Digital Art Market on Blockchains – December 2024
In this report, we’ll cover the rebound of PFPs and collectibles observed in the last months of 2024, the predominance of CryptoPunks and few other interesting things we observed in late 2024.
Welcome to this month’s insights into the digital art markets on blockchains. Our aim is to provide you with timely, actionable insights to guide your investments as the digital asset landscape evolves.
Global Crypto market - December was a mixed month for crypto-assets
At the end of 2024, the total market cap of all crypto-assets was $3.4Tn. Not bad for a 16 years old asset class. Performance of top 3 blockchains for digital art and collectible have been performing relatively well in 2024: +121% for Bitcoin, +46% for Ethereum and +86% for Solana,
Ethereum - the largest blockchain for digital art and collectibles - performed relatively poorly in the last month of the year 2024, and posted a loss of 11% in December, with most of the dump in price observed between 16th and 20th of December, ending the year at $3,340.
NFT art & collectible market
Global statistics
Market cap of digital art & collectibles on top 3 blockchains :
Despite an increase in market cap in 2024 for the two other competitive blockchains for digital art and culture, Ethereum is still representing more than 75% of the total NFT market.
Blue Chip Collections: CryptoPunks still leading the pack
With a market cap of $1,361M at end December 2024, CryptoPunks are still the ultimate blue chip collection of digital art and culture on blockchains.
The “Punk Dominance” is at 15.5%, meaning that 15.5% of the total market cap of digital art and collectibles is concentrated in one single collection. This data aligns with a power law distribution, which is very common in traditional finance. For instance, at the end of 2024, the so-called “Magnificent 7 stocks” — Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla accounted for approximately 31.9% of the entire U.S. stock market's value ($17.6 trillion out of $55.2 trillion).
source: https://www.coingecko.com/en/nft/global-stats
It is demonstrating one of the investment thesis of Grail Capital, where a few top collections and artists dominate the market. It might be seen as unfair, but that’s the way it is.
PFPs are sooo back!
After a difficult year 2023, PFPs and collectibles have made a very impressive comeback in 2024. Beyond the Pudgy Penguins and the two leaders from 2021-22 (BAYC and CryptoPunks), Azuki and Doodles performed very well since the end of the summer 2024, posting 3x and 4x in 2024 in USD terms.
The dominance of the top 5 PFP collections is also confirmed at a global level: Crypto Punks, Pudgy Penguins, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Azuki and Doodles are also the 5 largest collections in the whole digital art and collectibles market. The leaders of the Generative Art segment - Chromie Squiggles, Autoglyphs and Fidenza - are ranked right after the top 5 with market cap of respectively $160M, $154M and $143M.
So far, the two largest segments of the digital art and collectible market on blockchains are still indisputably PFP/Collectibles and Generative Art.
Fidenza: enjoying a new renaissance?
Fidenza, the generative art NFT collection by Tyler Hobbs, has experienced a notable resurgence in the digital art market over the past month. Recent high-profile sales underscore its renewed popularity among collectors and investors:
73%f of sales above 35 ETH were made by Fidenza
11 Fidenza made it as one of the top 20 NFT sales of the past month.
There’s definitely a trend here 👀
source: https://nftpricefloor.com/fr/top-nft-sales?categories=art&temp=30d
Fidenza #526 was featured in Sotheby's "Digital Art Day Auction" held from December 10 to 17, 2024 and sold at t he top of the price range, for 480K$
Bitcoin Ordinals
Overall market
Ordinals are a protocol on the Bitcoin network that enables the creation of NFTs by inscribing data directly onto individual satoshis, the smallest units of Bitcoin.
As of end December 2024, the combined market dominance of top Bitcoin Ordinals NFTs has increased significantly, rising from 1% at the beginning of 2023 to 9%. This growth indicates a substantial shift in the NFT landscape, with Bitcoin-based NFTs gaining prominence.
Notable Ordinal projects are mostly PFPs: Bitcoin Puppets, NodeMonkes, Quantum Cats, Ordinal Maxi Biz (OMB), but some more arty / conceptual projects have gained size and visibility in 2024: Runestone (designed by Leo Caillard) and Cents (by Rutherford Chang).
Cultural adoption by collectors for Ordinals have grown substantially over 2024, and sales milestones over the last 3 months of the year confirm the story.
As spotted by @SK_btcs on X/Twitter, to get over 55 BTC in trading volume, it took 20 months for MNCHRMS, 8 months for CENTS and just 3 days for FUKUHEDRONS.
Few things that attracted our attention in the market:
A great macro investor gets into NFTs for real
If we just met with Raoul Pal once (2 years ago - during the Ledger Open event, while I was still part of the senior management there), it looks as if we’re very much aligned on the vision of the digital art market’s potential. Raoul posted a lengthy post on the penultimate day of 2024 to say how bullish he is on the asset class:
We shared our own vision for Grail Capital in February 2023 in our manifesto and we’re glad to see such a highly respected investor entering the field of digital art and collectibles with such a (bold) vision.
PS: for those who don’t know Raul’s background, he’s a successful financial investor, former bond trader at Goldman Sachs, turned macro hedge fund manager at GLG Partners (now Man-GLG).
President Donald Trump owns 50M$ of ETH
As per eric.eth post on X/Twitter:
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Thank you for reading this month’s report. We hope these insights guide you in navigating the complex, evolving world of digital assets. Stay tuned for next month’s analysis, where we’ll dive deeper into digital art developments and continue tracking key trends in crypto and NFTs.
Disclaimer:
The author of this newsletter may own or have a financial interest in some of the crypto-assets and NFTs discussed herein. All content is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any investment. Please conduct your own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.
We founded Grail Capital with the goal of shaping the future of art and culture by making it easy, profitable and safe for more collectors and investors to participate in the digital art market. Our mission extends beyond being an investment fund, aiming to contribute to onboarding and welcoming 1 million new collectors into the digital art space over the next decade and to contribute to making the digital art market to $100 Billion market in the next 10 years.
Read full manifesto | Listen to latest podcast | Watch digital art documentary