NFTs or non-fungible tokens are the current digital craze that has taken over the world. Although NFTs can be any content in digital form, PFP and Art NFTs are the viral categories within the non-fungible space with each worth almost a hundred thousand dollars. Here’s everything you need to know about viral NFTs in 2022.
As crypto winter enfolds the market, NFTs haven’t lost their popularity. Buyers are still trading and buying digital collectibles, making it almost believable that NFTs are here to stay.
The recent analysis reports show that the hype for metaverse has increased NFT demands in the market since last year, especially for those collections that will turn into 3D avatars for the metaverse.
According to MarketsandMarket research, the NFT market will be worth $13 billion by 2027. Although the bear market might have pushed down NFT prices to lower lows, this might be a great opportunity for beginners and small traders to buy out valuable digital collectibles.
No matter what you hear or see on the news, NFTs are here to stay and will be worth your investment if you make the right decisions.
The most valuable NFT category as of now is PFP NFTs and Art NFTs. Before you start investing, you should know the difference between them and the gems hidden in them.
PFP NFTs
PFP NFTs are profile picture NFTs that are designed in a certain format. Usually, this type of NFT refers to JPEG images of avatars. These avatars can be in the form of animals or people in various forms.
In the NFT industry, the most sold digital collectibles are PFPs, and most projects try to create PFP NFTs because they are more likely to grab people’s interest and have more value in the market.
PFP NFTs also have a great use for holders. They can use them as social media profile pictures, personal photos, design merchandise, or even shoot a music video featuring the avatar.
PFP NFTs commonly come in a set of items that are uniquely generated either by program or hand-made by creators. Each NFT within the same collection is ranked based on its rarity.
Rarity means how much value an NFT holds or is likely to hold in the market. When experienced buyers go on marketplaces, the first judge the rarity traits of a PFP NFT to ensure whatever they buy is authentic and worth the money.
All NFT projects are built upon separate universes. In other words, every NFT collection has a Disney of its own with a creative storyline, characters, art concepts, or some purposes. The more attractive a storyline or concept is, the more likely people are interested in buying.
The Metaverse has also been included in PFP NFTs as a part of the concept. Before PFP NFTs were released only as JPEG images, now these digital collectibles have the capability to become your avatar in the metaverse. Some projects are creating their own metaverses, while others plan to include them in the already existing ones.
In PFP NFTs, there are some viral NFT collections that you should know about:
Bored Apes, MAYC, and CryptoPunks
You might have seen some pictures of cartoon apes going around on the internet. These apes aren’t just JPEG images, in fact, they are PFP NFTs from the Bored Ape Yacht Club worth over a million dollars.
Bored Apes are considered to be the most expensive and valuable NFTs in the world. They have broken all records and continue to break more with their upcoming metaverse projects.
Bored Apes is usually considered an elite NFT collection sold on OpenSea that most celebrities and famous personalities own. Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Curry, Post Malone, and Madonna are some of the well-known names to have Bored Apes as their PFPs on Twitter.
Yuga Labs, the company and creator behind BAYC, has also introduced its spin-off called Mutant Ape Yacht Club, which is also worth a thousand dollars. It has also acquired CryptoPunks, which is another PFP NFT collection that pioneered digital art and NFTs sold for thousands of dollars.
In other words, BAYC, MAYC, and CryptoPunks are the leading PFP NFT collections in the market and no one has surpassed their sales up-to-date.
World of Women
Looking for some representation, World of Women presents a Web3 community of Women developers, creators, and artists from around the globe. Like BAYC, this project also features PFP NFTs of women designed by a wide range of women artists, but mainly by Yam Karkai.
If BAYC has a storyline, World of Women has a concept, which is to empower women in the Web3 industry. The WoW PFP NFTs are also worth thousands of dollars and are designed in a very unique and illustrative way to represent various types of women around the world.
WoW NFTs rival all the top collections and have broken sales records this year with their latest Galaxy collection.
Other PFP NFTs
Some other PFP NFTs that are worth mentioning because of their rising popularity in the NFT community include Moonbirds, Goblintown.wtf, Solana NFTs, Okay Bears, Azuki, Doodles, CloneX, and many more.
Art NFTs
If you aren’t the type to enjoy JPEG images of animals, creatures, humans, or other avatars, Art NFTs are the best choice for you. NFT technology has contributed a lot to empowering emerging digital artists around the world who had no place to showcase their talent.
Before NFTs, artists struggled to keep ownership of their work and often lost copyrights to their originally created art pieces. With NFT technology, artists and creators can have the right to ownership and establish their careers.
From abstract digital art, and sophisticated illustrations, to valuable paintings of famous artists, everything can now be digitalized and safely stored in the blockchain. Art collectors can now own digital forms of famous paintings and make them part of their collection.
NFTs are rich in culture, traditional art, contemporary designs, futuristic art pieces, and various philosophical concepts combined. In other words, non-fungible tokens have opened doors to creativity and unlimited possibilities for artists and collectors.
Some of the famous artists that you should know about are:
Beeple
Beeple, the pseudonym of Digital artist Mike Winkelmann, is the best-selling record-breaking artist whose Collage art NFT called Everydays: The First 5000 Days sold for $69M in 2021. As of now, this NFT is the most expensive digital art to be sold on a marketplace.
Beeple now holds the record of the third most expensive living artist in the world. After the success of Beeple, there was a sudden surge in the popularity of digital art and illustrations around the world. Many artists and collectors emerged in the NFT space and now Art NFTs have become the most valuable digital asset to own.
FEWOCiOUS
FEWOCiOUS or Victor Langlois, the most successful teenage artist to make the headlines in 2021. He represents the queer community in the Web3 world.
His art, which broke the internet, was also based on his gender identity transition and a difficult childhood which he overcame and celebrates as an achievement. He turned his artwork into a valuable NFT called “Hello, I’m Victor (FEWOCiOUS) and This Is My Life.”
Since then, the artist has earned around $18M by selling his art NFT online.
Other artists to look out for!
Art NFTs are valuable because artists create masterpieces that mesmerize the buyers and become worthy of an investment.
Art NFTs also include old paintings that were tokenized and stored in blockchain which people can bid on and own for the rest of their lives without damaging the original product such as the Mona Lisa NFT, which is a digitized version of the original Mona Lisa.
If you are looking for some art NFTs by contemporary or living artists, you shouldn’t miss out on the artworks by Quasimondo, Pak, Deadmau5, Mad Dog Jones, Robbie Barrat, and many more.
Final words
PFP NFTs and Art NFTs are the most viral NFTs around the world. If you are interested in entering the NFT space, these collections might be a good start for you as a collector.
For people looking for a better variety and quality, you can visit the most famous NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea (the largest NFT marketplace), SuperRare, NBA Top Shot, Foundation, Rarible, and many more.
Note that some NFT marketplaces are specific to specific artworks and NFTs. For Art NFTs, Foundation and SuperRare are most popular, while OpenSea tops for PFP NFTs.
Now that you know everything about PFP NFTs and Art NFTs, there are so many artists and creators that are worth looking out for who are contributing to the NFT industry over the past few years.
