The Year in NFTs: Bitcoin Ordinals Boom, Airdrop Craze, and Brands Come and Go

The year began on shaky ground for NFTs, with major collections struggling to maintain value amid a persistently bearish sentiment. Floor prices dipped across the board as trading volumes waned, leaving many to question whether the NFT market could rebound.

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Yet, as the year progressed into the final quarter, new bullishness in the broader cryptocurrency market set the stage for a late-year resurgence. Keep your expectations in check. It wasn’t a 2021/2022-like gold rush, but the vibe shift was welcomed by the NFT faithful.

Leading the charge was Pudgy Penguins, a once-declining collection that blossomed under new ownership starting in 2022, and hit new all-time highs above $100,000 in anticipation of its token airdrop.

This revitalization came as NFT marketplace competition intensified in 2024. Platforms like Magic Eden, Blur, and OpenSea battled for dominance, driving innovation through the inclusion of new blockchains and trading types. 

From a sluggish start to an electrifying close, 2024 reminded the world that the NFT space is as dynamic and unpredictable as ever, fueled by the passion of its community and the constant push for innovation.

Here’s some of the top themes from the year in NFTs in 2024.

Bitcoin Ordinals find their footing

Though introduced at the start of 2023, Bitcoin Ordinals—or Bitcoin NFTs, more or less—truly found their stride this year thanks to significant infrastructure upgrades and growing adoption. Early challenges, such as the lack of user-friendly wallets and marketplaces, faded as wallets like XVerse and Unisat made holding Ordinals safer and easier.

Meanwhile, trading became more seamless as marketplaces like Magic Eden and OXK added critical support, drastically improving from the chaotic early days which saw Bitcoin Ordinals traded via spreadsheets in Discord servers.

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This infrastructure evolution paved the way for standout projects to capture the spotlight, and helped “drive a renaissance in activity on Bitcoin,” according to Franklin Templeton. 

Bitcoin Puppets and NodeMonkes led the charge, jumping from modest mint prices to peaks of 0.469 Bitcoin ($33,000) and 0.897 Bitcoin ($56,000) respectively, according to Magic Eden. While prices have since retraced to 0.138 ($14,000) and 0.125 Bitcoin ($12,650) respectively with the price of BTC itself being much higher, their impact on the Ordinals ecosystem remains significant. And other high-profile projects like Quantum Cats and Ordinals Maxi Business have similarly found fervent collector bases.

NFT marketplaces evolve and expand

This year has been pivotal for NFT marketplaces, with OpenSea, Magic Eden, and Blur shaping the narrative in distinct ways. Blur retained dominance in Ethereum NFT trading, but its influence waned during the summer as the NFT bear market dragged on. Plus, its founding team had its attention elsewhere, launching Blast, an Ethereum layer-2 network.

Magic Eden, on the other hand, stole the spotlight with bold innovations in 2024. It led the charge on Bitcoin NFTs and added a decentralized exchange for Runes—Bitcoin’s version of meme coins—after the halving. Excitement around the brand culminated in the launch of the ME token by the ME Foundation, which airdropped more than $700 million to users of its protocol.

Meanwhile, OpenSea—the leading marketplace from the 2021 boom—reemerged as a figurehead in the NFT world towards the end of the year. First, CEO Deven Finzer was outspoken about the company’s willingness to “stand up and fight” amid SEC scrutiny of the platform in September.

Shortly thereafter, buzz surrounded the marketplace as its OpenSea 2.0 marketplace overhaul began testing, ultimately fueling questions about a potential future token launch. That speculation only grew as users reported loyalty programs during the closed beta, and an OpenSea Foundation was registered in the Cayman Islands.

Brands come and go

The NFT craze of 2021 saw major brands like Nike and Adidas rush into the space. But a bear market and fading sentiment on NFTs prompted some giants to retreat in 2024. 

Among the most significant exits came with Nike’s decision to shut down RTFKT, the fashion and technology studio it acquired in 2021 for an undisclosed sum. Prior to Nike’s move, Starbucks wound down its Web3 loyalty program, Starbucks Odyssey, which the coffee giant operated on the Polygon blockchain.

DraftKings, a major player in the fantasy sports and sportsbook industries, abruptly discontinued its involvement with NFTs, closing its DraftKings Reignmakers fantasy game after several years of operation. The move came amid a class action lawsuit from users and lingering regulatory questions around the space.

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But while some major brands took a step back, at least one made a big splash in Web3. McDonald’s jumped into a notable collab, teaming up with NFT collection Doodles for a holiday-themed campaign. The collaboration brought NFT branding into the physical world with custom holiday coffee cups available in McDonald’s locations. It signaled that even in a quieter NFT market, some brands still see potential in creative integrations.

Going token-crazy

Perhaps no narrative has gained as much momentum and attention in the last few months as NFT projects and their connections to fungible tokens, sometimes referred to as utility tokens for their ecosystems. 

While NFT collections launching or having an associated token is not a new phenomenon, the rise of tokenization in 2024—and growing optimism about the U.S. regulatory landscape under President-elect Donald Trump—has put token launches squarely back in the limelight. 

Most notably, Pudgy Penguins launched its ecosystem token PENGU on Solana this month. The token, which was eligible to claim by more than 7 million unique wallets, provided NFT holders and many other eligible parties with a more than $1.5 billion collective stimulus infusion.

But it’s not just the Pudgy Penguins that have gone the token route in 2024. This year alone the NFT collections Memeland, Milady, and Mocaverse all dropped tokens to their NFT holders and ecosystem participants.

All three of those respective tokens have surpassed and maintained market caps of more than $100 million at the time of writing—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s likely that this narrative will maintain some buzz going into 2025, when Azuki is poised to drop its anticipated ANIME token to its ecosystem and other Web3 users on AnimeChain. Plus, Yuga Labs, the parent company of Bored Ape Yacht Club is expected to continue strong promotion around ApeCoin (APE) amid the recent ApeChain launch.

Edited by Andrew Hayward