The biggest NFT collections in 2022

It was a tale of two NFT markets in 2022: the speculative madness that defined the first few months of the year, and the steady decline since it has culminated with a dramatic drop in trade and prices for larger collections.

Amidst the early years’ froth and brutal aftermath, some projects clearly stood above the rest in terms of trade demand.

We have reviewed the data collected by the analytics platform CryptoSlam to compile a list of the 10 best performing NFT collections throughout the nearly completed year, from January to December 20. The data includes on the chain secondary sale, and for new projects released in 2022, also the funds generated by the first NFT coin.

Note that CryptoSlam filters out sales suspected of being the product of wash trading, or trades made at artificially inflated prices between a user’s own wallets. It is often done to manipulate someone token reward model, strong distortion of data in the process. The filtered data provides a better sense of organic trading action.

(Data accurate as of 20 December 2022)

10. Axie Infinity – $291.1 million

Last year largest NFT project barely made the top 10 this time, as a monster fighting game Axie Infinity limped into 2022 as its games to earn the economy struggled. Axie brought in billions of dollars worth of trade in 2021 as their token rewards convinced millions of players to buy NFTs and jump in, but the momentum fell off a cliff in 2022.

Despite launch a new version of the game and making adjustments to turn around the economy, Axie Infinity’s trading action has largely disappeared throughout the year. CryptoSlam reported over $126 million in NFT trades in January, but less than $1.5 million in November. The entire NFT market is suffering, but Axie’s decline has been sharper than most.

9. Sorare – $318.1 million

Although NFT prices fell, Web3 fantasy football game Hurt continued to plug along with relatively steady sales through 2021, ultimately accounting for $318 million worth of trading volume so far this year. NBA top shot may have brought the sport of NFT into the mainstream in 2021, but it fell off in 2022 while Sorare continued his solid performance.

The $318 million sale only includes trades via Sorare’s original soccer platform. It was launched league specific NBA and MLB platforms this year as well, and CryptoSlam displays all this data under one unified listing on the website. However, a breakdown of the data shows that Sorare’s MLB platform has not gained much traction, while the NBA game only recently launched.

8. Doodles – $391.6 million

Ethereum profile picture (PFP) project Doodles launched last fall and has big ambitions for its brand, including music and entertainment games in collaboration with Pharrell Williamsas well as a larger scale Doodles 2 drop built for metaverse. And amid these announcements, secondary sales for the original collection continued in 2022.

Doodles have racked up over $391 million in secondary trading volume this year, peaking in January at $122 million. With $54 million in VC funding in its war chest and big plans ahead, we’ll see if Doodles can maintain momentum in 2023 after steady recent drops in both prices and trading volume.

7. CryptoPunks – $575.2 million

The influential profile picture project in 2017 had a relatively eventful 2022. A CryptoPunk was sold for a record 23.7 million dollars worth of ETH in February, and then its creator Larva Labs sold the IP rights to Bored Ape Yacht Club producer Yuga Labs in March.

Yuga has since worked to address some of the complaints from holders, included offer them IP commercialization rights to turn their punks into derivative works of art and projects, plus work with establish the credibility of the art world of the OG NFT collection. The trade wasn’t as fervent as with the Monkeys this year, but remember: Punks were free to craft at launch. Five years later, they still topped half a billion dollars in annual trading.

6. CloneX – $600.5 million

The vibrant, anime-inspired collaboration between Nike-owned Web3 studio RTFKT and popular artist Takashi Murakami continued to thrive this year after launching in late 2021, delivering over $600 million worth of trading volume so far.

Beyond the boldly stylized avatars, part of the value equation has been RTFKT’s continued push to deliver benefits to holders, including airdropped NFTs that gave them Nike’s CryptoKicks digital wearables. Like most projects on this list, prices and demand have fallen in recent months – but RTFKT continues to plague big plans for the future and NFT holders.

5. Moonbirds – $613.4 million

Kevin Rose’s Proof startup made a big splash in April with the launch of Moonbirdsa collection of 10,000 pixel owl avatars so quickly generated $280 million value of minting and trading within just two days of launch. The feverish momentum eventually waned, but still the project has topped $613 million in total activity so far this year.

Moonbirds followed the launch in late 2021 of busy Proof Collective membership NFT, which itself rose in value amid the Moonbirds frenzy. Evidence has since collected a bunch of money and make big plans for next year, even if it is moved to open source artwork earned pushback from holders. Will Moonbirds sales continue to fly in 2023?

4. Azuki – $849.9 million

Here it is: the highest-rated new project in 2022 that wasn’t spun off from an existing IP. Azuki rolled out in January and thrived for several months until the NFT market crashed in May, eventually amassing around $850 million in revenue to date.

The anime-inspired project has also done a better job than most of maintaining value, measured in ETH, while its Beanz “sidekick” NFTs — airdropped for free to holders — have racked up an additional $233 million in trading volume on their own . Azuki’s recent push to pair physical products with NFTs has also given it a unique hook going forward.

3. Other – $1.1 billion

Bored Ape Yacht Club’s metaverse game is easily the biggest new NFT launch of 2022, with the initial coin and secondary sales collectively generating worth around 561 million dollars within 24 hours. The huge resale bomb then pushed OpenSea into its own best single trading day to date… right before the broader crypto market collapsed. Now the figure between mint and secondary sales tops the billion mark.

With The other side, what NFT traders are buying is an Otherdeed, or a plot of land in the world of the upcoming metaverse game. Yuga held a first interactive test for the game a few months back and plans additional demo experiences as development continues, although it may take some time for these Otherdeeds to be functional.

2. Mutant Ape Yacht Club – $1.14 billion

The Mutant monkeys— the wilder, cheaper counterparts to Bored Apes — took second place in the 2022 rankings. There are twice as many Mutant Apes and they trade more often than the original Bored Apes, so the collection managed to top $1.1 billion in sales this year despite the much lower average prices for this set.

Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFT owners received an award of ApeCoin fall in Marchand were also able to claim a free Otherdeed in April, so ownership definitely had benefits in 2022, even if they aren’t considered as prestigious as Bored Apes.

1. Bored Ape Yacht Club – $1.57 billion

Even before you ran the math, there was little doubt which project would top this list. Bored Ape Yacht Club collected $1.5 billion worth of trades as hype sustained the collection through much of 2022.

Undoubtedly, the buzz surrounding the launches of ApeCoin and Otherside helped drive trading and rising prices for Bored Apes. But so did theirs increasing awareness and cachet across both crypto and mainstream culture, with Apes captured by celebrities and used to launch brands and Products. The prices have fell sharply since the April peakbut Bored Apes still ruled the year in NFTs.