred through much of 2017. He believes their relative simplicity and low barrier to entry will encourage widespread adoption of cryptocurrency, but that ultimately “few (NFTs) will hold and have value.”