Last year, Collins Dictionary named NFT its word of the year. Non-fungible tokens, which are created using the same blockchain technology as cryptocurrencies, were all the rage in 2021.

But enthusiasm for NFTs is drying up amid a “crypto winter” — a huge drop in the value of the leading cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, which has lost 75 per cent of its value since its $69,000 peak last November. On Friday it was trading at about $17,000.

NFTs are effectively certificates of ownership recorded on a blockchain, a type of digital ledger. They tend to be valued in ether, the second largest cryptocurrency behind bitcoin, making their value vulnerable to how the crypto market performs.

Cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, use blockchains to keep track of