#67 | Dapp NFT Industry Report 2022 - The Ultimate Summary

Estimated Read Time: 8 minutes

Hey friends,

Welcome back! It's great to have you with us. We've got a bit of a different newsletter today as we cover the must-knows of the recently released industry-leading 2022 Dapp NFT Industry Report and its in-depth coverage of NFTs. Let’s see how the year in review went, shall we?

2022 Saw A 67% Increase In NFT Transactions

With how quickly the Web3 world moves, sometimes it can feel like we've been in this bear market forever. Despite the red candlesticks, a new report from DappRadar shows some pretty bullish long-term indicators.

If you caught our coverage of The Most Progressive NFT Stories Of 2022 - A Year In Review, then you would be fully aware of the game-changing Web3 developments that occurred last year and the innovative ways that communities, countries and corporations have been adopting NFTs. So from knowing the insane uptake of Web3 in the real world, it may not be surprising to see NFTs hit a total of 101 million transactions in 2022, a massive 67.57% increase from the 58 million transactions in 2021. In terms of monetary value, we only saw a 0.41% increase in trading volume from 2021 (you can blame the crypto market dropping by two-thirds for that).

As expected, Ethereum still reigns dominant, holding 21% of the overall market share with its more than 21.2 million executed transactions. Wax (#1 home for gaming NFTs) came next at 14.5 million transactions, with Polygon (13.3 million) and Solana (12.9 million) following next in line. The chains that saw the biggest growth in NFTs were Immutable X and Solana, which saw 441% and 315% increases in transactions respectively. Also worth noting was the report had Ethereum and Cardano as the blockchains with the most active developers working on-chain, where Ethereum has ~220 active protocols and the Cardano network with ~150 protocols. Will 2023 be the year for Cardano NFTs? We'll see.

When it comes to where these NFTs were sold, OpenSea is still the top dog accounting for 73.1% of the total market's $25 billion trading volume, X2Y2 and Magic Eden came in behind with 6.1% and 5.9% market share respectively. Although OpenSea looks a mile ahead of the rest, these numbers may be deceiving since the new kids on the block have seen rapid growth. Aggregator X2Y2 only launched at end of Jan 2021, and new contender Blur has already taken the overall 10th spot in total trading volume in just two months due to its airdrop rewards and upcoming token launch scheduled for February 14.  

The gaming industry has taken like a duck to water when it comes to the blockchain and NFTs' ability to revolutionize the idea of true digital ownership over your in-game assets, as well as the multitude of other innovations the blockchain brings. In 2022, these blockchain-based games accounted for 49% of all the NFT transaction activity with on average 1.15 million daily unique active wallets and 7.4 billion in total transactions. If you were wondering where this was happening, the NFT collectible card game Splinterlands remained the most popular game with 217,914 monthly unique active wallets in 2022, which was a huge 85.78% growth over 2021.

Saving best for last, the statistic I found most interesting was how the unique trader count increased by 876.89% compared to the previous year, reaching 10.6 million which shows us we really are getting closer to mainstream adoption. On this topic of real-world users, it's worth supporting people's positive sentiment on NFTs with a recent Coin Wire Survey of 10,000 users that found a majority 78% of them still believed in NFTs long term despite the current crypto winter.

NFTs have no doubt played a crucial role in growing the Web3 industry as it continues its march forwards as the next evolution of the internet. These cold hard statistics shine a nice light on the long-term progression of NFTs, and with the kind of stories we cover bi-weekly, it could be argued that we are already seeing mass adoption through the innovations of communities, cultures, countries and major brands. It's hard to find another emerging industry (except maybe artificial intelligence) which is seeing so much growth not only in transactions and utilization, but also by brands from Nike to Netflix.

Keep in mind that all these positive indicators are still during the world's current questionable economic state and multiple recessions, so who knows what the industry may look like in a bull run? One thing's for sure though — we can't wait to see the 2024 Dapp report and hope you'll still be with us to see it too!

We hope you enjoyed that breakdown of the 2022 Dapp Industry Report! If that's up your alley, I highly recommend having a look through the report which goes much more in-depth on everything we covered plus way, way more. Have a great couple of days and we will see you with a round-up of the NFT news, take care!

What's the NFTea?

Two announcements today involved high profile Ethereum-based NFT projects launching cross-chain initiatives: Doodles launching Doodles2 on FLOW and Pudgy Penguins allowing their second-tier collection Lil Pudgys to be bridged to Binance Smart Chain, Arbitrum and Polygon (with more to come).

Of course, the NFT community had mixed reactions.

Some were upset that it seemed to benefit only the Doodles brand and not Doodles holders, especially the earliest supporters.

Others had fun at the expense of the FLOW blockchain, which is infamously a highly centralized and corporate blockchain.

Last but not least, Doodles whale and OG NBA Top Shot user Pranksy had this thread to express his thoughts on Doodles2...

On the other hand, people were generally more receptive to the interoperability of Lil Pudgys being able to be transported across chains, especially the innovation of minting a Soulbound Token based on the bridged Lil Pudgy. 

Combined with the upcoming moves from Dust Labs (DeGods from Solana to Ethereum, y00ts from Solana to Polygon), these represent a shift in the NFT scene where top projects are moving their established audiences and communities to environments that facilitate the project vision (and present larger exposure and capital opportunities) best.

What are your thoughts on these huge announcements? Tweet at us @MorningNFTea and let us know!

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DISCLAIMER: 

None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.