2024 NFT market review! These JPGs are still not ready to exit, and they are directly heating up by the end of the year

The year 2024 is coming to an end. At the end of 2024, the Magic Eden Token $ME Airdrop, and the collective recovery of Ethercoin 'blue chip', especially the sunshine Airdrop of 'chubby penguins' Pudgy Penguins Token $PENGU, have brought substantial wealth effect, which has attracted market follow for Non-fungible Tokens after a long absence.

What a year it has been for Non-fungible Tokens! BlockBeats takes you through the past 12 months of the NFT market. After reviewing the NFT market with us for 2024, how would you rate the performance of the NFT market in 2024?

January: The three-way situation in the world is beginning to take shape, and the end of the "hexagonal avatar".

In December 2023, the monthly total trading volume of Solana Non-fungible Tokens reached approximately 365 million US dollars, slightly surpassing Ether's approximately 363 million US dollars. Looking back, this marks the beginning of the three-way competition among Ether, Solana, and Bitcoin (Ordinal) in the Non-fungible Token world. Despite Ether's absolute dominance over the top market value Non-fungible Token projects and player volume, proving itself to still be the king of the Non-fungible Token industry at the end of the year, if we rewind time to January this year, 2024, the Non-fungible Token market has spent the whole year in a three-way situation.

Ether坊 Non-fungible Token started the year with "Retro Mickey Mouse". Due to US law only allowing copyrights for 95 years, in January of this year, the old version of Mickey Mouse's copyright no longer belongs to Disney and is now open to the public. So we saw "Mickey Mouse" dominating on OpenSea.

Image source: OpenSea

But then, there was some bad news - Twitter has canceled the feature of using Non-fungible Tokens as Twitter avatars. It seems to be telling us that no one in the world will care about an avatar worth 10 or 100,000 bucks, except for crypto players. Anyway, do you still remember those 'hexagonal avatars'?

Image source: X

This month's featured new projects include:

Pizza Ninjas (Bitcoinese Ordinals), another Tier 1 level project in the Bitcoinese ecosystem has emerged.

RSIC (Bitcoin Ordinals), the most popular pre-mined rune series on the Rune protocol, quietly Airdroped before going online, and the pre-mined runes became popular.

Tinfun (Ether Square, later moved to Blast), the power of the Chinese reforge Ether Square mainnet glory.

ittybits (Ether inscription), 10 times the opportunity of the niche track, has driven the overall rise of the Ether inscription small image, but unfortunately it is not sustainable.

CryptoUndeads (Solana), the Cabal disk that can bring huge profits when obtained in the pre-sale, passes like a meteor.

February: ERC-404 'Pandora's Box', Yuga Labs acquired 'Moonbird'

The concept of 'picture-coin integration' shone brightly in early February, with the first project of ERC-404, 'Pandora's Magic Box,' undoubtedly being the absolute star in early February, having surged nearly 30 times.

Source: Pandora

At that time, we had such a vision—

ERC-404 directly shapes a symbiotic relationship between '图coin' and can trade on CEX, which is also a subversion of existing Non-fungible Tokenfi products. As long as an oracle is introduced, leveraging native Non-fungible Token based on ERC-404 is also easy (directly long or short ERC-20 Token), and direct lending is also easy. It is no longer the form of storing small pictures under a specified address, and can be operated directly based on ERC-20 Token.

However, this concept has not been realized and instead, the Hybrid 'graph-coin mix' mode popular on Solana later has exhibited a double spiral effect of liquidity, as the rise of meme coins drives the Non-fungible Token series with cult properties in the community.

In February, Yuga Labs announced the acquisition of the development team PROOF from Moonbirds, which owns top non-fungible token IPs/projects such as CryptoPunks, BAYC, MAYC, BAKC, Otherdeed in Monkey World, Meebits, Moonbirds, etc., becoming a non-fungible token giant. At that time, our viewpoint was proposed as--

Yuga Labs is no longer cool, and there may not be much time left for Yuga Labs to think. This will be a race against the bull market.

Now it seems that the outstanding market performance and follow obtained by Pudgy Penguins and Doodles at the end of the year provide evidence for this view.

This month's star new projects include:

Quantum Cats (Bitcoin Ordinals), despite some controversy in the market due to the price of 0.1 Bitcoin at the time, the current price of 0.3 Bitcoin has made the project's blue-chip Bitcoin Non-fungible Token status undisputed.

March: Blast mainnet launched, Runestone Airdrop triggers a frenzy of runes

Blast Mainnet went live on March 1st, firing the first shot in the March Non-fungible Token market. But overall, the highlight of this month is Bitcoin Ordinals.

First, the concept of 'DMT (a concept that has led to the creation of art based on Bitcoin block data)' has been rising since the end of February. As the leader of the DMT concept, Natcats created a record of selling a single 1.3 Bitcoin before any Bitcoin non-fungible token trading market was launched.

Image source: X

Next is the Runestone Airdrop that took place in mid-March, this massive Airdrop included over 112,000 Bitcoin addresses, and in just two days became the third largest Non-fungible Token series by total market value. It is also the precursor to the current number one rune $DOG.

Image source: BlockBeats

The Runestone Airdrop has a profound impact on the Bitcoin ecosystem. 'Free, fair, and big trucks' are three key words that have become the criteria for judging whether a Bitcoin Ordinals project is excellent for a long time this year.

Meanwhile, on Solana, Mad Lads reached its peak this month, and holders are eagerly anticipating their Wormhole Airdrop.

Overall, it has been a lively month, but there are still disappointing news. Starbucks announced the closure of its Non-fungible Token loyalty program 'Starbucks Odyssey' on Polygon at the end of this month, and Kevin Rose sparked controversy by selling a bunch of small pictures.

This month's star new projects include:

Runestone (Bitcoin Ordinals), the legend of runes begins with this stone.

CENTS (Bitcoin Ordinals), 10,000 pennies Token after being melted and put on the chain, has become the highest market value art series on Bitcoin.

Plutocats (Blast), quite similar to the 'Nouns' on Blast, surged significantly due to receiving a Blast Gold distribution far higher than other Non-fungible Token projects.

Crypto Valley (Blast), this farming game once released 1,500 free 'farmer' characters, causing a FOMO frenzy, but now no one is interested.

April: Bitcoin welcomes halving, Base Non-fungible Token grows.

Among the star new projects in March, it should also include the Open Edition series 'MUTATIO' issued by XCOPY on Base. It sold 1,028,831 copies during the 2-day minting period, with total sales exceeding 700 Ethercoin.

Image Source: BlockBeats

But the hot thing is the meme Token $FLIES launched by the project community in April, which surged under the recommendation of XCOPY himself.

On the Blast network, fantasy.top, this 'friends trading' game, continues to be popular.

Of course, the Bitcoin network is still the hottest. The epic Satoshi, produced by halving, is traded at a price of 33.3 Bitcoin, giving birth to an epic Satoshi rune. It seems that everything in the Bitcoin ecosystem is steadily improving, but in the end, this epic Satoshi did not give players a good return, even a failure...

This month's featured new projects include:

Blob (Bitcoin Ordinals), a self-funded Airdrop with an all-star lineup, took the lead in winning the epic smart. Just when everyone was expecting a new Bitcoin blue-chip to emerge with a position to generate art, it turned out to be a disaster due to a series of shady operations. This may be one of the most disappointing Bitcoin Non-fungible Token investments in the past year.

Prometheans (Bitcoin Ordinals), the CyberKongz team's first attempt in the Bitcoin ecosystem, was a successful Airdrop, but they failed in the sales of the PFP series and then left the Bitcoin ecosystem, abandoning the Number 2 Rune DECENTRALIZED.

May: The beginning of a downturn

Starting this month, 2024 Non-fungible Tokens have begun to enter a relatively quiet phase.

There's not much to say about the degen side of the battle on the chain this month. The news is basically about toys like Pudgy Penguins entering the stores of the US retail giant Target, and DeGods returning to Solana.

The standout performer this month is Milady, rising against the trend.

June: Cold and desolate

In this month, we have seen CryptoPunks below 30 Ethercoin. This is the first time since August 2021 that the floor price of CryptoPunks has dropped below 30 Ethercoin.

Source: BlockBeats

In addition, a total of four Yuga Labs Non-fungible Tokens purchased by Three Arrows Capital in August 2021 and March 2022 for a total of approximately 140 Ethercoins were auctioned at Sotheby's on June 18. At the peak of the Non-fungible Token, the price of this asset should have exceeded 1,000 Ethercoin. And in June, BAYC's floor price briefly fell below 9 Ethercoin.

It's the darkest moment for non-fungible tokens. It wasn't until the last week of June that the established Etherfang blue-chip Non-fungible Token project rebounded. CryptoPunks rebounded 24%, $BAYC rebounded 30% at one point, Pudgy Penguins rebounded 50% at one point, and Azuki rebounded 35% at one point. Solana top Mad Lads also rose 40%, while Bitcoin head NodeMonks and Bitcoin Puppets both rose more than 20%.

In June, another Non-fungible Token project, Kanpai Pandas, became popular because of LayerZero's Airdrop. The market's dissatisfaction with LayerZero Airdrop spread to this project, and there were doubts that the project was a "rat warehouse," but in fact it is not.

At the end of June, Abstract, the now popular 'Penguin Chain', made its first appearance in this new form. As a Non-fungible Token Layer2 chain, Abstract's predecessor Frame has been silent since January 30 this year when the Airdrop pre-order period was extended. It wasn't until the end of June that Frame finally released its big move - the chain was acquired by Igloo, the new parent company of Pudgy Penguins. With this, all three brands in the Igloo ecosystem have been unveiled - Pudgy Penguins, the on-chain IP licensing platform Overpass, and Frame.

Frame has undergone a brand reshaping. In addition to renaming to Abstract, the overall vision has also upgraded from empowering creators and providing a more convenient and secure Non-fungible Token user experience to targeting mass consumers and promoting the large-scale adoption of Crypto.

Looking back, the fire after the cold winter started to burn from this time. In addition to Abstract, there are also some star new projects in June:

Writ of Passage by The Beacon (Arbitrum), with a total supply of 10,000, was minted at a price of 0.115 Ether. It sold out within 7 minutes in the FCFS round, which was quite rare given the market conditions at that time. Of course, the main reason it sold out is because it was essentially pre-selling the Tokens.

Gigabud (Solana), the initial public sale price was 1.25 $SOL. As the official PFP of Grass 'WiFi Grass,' this series not only brought a considerable number of Airdrops later, but also could be sold at a price of more than 1.25 $SOL after the Airdrop, which is very comfortable.

At the end of the year: direct recovery to fever

The few months in the middle that were left blank were not because I was lazy, but because there was nothing worth writing about. Some things happened during these gaps:

Magic Eden confirmed that it would give out coins, and finally at the end of the year, $ME's Airdrop gave Non-fungible Token players a huge reward.

Azuki confirmed that they will issue coins.

Non-fungible Tokens have become increasingly popular as a means of cold-starting many projects since mid-year. At that time, it was popular to have Free Mint projects with a total supply of 1,000 or even less, explicitly stating that there would be a Token Airdrop in the future. By the end of this year, we have witnessed the explosive popularity of Kaito.

On the Solana network, the surge of meme coins has blurred the boundary between memes and Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs), with Retardio Cousins being the most prominent example.

After a period of low-priced Mint, some high-multiple projects have emerged, but there has been no case of shocking the market in terms of earnings.

Year-end events have left a deep impression on everyone, and OpenSea's coin issuance is already in progress. Chains such as Abstract, Monad, Berachain, and Story that have not yet issued coins have been sparked by the potential Token Airdrop, leading to a wealth effect for related Non-fungible Token projects such as $PENGU Airdrop, propelling Doodles, Azuki, and even Cool Cats to new heights. New star projects are emerging, such as Abstract's On-chain Heroes and Fukuhedrons on the Bitcoin network.

With the long-awaited arrival of spring, only one old blue chip exits the market, that is Clone X. This blue chip project with a Nike background announced the suspension of operations on December 3rd, shocking all Non-fungible Token players, just like announcing to stop eating during the New Year's Eve dinner.

Looking forward to the new year, Abstract's mainnet will be launched in January, and new opportunities may also arise for Monad, Berachain, and Story, but I hope you don't go online too tightly, and triage is not friendly to degen.

On the basis of the stable and positive development of Ether Square, although it is difficult for Ether Square to produce projects that can rival the investment and resources of the old blue chip (it is really hard to imagine that there will be investors who will make great efforts to catch up with what the old blue chip has done), new narratives may bring new opportunities, such as AI-related Non-fungible Tokens.

More and more coin projects may choose Non-fungible Token as a preheating method, which has a small quantity and good control.

There is still room for growth in Bitcoin's Non-fungible Tokens.

Non-fungible Token is no longer the familiar Non-fungible Token to us. The content and IP narrative no longer meet the version standards for screening new projects. 'Coin issuance' and 'conspiracy' have become mainstream, but it does not prevent us from still discovering high-quality content that we like and love from it. Non-fungible Tokens are still growing.

Perhaps the concept of Non-fungible Token is outdated, but the thing we like to play with has always been unchanged, always images.

Finally, my words are about to be finished. Now, how would you rate the Non-fungible Token market for 2024?

This article is authorized for reprint from: 'Rhythm Blockbeats'

Original author: Cookie

"2024 Non-fungible Token market review! These JPGs are still unwilling to exit, and they are directly heated up by the end of the year." This article was first published in "Crypto City"