The influence of NFT is beginning to emerge. By comprehensively considering the market cap, transaction volume, popularity and other aspects of NFTs in the Ethereum ecosystem, PANews and NFTScan jointly launched the list of the 50 most influential NFT projects.

In 2014, artist Kevin McCoy released Quantum — the first NFT in history — on Namecoin. In subsequent years, more NFTs were released sporadically on the former Ethereum blockchain. For example, Spells of Genesis, the first blockchain-based game born in 2015, came out in 2016 and helped open the first encrypted art market Rare Pepes. But due to technical reasons, it was very difficult to trade and transfer ownership at that time. Thus, these programs failed to gain widespread popularity and became ancient history.

For the general public, it was not until 2017 that NFTs began to go mainstream as the first batch of NFT collections represented by CryptoPunks and the Game Fi CryptoKitties were launched on the Ethereum blockchain. As the first smart contract platform in the crypto space, the Ethereum network and its smart contract capabilities enable the creation, programming, storage and trading of tokens built directly into the blockchain itself. By effectively simplifying the process and increasing access rights, Ethereum has gradually grown into the largest and most active community of developers and NFT creators, firmly sitting on the “top spot” in the NFT field. The vast majority of NFT transaction volume is still done through the Ethereum network and its scalability solutions such as Polygon, Ronin, and Arbitrum.

As digital tokens or assets stored on a blockchain network, NFTs provide a new, digital form of rights that can be linked to digital and physical objects to provide immutable proof of ownership. In other words, NFTs contain data that can either be associated with digital images, songs, videos, avatars, etc., give NFT owners access to exclusive merchandise, tickets to live or digital events, or combined with physical assets such as cars. As you can see, the application scenarios of NFT are mainly in digital artwork, digital collectibles, blockchain game props, and key resources of the metaverse.

Since last year, NFT has been gradually infiltrating our world. Its shadow is everywhere. From Curry’s avatar of the Bored Ape Kennel Club to Jay Chou’s endorsement of Phanta Bear, from Nike’s virtual sneakers to Tiffany’s cyptopunk necklace, a large number of well-known stars and brands have participated in it. In addition to the participation of the art, sports, and fashion industries, Internet giants such as Tencent, Ali, and JD.com have also followed up and launched a variety of digital collections. The popularity has even swept into catering and automobile industries now . To a certain extent, the dazzling array of NFTs has rapidly promoted the development of the entire ecosystem.

However, since the crypto winter hit this year, the NFT market has continued to decline. The total market cap has shrunk frequently, and the transaction volume has repeatedly fallen. The negative sentiment has been continuing. According to relevant data, the NFT transaction volume on the Ethereum chain in August hit the lowest record since August 2021. But the worst of times is also the best of times. During the bear market, NFT project parties actively carried out optimization, upgrade, innovation and fundraising, instead of stoping moving and do nothing with. In addition, many traditional industries step onto the NFT track and accelerate the layout, planning and landing, rather than just stop and watch. The news and interpretation analysis about NFT has never been interrupted.

Since the birth of NFT, the overall market has taken shape. PANews and NFTScan have jointly launched the list of the 50 most influential NFT projects by comprehensively considering market cap, transaction volume and popularity of NFT projects in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Top50 NFT Collection: https://www.panewslab.com/zh/nftranking.html

The NFTs in the Top50 list are all projects in the Ethereum ecosystem, including generative PFP images, digital art, game items and props, metaverse and other categories. Except for individual projects such as CryptoPunks, Crypto Kitties, MoonCats, Decentraland, etc. which were launched earlier, most in the list were launched after April 2021, and the period from the second half of last year to the beginning of this year was the most concentrated. From the perspective of commercial copyright, the list also includes well-known CC0 projects such as Moonbirds, Goblintown, Mfers, Loot, Cryptoadz, 8liens, and Nouns.

The order of top ten on the list are CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Azuki, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, CloneX, Doodles, The Sandbox, Moonbirds, Art Blocks and VeeFriends, all of which are well-known NFT projects. It is also not uncommon for people to see them cooperate with various fields of big brands around the world. For example, Tiffany created CryptoPunks exclusive custom jewelry, payment giant Visa purchased CryptoPunks as a corporate collection, BoredApeYachtClub cooperated with Li Ning, Adidas and Rolling Stone, The Sandbox absorbed hundreds of well-known enterprises and brand IPs worldwide, including Gucci, Snoop Dogg, South China Morning Post, HSBC, etc.