All the statistics, trends and market data you need on NFTs.
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What are the key risks?
1. You could lose all the money you invest
The performance of most cryptoassets can be highly volatile, with their value dropping as quickly as it can rise. You should be prepared to lose all the money you invest in cryptoassets.
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The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) doesn't protect this type of investment because it's not a 'specified investment' under the UK regulatory regime – in other words, this type of investment isn't recognised as the sort of investment that the FSCS can protect. Learn more by using the FSCS investment protection checker.
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For further information about cryptoassets, visit the FCA's website here.
Finder’s NFT Adoption Index measures the growth of NFTs worldwide through an ongoing survey of internet users in 26 countries. You can also check out our guides to the best crypto exchanges in the UK and Ireland.
Key British NFT adoption trends for September 2022 report
British NFT ownership
819.4K Brits own an NFT.
Gender split
British men are 2.3x more likely to own NFT.
Men 2%
Women 1%
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In the UK, 2% said they own an NFT when we polled in September 2022.
This is lower than the global average of 3% who say they own an NFT.India leads the way at 7%, with Germany at the other end of the spectrum with 1%.
Men in the UK more likely than women to own an NFT
In the UK aproximately 2% of men say they own an NFT compared to 1% of women.
There is a wide gap in adoption of NFTs between men and women. On average roughly 2% of women say they own an NFT globally, compared to 4% of men. India has the highest adoption of NFTs for men, with 8% of men saying they have bought the asset compared to Japan which has the lowest uptake among men at 1%. Vietnam has the most women who said they own an NFT, with 5% saying they’ve bought an NFT, compared to just 1% in Germany who said the same.
The gap in ownership between men and women is at its widest in United States, where 4% of men say they own NFTs, compared to 1% of women. The smallest gap in adoption of NFTs is in Japan, where 2% of women say they have an NFT compared to 1% of men.
Age trends for NFT ownership in the UK
Those aged 18-34 in the UK lead the way in terms of the NFT ownership, with 3% saying they have one or more NFTs. Those aged 55+ are the group least likely to own NFTs, making up just 1% owning an NFT.
Largest NFT marketplaces
OpenSea is by far the largest NFT marketplace with over US$10 billion in all-time sales (as of November 2021), which is over US$3.5 billion more in all-time sales than the rest of the top 10 marketplaces combined. Axie Infinity is second with US$3 billion sold, with CryptoPunks with US$1.6 billion.
After the top 3, the remaining marketplaces are all under US$1 billion. NBA Top Shot has sales of US$700 million, Solanart (US$500 million), Rarible (US$264 million), AtomicMarket (US$208 million), Superare.co (US$178 million), Foundation (US$104 million) and DigitalEyes Market (US$101 million) complete the top 10 marketplaces for NFTs.
NFTs are bought using cryptocurrency and the CryptoPunk collection has 5 of the top 10 most expensive NFTs, bought using Ethereum. As of November 2021, the cheapest CryptoPunk sold in the 10,000 collection cost around 100 Ethereum (£334,000). “Everydays: the First 5000 Days” was bought in March 2021 and at the time was the most expensive NFT ever bought (US$69.3 million). This figure was “smashed” by CryptoPunk #9998 sale in October 2021 by over 667% (US$532 million).
“This Changed Everything WWW”, an artistic representation of the world wide web source code, was bought for US$5.43 million, making it the most expensive historical artifact sold by an NFT. Other charitable NFTs include “Save a Thousand Lives” which sold for US$5.23 million and Edward Snowden’s Stay Free document, which sold for US$5.4 million.
Scroll right on the timeline image below to see the most expensive NFTs of 2021.
The amount of NFTs sold a month on OpenSea has grown significantly in the second half of 2021, with sales in August alone being more than the first 7 months. Highlighting how popular NFTs became in 2021, there was an 18,148% increase in NFT sales from the first half of 2020 to the first half of 2021. Since January 2020, there has been an increase of over 7,300% in NFTs sold each month.
Collectibles are the most popular form of NFTs with 76% of Q3 2021 sales, growing 10% from Q2. With collectibles such as CryptoPunk and Bored Yacht Ape being extremely popular, these forms of assets dominate the marketplace. Art-related NFTs are second at 9%, with Gaming (4%) and Utilities (4%), Metaverse (2%) and Sports (1%) completing the market.
Popular NFT cryptocurrency tokens by market capitalisation
NFT networks are powered by blockchains and their (cryptocurrency) tokens are available to trade. As of 21 December 2021, Decentraland – a 3D virtual reality platform – tops the list of NFT crypto tokens, ranked by market capitalisation. The self-claimed one-stop shop for the very best digital assets has a token named MANA which has a market cap of 5.92 billion.
This is slightly higher than the market cap of the AXS token belonging to the well-known NFT-based online video game Axie Infinity. The Sandbox (SAND), THETA (THETA) and Tezos (XTZ) round up the top 5 NFT tokens ranked by the markets they belong to.
See a live chart of the tokens’ prices, market caps and fluctuations in value.
*Cryptocurrencies aren't regulated in the UK and there's no protection from the Financial Ombudsman or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Your capital is at risk. Capital gains tax on profits may apply.
Cryptocurrencies are speculative and investing in them involves significant risks - they're highly volatile, vulnerable to hacking and sensitive to secondary activity. The value of investments can fall as well as rise and you may get back less than you invested. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. This content shouldn't be interpreted as a recommendation to invest. Before you invest, you should get advice and decide whether the potential return outweighs the risks. Finder, or the author, may have holdings in the cryptocurrencies discussed.
Methodology
Finder regularly survey individuals across 26 countries to analyze NFT adoption rates, investment diversification and the demographics of investors.
Beginning in April 2022, Finder switched its method to a three-month rolling average. The July 2022 report will be the first to present data using the three-month rolling average, which is made up of responses gathered between April and June 2022. The August report will display May through July 2022 and so forth. So far the survey using the new method has garnered 272,257 responses.
The survey is designed by Finder and conducted by Google in all territories except for the first run in Australia, where the survey is conducted by Qualtrics/SAP.
Participants are internet, smartphone and Google AdMob users or Qualtrics research panel participants. Sample sizes range from 1,000 to 2,500 people and are directly proportional to population size. Participating countries are selected based on global Finder site traffic and availability on research platforms.
Survey results are analyzed using Google’s Data Studio, which provides weighted averages for the top-level responses, along with breakdowns for sex and age.
Finder previously asked people whether they owned or planned to own NFTs in a diffent survey. The method for that survey and the reults differ to the latest iteration and are not comparable.
In the space of a few years, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have gone from obscurity to being a global phenomenon – and their growth in popularity doesn’t seem to be slowing. Finder polled over 28,000 people in a survey across 20 countries to compare NFT ownership plans and awareness around the world. Here are the most interesting and relevant statistics about NFT intentions and sales.
Key statistics
3.3% of the UK population plan to own an NFT in the future.
78.8% of the UK population does not know what an NFT is.
NFT sales hit US$2.5 billion in the first half of 2021, up from the US$13.7 million they reached in the first half of 2020.
This is an 18,148% increase in NFT sales in just 1 year between H1 2020 and H1 2021.
As it stands at the end of 2021, CryptoPunk #9998 is the most expensive NFT – bought for US$530 million (124,457 Ethereum at the time).
Millennials are most likely to collect NFTs in the UK, with a whopping 23% saying they plan to do so.
Collectibles are the most sold forms of NFT, accounting for 76% of market sales as of Q3, 2021.
How many people in the UK plan to own an NFT in the future?
1.7 million people in the UK are planning to own NFTs
According to our new survey research, 3.3% of the UK plan to own an NFT in the future, equating to 1.7 million people in the country. Of the 20 countries included in our survey, the UK ranks second to last out of those intending to own NFTs in future.
Japan is bottom of the list, with just 2.4% of citizens currently planning to purchase an NFT in the future. Nigeria tops the list, as more than one-fifth (21.7%) of the population claim that they will buy an NFT at some point in the future.
How many people know what an NFT is?
While NFT adoption is forecast to increase around the world in future, a large number of people still don’t know what NFTs are. Japan has the highest percentage of people who said they don’t know what NFTs are (90%), followed by Germany (83%) and the United Kingdom (79%). On the other end of the spectrum, the Philippines recorded the lowest percentage at 49%, followed by Nigeria (52%) and Thailand (53%).
NFT interest by generation
Another survey found that 23% of millennials said they were interested in purchasing an NFT, the most of any generation. Generation X is second with 8%, generation Z is third with 4% and baby boomers 2%.
Finder used Google Survey to poll 28,723 Internet users across 20 countries. Due to the varying Google infrastructure in each territory, not all surveys were nationally representative. Where a nationally representative sample was unavailable, a natural fall/convenience sample was used. For these, Google didn’t use stratified sampling but did apply weights to the survey results if the demographics of the survey respondents didn’t vary too far from demographics data.
The high percentage of results in some countries are likely due to gaming NFTs, where investors can pay internet users (often called scholars) to play a game on their behalf. In many cases, the players gets paid but the investor earns the NFT. As the majority of the players in these countries are scholars, the results may be skewed by people who responded with a yes because they earn money playing these games, may not actually own NFTs.
The list of the countries studied, sample sizes and survey types are presented below:
Colombia: A convenience sample of 1,502
United States: Representative sample of 2,001
United Kingdom: Representative sample of 2,023
Australia: Representative sample of 1,000
Argentina: A convenience sample of 1,505
Venezuela: A convenience sample of 1,003
Peru: A convenience sample of 1,202
Thailand: A convenience sample of 852
Japan: Representative sample 2,001
Brazil: Representative sample 2,002
Vietnam: A convenience sample of 2,005
Germany: Representative sample of 2,000
Malaysia: A convenience sample of 1,502
Canada: Representative sample of 1,201
Singapore: A convenience sample of 1,002
United Arab Emirates: A convenience sample of 1,004
The Philippines: A convenience sample of 1,507
Hong Kong: A convenience sample of 1,001
South Africa: A convenience sample of 1,205
Nigeria: A convenience sample of 1,205
Image: Getty
Click here for more research. For all media enquiries, please contact:
Matt Mckenna UK Communications Manager T: +44 20 8191 8806
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Richard Laycock is Finder’s NYC-based lead editor & insights editor, spending the last decade data diving, writing and editing articles about all things personal finance. His musings can be found across the web including on NASDAQ, MoneyMag, Yahoo Finance and Travel Weekly. Richard studied Media at Macquarie University, including a semester abroad at The Missouri School of Journalism (MIZZOU). See full bio
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