The advent of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) comprised a series of projects by blockchain developers who aimed to demonstrate novel use-cases of blockchain technology. CryptoPunks and CryptoKitties are two of the most famous early NFT projects, and they paved the way for the explosion of NFTs into the mainstream. Still, adoption has been slow. Crypto companies may have started the movement, but non-crypto companies and popular brands have a bigger part to play in accelerating NFT adoption.
The Early Days – CryptoPunks and CryptoKitties
CryptoPunks was one of the earliest and most famous NFT projects on the Ethereum blockchain. It was released in 2017 by Larva Labs, a two person team of software developers. Some of the 10,000, procedurally generated, 24 x 24 pixel portraits have since sold for over USD 7 million, and the total volume of sales over the lifetime of the project is close to reaching a billion dollars.
The image above shows the top 4…