NFT Year in Review: BTC Ordinals Boom and Airdrop Mania
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NFT Year in Review: BTC Ordinals Boom and Airdrop Mania
Although NFT market sentiment was relatively weak at the beginning of 2024, demand began to rise by year-end as significant shifts emerged in the market.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsWritten by: Logan Hitchcock, Centreless
At the start of 2024, the NFT market struggled, with major collections having difficulty maintaining value amid persistently bearish sentiment. As trading volumes shrank and floor prices broadly declined, many began to question whether the NFT market could rebound.
Yet as the year enters its final quarter, renewed bullish sentiment across the broader cryptocurrency market is laying the groundwork for a year-end recovery. Of course, expectations should remain tempered. This isn't the gold rush of 2021/2022, but NFT believers welcome this shift in tone nonetheless.
Pudgy Penguins led the charge—this once-flagging collection has been revitalized since its 2022 acquisition, reaching an all-time high above $100,000 on anticipation of its token airdrop.
In 2024, intensifying competition in the NFT space coincided with this revival. Platforms like Magic Eden, Blur, and OpenSea vied for market dominance, driving innovation by integrating new blockchains and transaction types.
From a slow start to an electrifying finish, 2024 once again demonstrated that the NFT space remains as dynamic and unpredictable as ever—fueled by community passion and relentless innovation.
Below are some of the key themes from the NFT landscape in 2024.
Bitcoin Ordinals Gain Traction
Although Bitcoin Ordinals (more or less Bitcoin-based NFTs) launched in early 2023, it was in 2024 that they truly came into their own, propelled by significant infrastructure upgrades and rising adoption. Early challenges—such as the lack of user-friendly wallets and marketplaces—have gradually faded with the emergence of wallets like XVerse and Unisat, making holding Ordinals safer and easier.
Meanwhile, marketplaces such as Magic Eden and OXK have provided critical support, streamlining trading and marking a dramatic improvement over the chaotic days of trading Bitcoin Ordinals via spreadsheets on Discord servers.
This evolving infrastructure has paved the way for standout projects and helped "drive a resurgence in Bitcoin activity," according to Franklin Templeton.
Bitcoin Puppets and NodeMonkes took an early lead, climbing from modest mint prices to peaks of 0.469 BTC ($33,000) and 0.897 BTC ($56,000), respectively, according to Magic Eden data. While these prices have since retreated to 0.138 BTC ($14,000) and 0.125 BTC ($12,650) amid broader BTC price movements, their impact on the Ordinals ecosystem remains significant. Other high-profile projects, such as Quantum Cats and Ordinals Maxi Business, have also found enthusiastic collector bases.
NFT Marketplaces Evolve and Expand
The year proved pivotal for NFT marketplaces, with OpenSea, Magic Eden, and Blur shaping the landscape in distinct ways. Blur maintained dominance in Ethereum NFT trading, though its influence waned during the summer months amid an ongoing NFT bear market. Additionally, its founding team shifted focus elsewhere, launching Blast, an Ethereum Layer-2 network.
In contrast, Magic Eden stole the spotlight in 2024 with bold innovations. It spearheaded the Bitcoin NFT wave and added a decentralized exchange for Runes—the Bitcoin equivalent of meme coins—after the halving. Hype around the brand peaked with the launch of the ME Foundation’s ME token, which airdropped over $700 million to protocol users.
Meanwhile, OpenSea, the leading marketplace during the 2021 boom, reemerged at year-end as a frontrunner in the NFT world. CEO Deven Finzer made headlines by openly stating the company was willing to “step up and fight” after the firm faced scrutiny from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in September.
Shortly afterward, excitement built around OpenSea as testing began for its revamped OpenSea 2.0 marketplace, sparking speculation about a potential future token launch. Speculation intensified as users reported loyalty programs during closed beta testing and as the OpenSea Foundation registered in the Cayman Islands.
Brands Come and Go
During the 2021 NFT boom, major brands like Nike and Adidas rushed into the space. But in 2024, bearish markets and fading NFT enthusiasm prompted some giants to retreat.
One of the most notable exits was Nike’s decision to shut down RTFKT, the fashion and tech studio it acquired in 2021 for an undisclosed sum. Prior to Nike’s move, Starbucks had already ended its Web3 loyalty program, Starbucks Odyssey, which ran on the Polygon blockchain.
DraftKings, a major player in fantasy sports and sports betting, abruptly halted its NFT operations, shutting down DraftKings Reignmakers—a fantasy game that had operated for years. The move came amid a class-action lawsuit filed by users and ongoing regulatory uncertainty in the sector.
Yet despite some high-profile withdrawals, at least one brand made waves in Web3. McDonald’s partnered with the NFT collection Doodles for a holiday campaign. The collaboration brought NFT branding into the real world, with customized holiday coffee cups available at McDonald’s locations. This shows that even in calmer NFT market conditions, some brands still see creative potential in Web3 integration.
The Token Surge
In recent months, no narrative has gained as much momentum and attention as NFT projects and their links to fungible tokens—sometimes referred to as utility tokens due to their ecosystem functions.
While it's not new for NFT collections to launch or associate with tokens, the rise of tokenization in 2024—alongside increasingly optimistic regulatory prospects under President-elect Donald Trump—has brought token launches back into the spotlight.
Most notably, Pudgy Penguins launched its ecosystem token, PENGU, on Solana this month. The token is claimable by over 7 million unique wallets, delivering a collective stimulus worth more than $1.5 billion to NFT holders and other eligible participants.
But Pudgy Penguins wasn’t the only project to embrace tokens in 2024. This year alone, NFT collections Memeland, Milady, and Mocaverse all distributed tokens to their NFT holders and ecosystem participants.
At the time of writing, each of these three tokens has surpassed a $100 million market valuation—and remained there. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
This trend is likely to continue into 2025, when Azuki is expected to distribute its highly anticipated ANIME token to users and other Web3 participants on its AnimeChain ecosystem. Additionally, Yuga Labs, the parent company of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, is expected to continue aggressively promoting ApeCoin (APE) within its recently launched ApeChain.
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