Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) as an Investment Class

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as an investment class. The first part focuses on the NFT infrastructure including the NFT primary and secondary markets, different types of NFT exchanges, NFT aggregators, NFT borrowing and landing, NFT staking, and finally NFT fundraising. The second part investigates the leading blue-chip NFT collections and their performance in the short- and long-term, both during the bull and bear markets. Analyzing close to two million NFT transactions, we find that profile picture (PFP) NFTs dominate the NFT market and yield exceptionally high returns both on the raw and market-adjusted basis. For example, NFTs from the collection Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) deliver a buy-and-hold return of close to 2,000%. Furthermore, NFTs from other categories (art, gaming, metaverse) do not perform as well as PFPs, however, they outperform the cryptocurrency market by roughly 100%.

Keywords: NFT, Non-Fungible Token, Cryptocurrency, Metaverse, Blockchain, DeFi, Bitcoin

JEL Classification: G10, G11, G15