NFTs, or Nonfungible tokens, are assets in their digital form with a non-interchangeable quality. As they have been here for some years, they underwent some traction last year because of the Pandemic of COVID-19. However, things have changed since 2021 as we see a blasting growth in the sphere. We can see a total sale jump of 342 million USD from 71 million USD between the months of January and February. This is the growth happening from the top three platforms in NFT alone.
NFTs are often celebrated for their ability to bring revolution in digital art, collectibles, gaming, and other kinds of sectors. While the utility of the NFTs is still on exploration, we can see the top 10 NFT crypto tokens to invest in in 2021, given their overall categories, total sales and volumes, and domains. Let’s see those top ten NFT Crypto Tokens for investment.
1. NBA TOP SHOT
The NBA Top Shot is a licensed app for blockchain coming from the NPA and was partnered with Dapper Labs. You can get collectibles from the app in the form of NFTs, which come as short videos of the game. Each collectible has some kind of specified info which includes the game and the moment, the stats of the player, and the rarity of the collectible with some seasonal averages and sales history of the recent times.
The short videos are available in limited edition packs every week and are characterized based on their rarity – Legendary, rare, and common. When the fourth tier, the Ultimate, is available, it includes the Genesis and the Platinum Ice moments. However, these moments will be sold through auctions instead of pack drops.
The other three moments are also made by the users through the marketplace, and the tier determines their final price. Moreover, serial numbers and the featured players also play a decisive role in their pricing.
The application got its real limelight until recently, and it tops the total sales in the whole sphere of NFT. LeBron James’ Legendary moment in the Top Shot’s Cosmic Series one set was sold out at a huge 208,000 USD pricing, which is the topmost acquisition of the game. The token has also gathered more than 427 Million USD in sales, and the collectibles are owned by over three hundred thousand collectors. Moreover, NBA Top Shot is on its plan to feature additional games.
2. Cryptopunks
Cryptopunks tops the sales in crypto collectibles. It includes 10,000 punks, which are generated characters with uniqueness. Every individual owns one punk, and the total ownership record is saved on the ETH blockchain. During the starting release, the punks were made free for every person. Now, the characters got claimed quickly and are now traded on the conventional crypto marketplaces. Those who are willing to have a punk will need to install MetaMask for connecting their ETH wallets and trade punks on different marketplaces.
The accessories, attributes, and type define the rarity of a punk. For example, the females and males come in the most common category of punks, while alien punks are only nine in number. What’s more, the punks come in unique accessories that include glasses, hats, and others. The punks have their values defined by the total number of accessories present for the punk. As a general rule of thumb, a few accessories come under the rarest categories of punks.
The actual growth in the trading of CryptoPunks had a large role in the NFT market in the month of February. The Cryptoslam – data provider for NFT – showed that the CryptoPunks actually account for 16 out of the 18 total sales of the collectibles and has the total sale value totaling a selling price of 4,200 ETH or 7.8 million USD.
3. Hashmasks
The Hashmasks provides digital collectibles for art which were crafted by more than 70 artists across the world. It was launched in Switzerland by the Suum Cuique Labs. In total, there are 16,384 Hashmarks present on the network, and every character has different eye color, mask, skin, and other items. Every item gets owned by every user at one time. What’s more, the protocol calls for more participation of the users through enabling the owner to assign a unique title for every digital art. The NCT token, which is the native token, does this work. Every art holder is able to claim approximately 10 NCT created from the Hashmasks daily; when they get 1,830 NCT, they are able to burn them and then rename the Hashmark present on the ETH blockchain. The overall provenance record for all the Hashmasks can be made through the interplanetary filing system.
Hashmarks users purchased their characters firstly in the starting distribution phase, which initiated in the last days of January and is now concluded. The overall purchasing prices of the characters got set on a sliding scale. That essentially means that the earlier the purchase is made, the more affordable the price is. Users who took part in the starting period for distribution also got 3,660 NCTs per person which allowed them to make the changes in the name for their characters of Hashmasks twice.
Also, other dynamics are involved as well. For example, 12.5% of the characters of the Hashmark wear animal masks. Only around 5.9% percent of them wear pixel masks. These masks might seem to be more exclusive on the initial level, but Hashmask – a unique unicorn animal – is only present in a limited quantity: 13 in number.
As of the initial trade in January, the total sales of the product have gone to 27,269 ETH, equaling 45 million USD. It is distributed to 4,004 owners up till recently. It was sold for the price of 420 ETH and ranked an overall 12th in the total sales for collectibles.
4. Sorare
The global fantasy soccer game, known as Sorare, enables the users to manage, buy, and sell a virtual soccer team with the use of digital player cards. Every card in the Sorare is a kind of a nonfungible token that is based on the ERC-721 quality standard.
As it got powered through the blockchain tech, the card owners of Sorare are able to verify the ownership and the scarcity of their cards and transfer them as well. Every player card comes with different attributes that include rarity, experience points, and average score. The player card scarcities are three in number, including Unique, Rare, and Super Rare. Every card comes with a single Unique mode, 100 Rare copies, and 10 Super Rare copies.
To become a soccer manager in the game, users need to get their teams registered and then claim ten player cards that are common. Then, they are able to compose an initial squad of five and then earn total points for the performances of the players in the soccer matches. Users may also take part in different tournaments and get the reward in the form of ETH.
Sorare has pretty much gotten popular throughout the world as it has gained official licensing for world-class teaming, including Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, PSG, and Liverpool. The platform has recently won 50 million USD in Series A Funding with Ubisoft for introducing the One-Shot League for the players. What’s more, Sorare has managed to get 25,967 ETH worth of sales from 12,000 owners.
5. CryptoKitties (WCK)
CryptoKitties is the first-ever NFT to get mainstream based on ETH. It enables the players to breed collectible digital cats. The tokens for the game are nonfungible, and every token comes with a special digital cat present on the blockchain. The cats get differentiated based on the traits and appearance referred to as cattributes. The nature of the tokens suggests every digital cat gets represented by the nonfungible tokens is not able to be destroyed or replicated in any way.
For breeding the digital cats, the users have to deposit the ETH in the official wallet of the game, known as the Dapper. Now, there are two ways through which you can get the new kittens. Firstly, you can breed any two kitties you have. Secondly, you can breed one kitty with the public sire, which is the father in that case. The users are able to acquire their first kitty through bidding for a kitty or making a purchase.
Those players of CryptoKitties that are experienced targets for gathering more and more valuable digital cats. The generation, as well as the rarity, are some features that decide the value of the kitty. For a lot of generations, the rule follows that the kitties coming with fewer generations get more value as compared to those who are large in number. It is true as the cats with the fewer generations in number have a better capacity to breed more often.
Gen Zero is regarded as the rarest possible generation of digital cats having a constant supply of 50,000. This is the reason why these cats are rare, and with time, their value increases. Low ID numbers also define the exclusivity of the cats. Moreover, Founder cats or Exclusive cats are all tradable at high rates on the marketplaces.
The Cryptokitties was actually the initial NFT protocol that got the first popular attention in the 2017 fall. The game got more attention as the players could breed the rare kittens and put the new ones on resale for added profit. The high demand for the collectibles resulted in more and more transactions on the network of ETH that reached an overall high of 1.349 million in the year 2018. With DeFi, the record was surpassed in the year 2020.
While the peak time of the CryptoKitties has long gone, the iconic game remains the leading project in the whole NFT space. The all trading volume remains at more than 66,000 ETH, which equals 32.8 million USD. This resulted in the making of more than 2 million NFTs.
6. Decentraland (MANA COIN)
The Decentraland platform is actually a decentralized virtual space, allowing players to deploy custom avatars, buy and sell digital collectibles, and take part in the governance process of the virtual world. The ETH blockchain requires the users to connect to a browser using crypto-wallets. The players then customize and file their avatars with virtual passports for identification in the land. As the users complete the first step of the avatar, they are able to initiate their neighborhood construction and get digital assets.
You will need to have both fungible as well as nonfungible tokens in order to take part in Decentraland. The MANA is the currency in use on the platform. Every token is also changeable with another one which makes MANA fungible.
Players are able to spend the MANA for different estates or parcels of LAND, the items, and even characteristic names. Also, the users are able to buy accessories on the NFT marketplace.
Decentraland also utilizes the LAND, which is an NFT for presenting the parcel and estate ownership. LAND is a type of asset which is nonfungible and is maintained through the Ethereum contract that represents the different virtual land parcels in the Decentraland. The LAND token shows different land parcels and is tradeable in the marketplace.
It conjured a total sale volume of 147,380 Ethereum, which equals 248 million USD, and it has above 96,000 gaming assets.
7. Rarible(RARI)
Rarible was founded by Alexei Falin and Alexander Salnikov earlier in the year 2020. The platform launched in Moscow enables the users to buy and sell and mint rare collectibles in Rarible’s digital forum. The platform aids different digital collectibles in terms of their trade and distribution, including memes, metaverses, DeFi, and art domain names, for example.
The process of minting in this blockchain platform is quite direct and simple. The players will have to upload collectibles in any digital form, such as audio or a graphic. They will also need to add a description and details for pricing. Following this, the users will have to connect using their ETH wallet for the approval of the transactions made by minting.
The NFT minting feature is quite relevant to the artists and the content creators who are able to release the teasers for the content and then give fully optimized versions to the players after the final purchase of the NFT.
The platform is on its way to find out the integration of the DeFi as well as the NFT. It is also round funding. It has a total sale volume of 67,000 ETH, which equals 113 million USD in total.
8. Enjin Coin (ENJ)
Enjin Coin comes from Enjin, which is an ecosystem of blockchain gaming products connected with each other. The Enjin Network allows players to design sites and chat and host as well. The company enables developers to monetize the items on the ETH blockchain. It utilizes the Enjin Coin for backing the digital assets utilizing the platform, meaning that all the items are able to be bought, traded, and sold in real-time value.
Enjin Coin launched in the ETH main net in 2018. ENJ is a digital collection of values utilized for backing the value of the blockchain assets such as the NFTs. All assets minted with the platforms have ENJ. Minting the assets with the resource ENJ will offer different benefits to the users, such as ensuring scarcity and transparency.
9. NIFTEX
NIFTEX is a platform based in Singapore that enables fractional trading of NFTs. It announced a 500,000 USD funding round which was led through 1kx and other currency. The enterprise also launched the alpha version around five months ago, generating above 2 million USD in the total volume. The enterprise is regarded as an active player in the rising popularity of digital collectibles.
10. Tezos (XTZ)
Tezos XTZ is another network in connection to a digital token and is also known as Tez. It is not based on mining; rather, the holders of the token get a reward for participating in the proof-of-stake mechanism for consensus.
Tezos underwent some legal issues and delays after the offering of Initial Coin Offering or ICO. However, the company thrived through the cryptocurrency bear market, probably due to the unique mechanism. The Tez pricing got up to three times between the fall of 2019 and spring of 2020, reaching record highs.
11. THETA
Theta targets to channel computer networks on a global scale and function as a decentralized platform for video streaming. The content delivery networks (CDNS), geographically present locally in the operator networks. These are paid to deliver real-term video streaming content to the users. The existing CDNs are not able to function on high-quality video streams.
Theta is software that seeks to incentivize a global network of computers to operate a decentralized video streaming platform.
12. Chilliz (CHZ)
Chilliz or CHZ, also marketed as $CHZ, acts as a currency for blockchain-based items as well as services that are intended for end-users. It is aimed at improving the engagement of fans in entertainment, altering payment options for traditional products, and much more. The CHZ offers entities for sports and entertainment that are based on tools for helping in monetizing.
13. EQIFI
It is a protocol on a decentralized level for borrowing, pooled lending, and investing for the ethereum tokens that include WBTC and a bunch of other currencies. It offers a single platform for the DeFi items with the EQIBank accounts, debit, credit cards, loans, custody, wealth management, and OTC.
Final Words
Apps might borrow digital assets for utilization in the ETH ecosystem without having to wait for one order to require off-chain activity. In a similar fashion, the speculators might be able to use different trading techniques that include things like optimizing their potential. These token utilization are, in fact, revolutionizing the digital ecosystem game for the better.
