The NFT industry has been buzzing like a bee, with innovative and utility-rich NFTs popping up in the market every day. Several of these projects have achieved multi-million dollar valuation and sales and have created an entirely new class of virtual assets. These assets have helped in boosting the adoption of digital currencies and blockchain technology by nudging people in the right direction.
To give you an estimation of the growth of the NFT industry, the total value of NFTs sold in 2021 was over $25 billion, which grew from $94.9 million in 2020. Moreover, experts believe that this number will shoot up in 2022 as more and more people become aware of the benefits of NFT and blockchain technology.
This growth is also contributed by several innovative artists, blockchain networks, projects and the investors who collectively help in the growth of the industry. Today, we will be taking a look at the top 10 influential innovators of NFT to date and their contributions.
- Artchick
Digital Artchick is a popular NFT influencer with over 131.9K followers on Twitter that gained massive publicity following its NFT drop last year. The artist has a powerful voice in the NFT industry and favours female innovators and creators such as WoW (World of Women).
- Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban is a billionaire Shark Tank Investor with over 8.5 million followers. Cuban is a backer of NFT marketplaces such as Mintable, SuperRarer, and NFT tracker CryptoSlam and has also considered turning game tickets into NFTs. He is also an avid collector of NFTs from popular collections such as Stoner Cats, Hashmasks, Bored Apes and more.
- Elliot
Ellio Trades is often described as the NFT whisperer by its large community of 586K followers. Ellio Trades is the Twitter Persona of Elliot, an expert on NFT-trading strategy, Play-to-Earn games and more. He has been active in the GameFi industry as well and has introduced NFT enthusiasts to games such as Axie Infinity.
- Farokh
Farokh was already a noted luxury goods Instagram influencer before the boom of the NFT industry. Farokh Sarmad pivoted into the NFT space in early 2021 and made a name for himself by hosting Clubhouse chats with creators and celebrities around their drops.
- Gmoney
Gmoney is a Twitter influencer with over 163K followers who recently partnered with investment firm Delphi Digital for Delphi INFINFT. INFINFT is a fund dedicated to investing in innovative NFT projects. Gmoney himself is an NFT enthusiast and picked up an NFT from CryptoPunks for 140 ETH and sold an NFT to Visa.
- Steve Harvey
Steve Harvey, the popular comedian and TV host, got involved in the NFT space last year when he released a line of NFTs to raise money for the Steve and Marjorie Harvey Foundation. He also briefly changed his Twitter profile picture to a Solana Monkey Business NFT Avatar to show his support for the NFT industry.
- Dom Hofmann
Dom Hofmann used to be best known for co-creating Vine, a video sharing app. Now Dom has shifted his focus to NFT projects and has created the “adventure’s Gear” series Loot, which was a runaway success. The influencer has a massive following of 137.2K and is active in the NFT investments.
- Alexis Ohanian
Alexis Ohanian is the cofounder of Reddit and a huge supporter of the crypto industry. He has personally backed the NFT game Axie Infinity and partnered with Polygon using his Seven Seven Six VC firm to invest in Web 3 startups.
- Pranksy
Pranksy is an OG NFT investor and fan who earned the status of top NFT earner on the Blockchain analytic firm Nansen’s leaderboard last year. Pranksy has made around 1573 ETH of profit by trading NFTs and a huge collection of NFTs.
- Punk4156
Punk4156 is an anonymous NFT enthusiast that appeared on Twitter following his purchase of titular CryptoPunk for $1.25 million worth of ETH. The investors were immortalized in artwork by the popular digital artist Beeple.
These are some of the most influential NFT personalities in the industry that are helping by engaging the audience and generating awareness about the potential of digital collectables.
