NFTs of 2022: A Year in Web3 News – NFTevening.com

Welcome to our year in review of 2022 NFTs! This has been a rollercoaster of a year, one which started with a bull run and unfortunately ends in a bear market. Still, from the explosion of NFT art and collectibles, to the growing use of NFTs in gaming and other industries, there has been no shortage of news and innovation in the web3 world.

In this year in review, we will take a look at some of the most significant events and trends in the world of NFTs in 2022. We will look at the biggest NFT scams of 2022, the industry drama, web3 legal proceedings and celebrities embracing the metaverse. So settle in, grab your popcorn, and delve into the year that has been.

It’s been a wild ride of a year but if you missed it, let’s give you a run down on how it went.

2022 In NFTs Month-by-Month

Here is a brief overview of NFT news in 2022. An appetiser, if you will. Following this month-by-month NFT review, we will take a look are more in-depth industry news and highlights. For now, enjoy taking a step back and remembering the year that was.

January

January 2022 was a great time for NFTs. Every celebrity under the sun was releasing an NFT or buying an NFT. poor justin Bieber dropped 500ETH on a bored ape! The Bored ape floor hit 100ETH and the hype was real. So much so that a boy in Indonesia managed to sell out a whole NFT collection of his own selfies. Meanwhile we had Meta announcing NFT integration, and new marketplace Looksrare going live. It was also the moment Ryder Ripps first accused BAYC of racism.

February

February continued similarly with a wedding set in the metaverse and one cryptopunk selling for 8000ETH. We were so cool back then. Unfortunately that’s also when the drama started. Buzzfeed doxxed Yuga Labs founders. While everyone was desperate to mint Invisible Friends, Pixelmon revealed its shockingly bad artwork.

March

March brought Randi Zuckerberg’s most cringe rendition of Twisted Sister which none of us asked for. Of course we should have realised it was the top. March also brought the market crash and slowly all the collections we knew and loved got ever closer to zero. Around this time, ApeCoin finally drops, Proof drops Moonbirds and Cool Cats announce Cooltopia. RTFKT MNLTH and VeeFriends 2 reveal. Meanwhile Yuga Crashes the whole ecosystem with the Otherside mint. Yes, the drop caused gas prices to spike and even etherscan crashed.

Whether they were or weren’t the cause of a huge NFT crash, this was really just the beginning.

May

May brought yet another Solana outage and the launch of the free-to-mint meta. Starting with Goblin Town, the projects came in droves. Yes, this was the period where grown ups were making weird goblin noises on twitter spaces in the name of WAGMI. Can’t say it’s our proudest moment but it happened.

June

June was the month of the scam, with BAYC and the Otherside falling victim to hack. Briefly afterwards OpenSea also allowed users email addresses to become compromised. The following month, PREMINT and top influencers like Zeneca were also targeted.

Aside from that, the summer also brought the NFT scene some much needed fun with some top events. Veecon was beyond belief. No really, we can’t believe that someone really proposed on stage, but it is what it is. Of course, Solana was down again.

July

By now we are all panicking because the bear market is still here. However, while everything was cooling down for crypto folk, it was only just warming up for mainstream folk. In July, NFTs dropped on Meta’s platforms: Facebook and Instagram.

August

Then in August, Reddit dropped its first ever NFT collection. It didn’t get much excitement at the time but with hindsight, that was our shot at generational wealth. Seriously, how many shots can I miss? The bear market wasn’t getting much better either, but no one seemed to care anymore. Spirits were reasonably high. Eminem and Snoop dogg even featured their Bored Apes in a new music video and performed the song at the VMAs.

On the Crypto art side, August was a tough time for the royalty debate. Some NFT traders don’t like paying royalty fees and therefore pushed creators to release NFTs without them. Frank DeGods became heavily involved the royalty fee debate.

September

In September, the DeGods ecosystem launched y00ts. Everyone was desperate to get on the y00tlist! We all applied, but only the most exclusive influencers bagged a place. On the Ethereum side, the Merge merged and well nothing. Nothing happened. Life carried on. In other news, Christies opened an NFT auction house and Tyler Hobbs and Dandelion Wist announced QQL.

October

October brought uncertainty. The SEC decided to investigate Yuga Labs as a case study on what should happen with NFTs. That could be very good or very bad depending on how Yuga is operating. Of course, we didn’t have time to hold our breath. Reddit NFTs are now pumping, and in some weird twist of fate our normie mates on Reddit are going to make but we aren’t. Giving us just a taste of the past, Blur Marketplace announced its arrival along with a tasty airdrop.

Okay a very mini airdrop and some promises. But it sounded better when they said it. Azuki also dropped its PBTs.

November

November brought the whole royalty debate to its knees. Marketplaces dropped royalties, big collections dropped royalties. Artist were complaining loudly and the space became a little toxic. OpenSea announced plans to move to optional creator royalties, before bowing to peer pressure and reversing their decision.

December

Despite the rollercoaster of a year, NFTs ended on a high, with a lot of excitement for the future. The festive month began with Art Basel, and the art fair celebrated its 20th anniversary in Miami Beach with its largest display to date, highlighting some of the greatest NFT creators and teams. Shortly after, NFT and crypto security brand Ledger unveiled their latest offering – Stax – at Ledger Op3n. Finally, Yuga Labs appointed a new CEO – ex-Blizzard COO, Daniel Alegre.

Things can only get better.

Biggest NFT Scams and Hacks of 2022

Unfortunately, we have witnessed a lot of scammers and hackers in this past year, targeting both individuals and brands.The most high profile hacks in the NFT scene in 2022 include:

PREMINT Hack of 2022

the PREMINT hack in July, through which unfortunate hack victims gave token approval to hackers, allowing the hacker to move their NFTs without signing anything again. We also saw a Solana hack drain over 8000 crypto wallets, with the total loss count exceeding over $7 million in cryptocurrencies. There was also an OpenSea data breach, putting every user’s email address at risk!

The Great Influencer Hack

Influencers were targeted, with one Twitter NFT influencer losing several Doodles, Bored Apes, and other blue-chip NFTs, totalling over $1 million Further, Zeneca had his Twitter account hacked. Zeneca was not alone – the same happened to many other high-profile Twitter NFT accounts around the same time. DegenTown, Duppies, and @franklinisbored had their accounts hacked too. Surprisingly, even the British Army Twitter account was hacked by NFT scammers! Each time, the culprits started sharing malicious links using the victim’s Twitter feed.

The NFT Cat Burglar: Monkey Drainer

If he wasn’t so damn terrifying, he would be impressive. NFT thief Monkey Drainer has been rather busy this year. In just one week in November, the phishing scam thief stole over $1 million of NFTs. While its a big W for Monkey Drainer, at least we have blockchain detective Zach XBT hot on his tail.

Biggest NFT Sales of 2022

We have now been over the biggest scams and losses, so let’s take a look at the greatest NFT sales of 2022! Although NFT sales are down in general due to the ongoing crypto-winter, we have still seen some mammoth sales of digital collectibles.

Cryptopunk #5822 – 8000ETH

In February, CryptoPunk #5822 brought in 8000 ETH or around $23 Million!

Then later in the year, despite the bear market, a rare CryptoPunk Ape NFT sold for  3,300 ETH ($4.28 million).

Trippy Mega Mutant Ape – 2300ETH

Bored Ape Yacht Club 2300 ETH ($3.91 million) sale of a Mega Mutant Bored Ape in August of 2022. Then, a Golden Fur Ape also reached 777 ETH, or $1.5 million, in the same month. In fact, the whole BAYC collection floor price hit 100 ETH in January!

Cryptopunk #2681 – 900Eth

MoonPay made an even bigger purchase, buying CryptoPunk #2681 for 900ETH (~$3 million at the time).

Rare Doodles Golden Ape – 269.69ETH

The first huge sale of the year was the sale of a rare Doodles Golden Ape. NFT influencer Pranksy bought Doodles #6914 in January for 269.69 ETH! At the time of purchase, that was around $1.1 million.

MAX PAIN – 7,394 ETH

Finally, it is not only PFP collections breaking sales records. Artist XCOPY made $23 mllion in just 10 minutes with his open addition NFT titled ‘MAX PAIN’. This open auction sold 7,394 NFTs for 1 ETH apiece ($3,108 at the time), on the Nifty Gateway marketplace.

Top NFT Collection News in 2022

During spooky-season (more commonly known as October) Yuga Labs announced their first community-led BAYC Council. The founding council members are Josh Ong, Sera, Laura Rod, 0xEthan, 0xWave, Negi and Peter Fang. The council intends to represent the BAYC and MAYC community at large.

Azuki Ascends to New Heights

Azuki has been on fire this year, reaching success after success. In October, Azuki announced the “Physical Backed Token.” This Azuki PBT allows users on-chain ownership of real-life items. The anime NFT project then went on to release their first PBT implementation – ‘Proof of Skate’. The 8 limited-edition 24K Golden Skateboards broke records, with the lowest bid at 200 ETH (about $261,000 at the time), and the highest was a staggering 309 ETH (around $404,000).

Cool Cats’ Cooltopia

The coolest cats in the metaverse became even cooler in April with the announcement of Cooltopia. Cooltopia is the Cool Cats gamified NFT experience, driven by the $MILK token. There was even an IRL Cooltopia experience at NFT NYC!

Pharrell Williams Joins Doodles as Brand Officer

Colorful NFT brand Doodles announced some exciting news in June – Pharrell Williams joined the team! The award-winning musician and fashion icon took on the position of  Doodles Chief Brand Officer. In addition, Pharrell also joined the board of Doodles NFT.

WOW at BBWIM

World of Women wowed us once again in March when the project’s founder Yam Karkai represented the collection at Billboard Women in Music. Not only this, but Billboard also released two additional NFT covers designed by Yam Karkai. WOW continues to live up to its tagline!

ApeCoin

March saw the arrival of ApeCoin! ApeCoin is a token that centers around culture, gaming, and commerce, and empowers the community to contribute to the development of Web3. ApeCoin also works as a governance token with an ApeCoin DAO. The coin also provides access to certain parts of the ecosystem that are otherwise unavailable, such as exclusive games, merch, events, and services. Then, in a huge move for BAYC, Gucci became the first store to accept ApeCoin!

Top Celebrities Supporting Web3

With so many huge sales, celebrities were drawn to the NFT space! Those invested in NFTs include Guy Fieri, Eva Longoria, Dave Chappelle, and more. However, celebrities are not only investing in NFTs, but also creating their own collections and metaverse spaces. For example, Lance Armstrong became a promoter for APEX Optimizers, . We even saw (ex)royalty move into the Metaverse! In November, Harry and Meghan revealed that they have just inked a deal with pax.world to create their own metaverse, dubbed the meg-averse.

But these are the top celebrities pushing the NFT space forward in 2022:

Paris Hilton

Alongside supporting digital artists and making appearances in the metaverse and web3 events, Paris Hilton was and still is an icon in the web3 world. Just this year she built her own virtual Malibu Mansion in collaboration with her firm, 11:11 Media and The Sandbox.

Snoop Dogg

Snopp Dogg is here there and everywhere web3. From supporting Claymates, to dropping an NFT music video, it’s clear Snoop is doubling down on NFTs and the metaverse.

Justin Bieber

From buying a Bored Ape for 500 ETH to putting his support behind inBetweeners NFT, Justin Bieber jumped into web3 headfirst. While some mock his dwindling portfolio, we salute you Biebs for Degening with us.

2022: The Year of NFT Founder Doxxing

BAYC Founders Doxxed By Buzzfeed

In February, the anon BAYC founders were doxxed by Buzzfeed. The community welcomed seeing the true faces behind the PFPs, but were not happy with how the doxxing happened. Be that as it may, the Yuga Founders names are now common knowledge.

Betty Reveals Her Identity

Betty decided to reveal her identity to her following back in May. And we were lucky enough to break the news! Thanks Betty!

Frank Doxxes Himself

In November of 2022, Frank DeGods Doxxed his face and name. Rohun Vora, who we know as Frank DeGods, is an American of Indian heritage who took the solana NFT world by storm in 2022. Of course, he’s such a trend-setter that he started a chain reaction of doxxing in the community. I’m glad the shoey thing hasn’t really taken off in the same way.

Gmoney Doxxes His Face

Top NFT Collector and founder of luxury web3 brand 9dcc, gmoney decided to show his face to the community at Art Basel this year. While we don’t have a real name, we do have a face and that’s enough for now.

Top NFT Dramas of the Year

NFT drama of 2022 – let’s get into it! There was a lot of drama this year, so brace yourselves for this trip down memory lane.

“BAYC is Racist?”

Ryder Ripps started off the year with a bang by accusing BAYC of racism for the first time. This accusation rippled throughout the rest of 2022, with BAYC racism claims reemerging in June, and Anonymous Group seemingly calling out BAYC in August. Moreover, the Ryder Ripps BAYC feud evolved when Ripps created his own collection – Ryder Ripps BAYC. This didn’t end well for Ripps, as Yuga Labs filed a lawsuit against the RRBAYC creator.   

Are NFTs Securities?

Unfortunately, the BAYC drama did not end there.  Now, BAYC creators Yuga Labs find themselves the subject of a consumer rights case. Yes the SEC is using Yuga as a case study to decide whether NFTs are or are not securities. I’m hoping, for our sake, that Yuga has their sh** together.

Solana Goes Down Again…and Again

Moving on from BAYC, on January 8th, Solana went down for the first time in 2022. This seemingly set the tone for the rest of the year. Solana experienced another 7 hour outage in May, and a four hour outage in June. 2022 has not been good to Solana. At the beginning of 2022, Sol was priced at $169.98. Now, Sol closes out the year at a mere $12. Of course, some of this is due to the FTX scandal – but more on that later.

Nate Chastain Gets Arrested

From NFTs to NFT marketplaces, OpenSea has hit the headlines more than once. While OpenSea also laid off 20% of their workforce, what we want to talk about it the FBI arresting former Head of Product, Nate Chastain for insider trading. He thought he’d worked out this great plan where he’s buy the front page artwork before it was featured and then profit off the unlucky users. And he might have got away with it, if it wasn’t for that meddling blockchain.

Weather Report Team Had a Messy and Public Split

In the wider NFT PFP community, we saw a clash between the founders of Weather Report as they fought over revenue splits. Both sides released statements claiming something a little different and no one knew who to trust. The ex-artist Dentin started his own NFT collection – with almost identical art – named Dented Feels.

Sartoshi Disappeared

The founder of the mfers stickman collection, Sartoshi, decided to disappear from the NFT space. Sartoshi disappearing from mfers was a necessary end to the story for some. Whereas others state mfers is a rug pull. Apparently though…he may be back in 2023.

Official Trump NFT Collection

We can’t talk about drama in 2022 without mentioning Trump NFTs. Of course not everyone agrees with the best way to handle NFTs from the ex-president but despite what anyone might think, the collection sold out in under 24 hours. That said, concerns about the Trump NFT team and the artwork are currently circulating. Currently, it’s unclear if some of the artwork may be unoriginal.

Everything FTX

Finally, the big one – FTX. The FTX/SBF affair cannot be summarised a couple of sentences. The huge ordeal involving the cryptocurrency exchange and its illegal activity sent shockwaves through the entire ecosystem. FTX contributed to the downfall of Solana, influenced CryptoPunks flipping Bored Apes, and caused users to lose susbtantial amounts of funds. SBF has destroyed the spirit of the industry for so many people, however, hopefully in 2023 we will see some form of justice.

Other NFT projects also had their fair share of scandal. In January, Cool Cats released the Cool Pets mint price, and the high entry point caused controversy. The blue cat NFT project hit headlines again later in the year when they terminated staff with seemingly no given reason. Boki NFT fired Starcatchers artist Beutrec for insider trading, and Crypto Chicks NFT was accused of art theft.

Funniest Moments in NFT History 2022

Ghozali Everydays

The beginning of the year was a delight with a young Indonesian guy making a mint out of his face. No, this wasn’t with a high profile modelling contract as you’d expect. Instead, Ghozali Everydays is a collection comprised entirely of selfies of a distinctive looking chap from Indonesia.

Kmoney Vs Goblin town

In the height of the NFT hype, Kmoney made a name for himself this year. Mainly, people know him from his topical skits and rambunctious personality in twitter spaces. But goblintown and Kmoney butted heads, with one twitter space spiraling out of control. The NFT Comedian tried to get the laughs in but was only met with some “ₐₐₐₐₐₐₐᵤᵤᵤᵤᵤGGGₕₕₕₕₕ ₙₒ ₑₑₙₛₜₐgᵣᵤₘ ₙₒ dₑₛcᵤᵣd!”.

Kevin

Then who could forget the most entertaining NFT drama of the year – Kevin.

Just look at it! Need we say more? Just incase you somehow don’t know who Kevin is, we will recap his emergence for you. Pixelmon revealed their artwork in February, and it was bad. The $70 million project left holders unimpressed with their Pixelmon NFTs, and Twitter exploded with reactions. However, the NFT community found humor in the disaster, and Kevin began trending.

NFT Mints from 2022 to Remember

Azuki

The exemplary anime NFT project has been mentioned throughout this 2022 year in review, and with good reason. Azuki is well on its way to becoming the largest decentralized brand for the metaverse, built and owned by the community. The project first launched on January 12, 2022. The NFTs launched in a Dutch Auction, with a starting price of 1 ETH, and the entire collection sold out in under three minutes, making over $30 million. Now, on the last day of 2022, the collection boasts 271,697 ETH total trading volume and a 13.66 ETH floor price.

The super-hyped NFT project grew a huge following in the run up to its mint date. With over 451 thousand Twitter followers pre-launch, everyone was trying to get on that allowlist. Invisible Friends minted on February 23rd, and of course, sold out. The floor price reached 12 ETH within the first 24 hours! Now, the total trading volume is 46,722 ETH, with a floor price of 1.99 ETH.

Goblintown – WTF?

This project surprised us all. As the market plummeted into crypto-winter, a goblin-themed ugly NFT project launched a free mint and shot to second spot on OpenSea within less than 2 days! From Goblintown parties at NFT NYC to collabs with Atari, the Goblins are here to stay. In fact, the project has amassed over 50,747 ETH volume on OpenSea, and has a floor price of 0.71 ETH at the time of writing.

Moonbirds

It wouldn’t be a 2022 year in review without Moonbirds. Kevin Rose and PROOF Collective teamed up to launch the Moonbirds NFT collection, expanding the PROOF ecosystem. The collection of 10,000 NFTs with rarity-powered traits launched in April, but not without controversy. The mint price of 2.5 ETH certainly had people talking, however, the pixel bird NFTs still sold out in no time, bringing in $66 million worth of ETH. At present, the Moonbirds floor price is 7.5 ETH, and there has been 176,465 ETH total trading volume.

VeeFriends 2

Gary See followed up on his hand-drawn Series 1 VeeFriends and launched VeeFriends Series 2 in April! The artwork was an upgrade to the already thriving project. With 15 new characters, the NFTs introduced new scenes, poses, and ‘spectacular’ types (rarities). VeeFriends total volume is currently 30,502 ETH with a 0.27 ETH floor price.

y00ts

Although Solana did not have a great year (seriously, check the charts!) it did have a huge influx of users through the Solana-based project y00ts. The project – from Frank DeGods – had a rocky start, with multiple mint delays. Still, despite this, the mint was a huge success. In less than 24 hours, the hugely popular and secretive project amassed over 190 thousand SOL in volume (around $6.1 million)! At the time, the y00ts 24 hour volume was larger than the entire BAYC volume for seven days. Still, there were more hiccups along the way – the project took two months to reveal, the artist behind y00ts left the team, and now, y00ts has announced that it is migrating to Ethereum and Polygon.  With all that in mind, the total volume of y00ts at the end of 2022 is 1,939,235 SOL ($18 Million, 859 thousand ). The floor price is 2073 SOL (over twenty thousand dollars!).

NFT Firsts in 2022

Boss Beauties at the United Nations

Boss Beauties kicked off 2022 with the incredible announcement that they were to be the first NFTs EVER on display at the United Nations! The collection – Boss Beauty Role Models – was displayed at the UN headquarters in New York.

Twitter Introduces NFT PFPs

NFT PFPs for Twitter Blue users graced the community early 2022. Twitter and OpenSea partnered to roll out the new feature, allowing Twitter Blue subscribers to connect their wallets to their Twitter accounts and choose a profile picture from their NFT collection. And so the phase of hexagonal PFPs was born!

ENS Crosses 2 Million Registrations

In August, ENS Domain names reached new heights as the number of ENS Domain names catapulted to two million. It took five years for ENS to reach 1 million names, and only 3.5 months later they reached 2 million. What a milestone!

Otherside Metaverse at the VMAs

The VMAs hit our screens in August, and Snoop Dogg and Eminem performed their latest track “From The D 2 The LBC” live during the VMAs via the Otherside metaverse. The two rappers’ immersive VMA experience featured their Bored Ape avatars, cannabis references, and even Otherside’s Koda NFT avatars. This is the first time two major artists use their BAYC NFTs in a live performance, and the first time MTV features the Metaverse!

After news of the war broke out, the crypto community joined forces to support Ukraine. From Ether to BTC and USDT, users from all across the world donated over $13 million by the end of February. The wave of donations started with a tweet posted by the official account of Ukraine. As soon as the country’s wallet addresses were confirmed, donations started pouring. Soon enough, many big names of the NFT sphere joined the movement too, including influencers Pak and Zeneca.

The Merge

2022 was the year of the merge! The long-awaited Ethereum merge has was completed in September. This means the Ethereum blockchain, which serves as the key pillar for most NFT projects and over 71 million wallets, transitioned from Proof-of-Work (PoW) system to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) system. The Twitter community went wild, marking it as a pivotal moment for Ethereum and NFTs.

Traditional Brands in NFTs 2022

Everyone wants a slice of the NFT pie, and this includes popular web2 brands and companies. Here are some of the biggest brands to enter NFTs in 2022.

Starbucks Announced NFT Plans

In early April, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced the company’s plans to enter the NFT space. Later in the year, Starbucks launched its new Polygon-based Web3 rewards platform, Starbucks Odyssey. Currently in beta mode, the platform has seen an ‘unprecedented’ demand, and will add more testers in January 2023.

Playboy in The Sandbox

Playboy first teased its MetaMansion when it launched its Rabbitar NFT collection in 2021. This year, Playboy announced plans for a MetaMansion within The Sandbox, including Playboy Land!

Coinbase Marketplace

After almost seven months, the long-awaited Coinbase NFT marketplace launched in April. However, users were unimpressed. The marketplace opened to all users in May, yet gained only 150 users on its first public day. Ouch. Apparently, NFT enthusiasts were unimpressed with the NFT interface compared to that of its competitor, OpenSea.

Gamestop NFT Marketplace

In comparison to Coinbase marketplace, Gamestop NFT marketplace had colossal success! Launching in July, the  public beta version of the GME NFT marketplace saw over $7 million in collection trading volume in its first week! Then, on October 31st, the platform officially launched via a partnership with Immutable X – an Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution focused on blockchain/web3 gaming.

Reddit NFT Airdrop

In August, social media/community app Reddit airdropped free Polygon NFTs to its most loyal users. The launched the ‘Collectible Avatars’ a month prior, and also sold them to those who did not qualify for the airdrop. The months later, in October, Reddit hit the top 10 on OpenSea! Reddit revealed that its users opened over 3 Million wallets. Yes – just for NFTs avatars. That was actually more crypto-wallets than the leading NFT marketplace, OpenSea.

RTFKT MNLTH Reveal

RTFKT Studios, the NFT company which was purchased by Nike, revealed NFT sneakers titled MNLTH.

The MNLTH NFTs by Nike’s RTFKT Studios were airdropped to CloneX and PodX holders in early February – and were revealed to holders in April. They are an immersive collectible NFT experience in the form of a digital floating metal-look box.

Best NFT Events of 2022

VeeCon

May 19th marked the beginning of VeeCon 2022! The NFT ticketed event took place over four days at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk and his VeeFriends NFT collection are hosted the event, which was one of the biggest NFT and Web3 conferences ever.

The incredible list of Friday speakers included brain coach Jim Kwik, filmmaker Spike Lee, and world-renowned author Deepak Chopra. The second day of programming featured giants from both pop culture (Pharell, Seth Green, Mila Kunis, Logan Paul, Guy Oseary) and Web3 (Evan Keast, Yam Karkai, Isaac “Drifter” Wright, Beeple).

Last, but by no means least, the VeeCon 2022 finale featured Snoop Dogg, Nick Adler, and Champ Medici. Finally, Gary Vaynerchuk rounded out VeeCon with a closing keynote.

NFT NYC

The biggest NFT event of 2022 was NFT NYC. The NFT event was a resounding success, with attendees, speakers and event hosts all giving glowing feedback on the conference. Highlights included NFT PFP parties such as ApeFest, Deadfellaz Deadzone 13, and the World of Women party with Madonna performing!

Christie’s Launch NFT Auction House

World-famous art auction house Christies’ launched its very own on-chain Ethereum NFT auction house. Christie’s 3.0 is an open platform, and anybody can bid on items on the digital auction house. Auction houses in Web3 – who would have thought!

Azuki Adorns F1 Race Car

One huge IRL event involved NFTs for the first time! Oracle Red Bull Racing, a Formula One racing team, made F1 history in partnership with Bybit and Azuki creator Chiru Labs. The 2022 season finale in Abu Dhabi featured an Azuki NFT on the team cars for all to see. This marked the first time in history that a blue-chip NFT has been on an F1 race car.

CrytoPunks Enters the Guinness World Book of Records

Now this is not an IRL event, but it is arguably the biggest movement in NFT history this year! The Guinness World Book of Records finally recognized the blockchain by introducing a CryptoPunk in its latest edition. The encyclopaedia introduces a new section titled “CryptoMania”. This section covers a few of the iconic crypto events from the last decade. The edition also covers Bitcoin, crypto adoption, the first-ever cryptocurrencies, and of course, NFTs. The CryptoPunks are a highlight project in the new edition. Specifically, CryptoPunk #5822 is featured for its 8000 ETH (~USD 23 million) sale in February of 2022.

That’s a wrap! 2022 has been a wild ride for anyone in the NFT space. From the highest of highs in January, to the lows of the bear market, the journey has been dynamic – but we are still here. What will 2023 bring for NFTs? Well, for one thing, we know that we will see the return of Sartoshi! The creator of NFT collection mfers  made their return to Twitter in December, donning the name “Sartoshi RIP” (@sartoshi_rip). We can also look forward to more mainstream NFT representation, especially as Cool Cats will make NFT history by featuring on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade! Finally, if you’re reading this, congratulations on still being here.

Heres to the culture, the art, and the community. WAGMI.