• NFT sales had a breakthrough year in 2021, and over the past 12 months, volume has hit $25 billion.
• But after nearing $1 billion in a single week in January, NFT sales have slowed amid an ongoing bear market in cryptocurrencies.

The cryptocurrency boom over the past few years has helped propel a newer market to record heights: digital collectibles known as NFTs. 

The craze has pushed total NFT sales volume to $25 billion over the past year as artists, investors, and entrepreneurs descend upon the nascent Web3 space. 

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique, irreplaceable, mostly digital items that users buy and sell online.

NFTs use blockchain technology to keep a digital record of ownership, similar to cryptocurrencies. They were first launched on ethereum, the same blockchain that supports the cryptocurrency ether, and most NFTs can still only be purchased using ether.

But a months-long sell-off in cryptocurrencies has taken a bite out of NFT sales more recently. Weekly NFT sales have been more than cut in half from its early January peak of nearly $1 billion, according to data from NonFungible.com.

But the past week has seen weekly NFT sales jump 85% to $456 million from $246 million in the prior week. The Bored Ape Yacht Club was knocked from its usual top spot by Moonbirds, while other new entrants hit the top 5 spot including CloneX and Azuki.

These were the five best-selling collections over the past week, according to NonFungible.

5. Meebits

7-Day Sales Volume: $11.8 million
Number of Sales: 607
Highest Sale Price: $227,000

Explainer: “From the creators of CryptoPunks, presenting Meebits. The next-gen “OG”, 3D voxel avatars ready for any metaverse applications. Building upon the success of CryptoPunks and Autoglyphs to supply provably scarce and fairly distributed 3D character avatars.”

4. Azuki

7-Day Sales Volume: $11.8 million
Number of Sales: 231
Highest Sale Price: $230,000

Explainer: “Azuki is a collection of 10,000 avatars that grant membership access to The Garden. The Garden is a corner of the internet where art, community, and culture fuse to create magic. The lines between physical and digital worlds are blurring and the rules are being rewritten.”

3. CloneX

7-Day Sales Volume: $13.8 million
Number of Sales: 275
Highest Sale Price: $300,000

Explainer: “CloneX Corp was founded by three extraterrestrials who came from the planet of Orbitar in the Draco constellation. These interplanetary tourists have come to accelerate our evolution towards an immaterial existence. They plan to transfer all human consciousness into advanced clone forms to create the ultimate metaverse.”

2. Bored Ape Yacht Club

7-Day Sales Volume: $96.9 million
Number of Sales: 1035
Highest Sale Price: $581,000

Explainer: “BAYC is a collection of 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs — unique digital collectibles living on the Ethereum blockchain. Your Bored Ape doubles as your Yacht Club membership card, and grants access to members-only benefits.”

1. Moonbirds

7-Day Sales Volume: $135.9 million
Number of Sales: 1468
Highest Sale Price: $1.0 million

Explainer: “Moonbirds is the continuation and evolution of the PROOF project, led by PROOF Collective. This collection represents 10,000 owls randomly generated on the Ethereum blockchain with a pixel art design. Owning a Moonbird grants the holder access to the metaverse of PROOF: Project Highrise.”

This content was originally published here.