2022 was the year the risk asset bubble burst, sending tech stocks, crypto, and NFTs tumbling. The crypto industry got hit even harder by some huge frauds, collapses, and bankruptcies. All things considered, I think the NFT market held up remarkably well.
2022 was also a great year for NFT mass adoption. Although it’s still early days, massive companies like Starbucks, Meta, Nike, Reddit, and Disney all got into the NFT technology in various ways. And they’re all building on the Polygon blockchain, another big winner this year.
And speaking of blockchains, marketplaces like OpenSea and Magic Eden began breaking down the silos by adding support for NFTs from multiple different chains. This, along with the rise of Solana, made Magic Eden one of the top marketplaces in the space.
Marketplaces also found a new parameter to compete on this year: Royalties. More specifically, the enforcement — or lack thereof — of royalties for creators and artists. It was one of the hottest topics in 2022 and the debate is still ongoing.
2022 was also the year when ENS names really became a speculative asset. Especially 3- and 4-digit names became hot commodities and hit floor prices few people had imagined.
On the quieter side, Art Blocks remained king on the generative art scene with lots of new and amazing drops, old projects rising, and new collectors entering. They’ve had to share the stage with fxhash though, a generative art platform built on Tezos that’s really picked up steam this past year.
In addition to these overall themes and the high-level development of 2022, we had lots of individual events and news stories that really defined the year. I’ve gathered the most important ones below. Feel free to drop me a comment if you think I missed some. I’m sure I did.
January
Azuki #6717 is one of the more affordable in the collection, currently for sale at 14.8 ETH
01/19: HAPE Prime had a massively hyped launch — but crashed post-reveal
01/20: Twitter enabled NFT profile picture verification
01/31: Cool Pets launched but didn’t live up to the hype
February
02/05: BuzzFeed exposed Yuga Labs founders and (deservedly) got a lot of hate for it
02/12: CryptoPunk #5822 sold for a record-breaking 8,000 ETH ($23.7m)
CryptoPunk #5822 sold for $23.7 million in February
02/13: Bud Light acquired a Noun — and featured it in a Super Bowl commercial
02/27: Pixelmon minted out for $70 million and rewarded holders with the worst art reveal in NFT history
One of the Pixelmon characters, nicknamed Kevin, became an instant meme in the NFT community
Some big news to share today: Yuga has acquired the CryptoPunks and Meebits collections from @LarvaLabs, and the first thing we’re doing is giving full commercial rights to the NFT holders. Just like we did for BAYC and MAYC owners. pic.twitter.com/lAIKKvoEDj
— Yuga Labs (@yugalabs) March 11, 2022
April
04/16: Moonbirds launched and broke a bunch of records while rallying to a 40 ETH floor in just days
Moonbird #2642 sold for a record-breaking 350 ETH (~$1 million) one week after launch before the prices came way down
04/25: OpenSea acquired NFT marketplace aggregator Gem
04/30: Otherside by Yuga Labs sparked the biggest gas war we’ve ever seen
May
05/04: Coinbase NFT launched and nobody cared
05/10: Azuki founder Zagabond was exposed as a serial NFT founder — and rug-puller
CryptoPhunks and Zunkz, both CryptoPunks derivatives, were two of Azuki founder Zagabond’s abandoned projects
05/12: The Terra blockchain and its LUNA token collapse, dragging the entire crypto space down with it
05/19: The inaugural VeeCon took place in Minneapolis
05/21: Goblintown launched and raised the bar for free mints, storytelling, and speculation
Afterburn and Guzzler, two works by XCOPY that are now in the public domain (CC0)
08/02: Zero-royalty marketplace SudoSwap gained steam and kicked off the NFT royalty debate
08/04: Moonbirds and Oddities went CC0 — and upset a lot of people
08/09: DigiDaigaku became a top avatar project out of nowhere
08/28: Snoop Dogg and Eminem performed as their Bored Apes and got mixed reviews
https://twitter.com/ericskelton/status/1564062187852816384
October
10/04: Art Blocks made a big overhaul of their collection structure in what they called Art Blocks 2.0
10/19: NFT marketplace Blur launched with free airdrop to traders
10/25: Reddit NFTs took off and topped the trading volume charts
10/25: Apple allowed in-app NFTs but maintained its 30% transaction fee
November
11/04: Instagram enabled select creators to mint and sell their own NFTs
11/08: FTX collapses and freezes customers’ assets (including NFTs)
11/14: Yuga Labs acquired WENEW, the company behind 10KTF, and brought on Beeple as an advisor
Welcome to the Otherside, Wagmi-san. pic.twitter.com/cNCNTqOd44
— Othersidemeta (@OthersideMeta) November 14, 2022
11/28: BlockFi filed for bankruptcy
11/30: Uniswap launched its own NFT aggregator, calling it “Google Search for trading NFTs”
December
Additional resources
I’m by no means the only one to do a review of 2022 in NFTs. I’ve read and listened to multiple of them myself. You’ll find some of my favorites below.
- NFTs 2022: A Crazy Year in Review by Shuab Akhtar on dGEN Network
- 2023 NFTs Prediction & 2022 Recap on the Two Bored Apes Podcast
- The 2022 Year in NFTs Part 1 and Part 2 on the NFT Catcher Podcast
- ZenCaps edition #43, incl. “A Quick Glance Back At 2022” by Zeneca
- The Biggest NFT Moments of 2022 by Andrew Hayward on Decrypt
