The year 2024 is coming to an end. At the end of 2024, the Airdrop of Token $ME from Magic Eden and the collective recovery of 'old blue chip' ETH, especially the sunshine Airdrop of Token $PENGU from 'chubby penguin' Pudgy Penguins, have brought real wealth effects, allowing Non-fungible Tokens to gain market follow after a long absence.

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

January: The tripartite power of the world has just begun, and the end of the "hexagonal avatar".

In December 2023, the monthly total trading volume of Solana Non-fungible Tokens reached about $3.65 billion, slightly surpassing Ethereum's approximately $3.63 billion. Looking back, this marks the beginning of a three-way competition in the world of Non-fungible Tokens among Ethereum, Solana, and Bitcoin (Ordinals). Despite Ethereum's absolute dominance over the top market value Non-fungible Token projects and player volume at the end of the year, proving itself to still be the king of the Non-fungible Token field, if we rewind time to January of this year, 2024, the Non-fungible Token market will have spent the entire year in a three-way situation.

Ethereum Non-fungible Token started this year with the 'Vintage Mickey Mouse'. Due to US law only allowing copyright ownership for 95 years, in January of this year, the old version of Mickey Mouse's copyright is no longer owned by Disney, and is now open to the public. So we saw 'Mickey Mouse' dominating the OpenSea.

But then, there was some bad news - Twitter has canceled the functionality of using Non-fungible Tokens as Twitter avatars. This seems to be telling us that, apart from Crypto players, no one in the world will care whether an avatar is worth 10 dollars or 100,000 dollars. Anyway, do you still remember these "hexagonal avatars"?

This month's star new projects include:

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

• RSIC (Bitcoin Ordinals), the most popular pre-mined Rune Non-fungible Token series on the Rune protocol quietly Airdropped, and the pre-mining of Rune became popular.

• Tinfun (Ethereum, later migrated to Blast), the power of the Chinese people to rebuild the glory of the Ethereum mainnet.

• ittybits (ETH Engraving), 10 times the opportunity in the niche track, has driven the rise of the entire ETH Engraving small pictures, but unfortunately lacks follow-up.

• CryptoUndeads (Solana), the Cabal disk that can be obtained in the presale, is like a meteor passing by, making a big profit.

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

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

At that time, we had such a vision -

But now, this idea has not been realized. Instead, the Hybrid 'graphene currency hybrid' mode popular on Solana later, that is, the rise of meme coins driving the cult attribute of the community's Non-fungible Token series, has shown the effect of liquidity double spiral.

In February, Yuga Labs announced the acquisition of the development team PROOF from Moonbirds, owning top-level NFT IPs/projects such as CryptoPunks, BAYC, MAYC, BAKC, Otherdeed, Meebits, Moonbirds, etc., becoming the NFT behemoth. At that time, our point of view was -

It now appears that the follow and excellent market performance that Pudgy Penguins and Doodles received at the end of the year provides evidence for this view.

This month's star new projects include:

• Quantum Cats (Bitcoin Ordinals), although there was some disagreement in the market due to the price of 0.1 Bitcoin at that time, the current price of 0.3 Bitcoin has made the project's blue-chip Bitcoin Non-fungible Token status indisputable.

March: Blast mainnet goes live, Runestone Airdrop ignites a rune frenzy

The Blast mainnet was launched on March 1st, marking the 'first shot' in the March Non-fungible Token market. However, overall, the focus this month is on Bitcoin Ordinals.

First, there was a rise in the concept of 'DMT (a concept that has spawned a form of generative art based on Bitcoin block data)' starting from the end of February. As the leader of the DMT concept, Natcats set a record of selling a single piece for 1.3 bitcoins before even listing any Bitcoin Non-fungible Token trading market.

Next is the Runestone Airdrop that took place in mid-March. This massive Airdrop included over 112,000 Bitcoin addresses and became the 3rd largest Non-fungible Token series in terms of total market capitalization in just two days. It is also the predecessor of the current top-ranked rune, $DOG.

The impact of Runestone Airdrop on the Bitcoin ecosystem is profound. 'Free, fair, and big truck' are three key words that have been the criteria for judging whether a Bitcoin Ordinals project is excellent for quite some time this year.

At the same time, on Solana, Mad Lads reached its peak this month, and holders are eagerly awaiting their Wormhole Airdrop.

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

This month's star new projects include:

• Runestone (Bitcoin Ordinals), the legendary runes begin with this stone.

• CENTS (Bitcoin Ordinals), 10,000 penny coins that have been melted and put on the chain, has become the highest-valued art series on the current Bitcoin market.

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

• Crypto Valley (Blast), this farming game once gave away 1500 free 'farmer' characters, causing FOMO at one point, but now no one cares.

April: Bitcoin undergoes halving, Base Non-fungible Token sees growth

In the star-studded new projects of March, it should actually include the Open Edition series 'MUTATIO' issued by XCOPY on Base. During the 2-day minting period, 1,023,831 copies were sold, with a total sales of over 700 ETH.

But the hot topic is the surge of Meme Token $FLIES, which was launched by the project community in April and surged under the recommendation of XCOPY himself.

On the Blast network, the game 'Fantasy.top' is continuously popular for 'friend trading'.

Of course, the Bitcoin network is still the hottest. The epic Satoshi, with a price of 33.3 bitcoins for halved output, gave rise to an epic Satoshi rune. It seems that everything in the Bitcoin ecosystem is stabilizing and improving, but in the end, this epic Satoshi did not give players much of a return, even a failure...

This month's star new projects include:

• Blob (Bitcoin Ordinals), a self-funded Airdrop, started with an all-star lineup and even took the lead in winning the Epic聪. Just when everyone was expecting a new blue-chip Bitcoin to emerge with a positioning for generating art, it ended up as a flop due to a series of controversial moves. 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 later failed in the PFP series sales and then abandoned 2nd rune DECENTRALIZED and left the Bitcoin ecosystem.

May: The beginning of a quiet turn

Starting from this month, Non-fungible Tokens in 2024 are entering a relatively quiet phase.

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

The outperformer this month is Milady, rising against the trend.

June: Cold and lonely, desolate and sorrowful

This month, we saw CryptoPunks below 30 ETH. This is the first time since August 2021 that the floor price of CryptoPunks has dropped below 30 ETH.

In addition, Three Arrows Capital purchased a complete set of golden skins BAYC + 2 MAYC + BAKC, totaling four Yuga Labs Non-fungible Tokens, at a cost of approximately 140 ETH in August 2021 and March 2022. The auction took place on June 18th at Sotheby's. At the peak of Non-fungible Tokens, the price of this asset should exceed 1000 ETH. However, in June, the floor price of BAYC fell below 9 ETH at one point.

It can be said to be the darkest moment for Non-fungible Tokens. It wasn't until the last week of June that the well-known Ethereum blue-chip Non-fungible Token projects rebounded. CryptoPunks rebounded by 24%, BAYC rebounded by up to 30%, Pudgy Penguins rebounded by up to 50%, and Azuki rebounded by up to 35%. Solana's flagship Mad Lads also rose by 40%, and top Bitcoin projects NodeMonkes and Bitcoin Puppets both rose by over 20%.

In June, another Non-fungible Token project, Kanpai Pandas, became popular due to LayerZero's Airdrop. The market's dissatisfaction with LayerZero Airdrop spread to this project, and there were suspicions that the project was a "rat warehouse," but it was not actually the case.

At the end of June, Abstract, now known as the "Penguin Chain", made its debut in its new form. Abstract, formerly known as Frame, is a Non-fungible Token Layer2 chain. Since the extension of the Airdrop pre-claim period on January 30th this year, the official promotion of Abstract has been silent. It wasn't until the end of June that Frame finally revealed its trump card - it was acquired by Igloo, the newly established parent company of Pudgy Penguins. With this acquisition, the veil has been lifted on all three brands in the Igloo ecosystem - Pudgy Penguins, the on-chain IP licensing platform Overpass, and Frame.

Frame has undergone a brand transformation. In addition to changing its name to Abstract, the overall vision has also shifted from empowering creators and improving the user experience of Non-fungible Tokens to targeting mass consumers and promoting the widespread adoption of Crypto.

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

• Writ of Passage by The Beacon (Arbitrum), a total of 10,000, minting price of 0.115 ETH, sold out in 7 minutes after entering the FCFS round. In the current market environment, it is really rare to sell 10,000 Non-fungible Tokens at such a price. Of course, the reason it sold out is mainly because it essentially pre-sold the Tokens.

• Gigabud (Solana), the public sale price at the time was 1.25 SOL. As the official PFP of Grass, this series not only brought a significant number of Airdrops later, but also sold for more than 1.25 SOL after Airdrop.

End of the year: Directly recover to hot

The empty months in the middle are not because I am lazy, but because there is really nothing worth writing about. Some things happened during these empty periods:

• Magic Eden confirms that it will issue tokens, and the Airdrop of $ME will provide generous rewards to Non-fungible Token players by the end of the year.

• Azuki confirms that it will issue tokens.

• Non-fungible Token as a means of cold start for many projects gradually became popular from the middle of the year. At that time, the popular projects were Free Mint projects with a total supply of 1000 or even less, directly indicating a Token Airdrop in the future. By the end of this year, we saw the explosive Kaito throughout the market.

• On the Solana network, the surge in meme coins has blurred the boundaries between memes and Non-fungible Tokens, with Retardio Cousins being the most typical representative.

• After the Ape Chain was hot for a while, the low minting price of some high multiple projects ran out, but there was no case of shocking the market in terms of the amount of income.

At the end of the year, everyone's impression is very deep. OpenSea's coin issuance is already on the way, and chains such as Abstract, Monad, Berachain, and Story that have not yet issued coins have been sparked by potential Token Airdrops related to Non-fungible Token projects (related reading: What are the worthwhile Non-fungible Token projects worth following on chains that have not yet issued coins?). The wealth effect of the $PENGU Airdrop has caused Doodles, Azuki, and even Cool Cats to soar. New star projects are emerging, such as Abstract's On-chain Heroes and Fukuhedrons on the Bitcoin network.

After a long absence, as spring returns to the earth, only one old blue chip quietly exits the stage, and that is Clone X. This old blue chip project with a Nike background announced on December 3rd that it will cease operations, shocking all Non-fungible Token players, just like announcing at the New Year's Eve dinner that they will no longer eat.

Looking ahead to the new year, Abstract's mainnet will go live in January, and there may be new opportunities for Monad, Berachain, and Story. It is hoped that everyone will not rush to go online too tightly, as it is not friendly to degen to be overcrowded.

Building on the foundation of Ethereum's old blue chips trending steadily, although it is difficult for Ethereum to see projects that can rival the old blue chips (it is really hard to imagine investors spending a lot of effort to catch up with what the old blue chips have achieved), new narratives may bring new opportunities, such as AI-related Non-fungible Tokens.

More and more coin projects may choose Non-fungible Tokens as a low-volume and easy-to-control start-up method for preheating.

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

Non-fungible Tokens are no longer the familiar ones we know. The content and IP narrative no longer meet the current version standards for screening new projects. 'Coin issuance' and 'conspiracy' projects have become mainstream, but this does not prevent us from discovering the high-quality content that we like and love from them. 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 the same, always pictures.

Finally, it's time for me to finish speaking. Now, how would you rate the Non-fungible Token market for 2024?