Quick Take:
- The adoption of NFTs boosted the number of Ethereum wallets with a non-zero balance above 71 million.
- The number grew by nearly 20 million over the last 12 months from about 51.5 million last year.
- Many NFT drops are done on a platform that runs on the Ethereum blockchain.
The adoption of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a digitally encrypted file that provides proof of ownership, boosted the number of Ethereum addresses with a positive balance to 71,364,788 in 2021, adding nearly 20 million addresses to last year’s figure.
According to data filed by Glassnode Studio, the addresses grew by 38% from last year’s record of 51,491,730.
The NFT boom is driven by their adoption in the art and collectibles market and the emergence of metaverse gaming. They can prove ownership of just about anything, including digital land.
As a result, NFTs have penetrated the mainstream industry by attracting reputable game developer companies, celebrities and leading venture capital firms.
Although the proof-of-stake blockchains are becoming the preferred option in the NFT space due to low energy consumption that results in lower gas fees, some of them are merely Layer 2 protocols built on the Ethereum blockchain. As a result, several NFTs are still priced in ETH, thereby boosting the number of Ethereum addresses.
The same thing is happening in the blockchain gaming marketplace, with Ethereum continuously benefitting from its open-source ecosystem that allows developers to launch different projects.
Read about Blockchain Games here.
In a recent report about NFT gaming, the industry reported $2.232 billion in revenue during the quarter ending Sep. 30. On the other hand, the overall NFT market reached $17.7 billion according to a report by Cointelegraph research, while DappRadar estimates blockchain games accounted for $4.5 billion of the sales.
The NFT boom is taking the world of crypto by storm. In a recent Google Trends statistic, the global interest in the world “NFT” exceeded that of “Crypto” based on search.
It is also quickly closing on “Bitcoin”, which has been facing a declining interest since it started to decline from its new all-time high reached in November 2021.
Stay up to date:
