Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were some of the most popular assets around the world in 2021. The digital assets took over the world and it seems as if everyone, across multiple industries, launched an NFT collection.
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As the crypto market trends to the downside, in tandem with traditional equities, NFTs followed. Many have claimed that the nascent sector has died as popular collections see less trading volume and prices decline.
A new study published by CashNetUSA used Google search volumes and Twitter sentiment to measure to get a “clearer picture” of the NFT landscape. According to the study, Asia is still interested in the digital assets.
Singapore and Hong Kong lead the worldwide ranking in NFT interest, the study claims. Singapore records 18,717 NFT-related searches per million inhabitants each month.
The country has been keen to embrace the digital assets and the GameFi model, which often uses NFTs to support its play-to-earn platforms. The study claims Singapore has a “strong gaming culture and growing belief that digital goods are of genuine value”.
The United States, Canada, and the European Union also have record-high levels of interest in NFTs. The North American countries have over 22,000 NFT-related searchers while the EU countries have around 40,000 NFT-related searchers.
In that sense, Singapore is a special case as it records much more searchers than major economies like the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The report claims that these digital assets have been adopted even by local politicians at a high level:
Singapore records 18,717 searches per month per million inhabitants, and even Singapore’s Speaker of Parliament is in on the action, selling NFTs of his landscape photos to raise money for charity.
Conversely, the report concluded that NFTs are far less popular in countries such as Poland, Nicaragua, Jamaica, and Ireland. These results are supported by social media sentiment where these countries record the most negative reactions.
On the other hand, countries such as Cuba, Montenegro, Luxembourg, Taiwan, France, and Lebanon record a positive sentiment toward the digital assets. Mainstream media platforms, the collections launched by digital artists, and the prices for these items are some of the reasons why some countries tend to hate or like NFTs:
Poland and Nicaragua are neck-and-neck for the country that most hates NFTs. Contentious NFT stories have flooded the news in Poland, such as the influencer Marta Rentel, who sold the “digital love” of her online persona “Marti Renti” for $250,000 (1 million Polish zloty).
Axie Infinity, the game that took the play-to-earn (P2E) model mainstream, occupies the number one position for most popular NFT. The blockchain-based game tops a list of 112 countries across the world.
Axie Infinity’s popularity is followed by Decentraland, the Metaverse project, which was the most searched in 43 countries. As the report shows, the NFT market seemed to have lost momentum, but remains very much alive in certain regions.
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Additional data provided by Token Terminal records a decline in trading volume and total revenue for the popular NFT marketplace OpenSea. However, as the chart below shows, began their downside trends very recently in May 2022. If the crypto market bounces from the lows, can NFTs make a stronger comeback?
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