Top 5 NFT Projects of 2022

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Most people would say that 2021 was an incredible year for the non-fungible token market. We witnessed this technology gain widespread adoption, and many NFT projects exploded in value. However, it can still be extremely difficult to pick out the top NFT projects in 2022 from a sea of soon-to-fail projects.

The market is poised for continued growth this year. Here are some of the NFT projects that may be among the best in 2022. 

What Makes a Good NFT Project?

Many factors that play a large role in the success of an NFT project. Here are a couple factors that are known for being important in making a top NFT project in 2022. 

Community

The community behind an NFT project can make a very large impact on the NFT project's success. Successful NFT projects will have a healthy and passionate community supporting them. All top NFT projects in 2022 have a strong community but not all NFTs with strong communities see massive success.

A passionate community is much more likely to hold their NFTs. Because NFTs are so volatile, anything that causes holders to not sell can help raise the floor price significantly. Active community members are more likely to talk about the project and share the project with others, which will help it grow in popularity and awareness. 

A large amount of engagement within the community is always a good sign for an NFT project. A healthy community will make owning an NFT much more valuable than just a JPG since it is your ticket for your acceptance into an exclusive community. Many of the top NFT projects in 2022 hold exclusive events for holders and some even hire extremely popular musicians and entertainers.

A good way to check for a healthy community is by looking at an NFT project’s Twitter and Discord accounts. Here, monitor not only the number of followers following these accounts but more importantly the engagement. If the Twitter has 100k followers and less than 100 likes on each post, it probably doesn't have a great community.

Utility

Utility for NFTs can come in all shapes and sizes. An interesting example of NFT use cases is the LinksDao. LinksDao is a decentralized autonomous organization that aims to purchase and run golf and leisure clubs. 

Owning a LinksDao NFT grants you the ability to enter into LinksDao fantasy golf leagues and gives you the right to purchase a membership to the physical clubs it acquires. 

Another example of an NFT use case is the Ethereum Naming Service (ENS). Ownership of an ENS domain will allow you to link your ethereum wallet to a human-readable domain name. ENS holders were also airdropped ENS tokens worth thousands of dollars in November 2021.

An additional example is the ownership of digital land in the metaverse. The Apes in Space NFT project created by rapper TakeOff will provide holders with a percentage ownership of land in the Sandbox metaverse, as well as admissions tickets to his future metaverse concerts.

Some other popular use cases are airdrops and governance. NFT projects that provide utility to their holders are much more valuable and likely to succeed than projects which do not. A JPG with utility is generally much more appealing to investors than a JPG that does nothing.

Revenue and Ownership Rights

Certain NFTs will provide their users with revenue or ownership rights. However, these NFTs bear the risk of being considered securities in the future. One example of this is Uniswap V3, where users can provide liquidity to earn trading fees from investors on the platform. 

Mutant Ape Yacht Club

Mutant Ape Yacht Club is the second PFP collection made by Yuga Labs, the creators of the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT project. This project was launched to reward the holders of the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, as well as to provide a way for people to enter the Bored Ape ecosystem for a lower price point. This project was released in August 2021, when members of the Bored Ape Yacht Club were airdropped “Mutant Serums.” 

These mutant serums could be used to generate a new Mutant Ape NFT by applying it to any Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT. The serum would be burnt when they were used. The original Bored Ape remained unchanged and unharmed in any way during the process of creating these Mutant Apes. The other half of the Mutant Ape Yacht Club collection was released in a public mint for 3 ETH per NFT.

Mutant Apes may perform well in 2022 for a wide variety of reasons. It is no secret that the Bored Ape Yacht Club is among the best NFT collections in the world. It has what may be the best community of any NFT project. Owning a Mutant Ape will allow you access to an exclusive community. 

The holders of Mutant Ape NFTs will be able to earn tokens in Bored Ape Yacht Club’s upcoming metaverse game called The Otherside. Judging by the quality of the game trailers and the notoriety of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, there is a high probability that the game will be a success and bring in tons of prospective investors.

MAYC #21468

Alien Frens

Alien Frens is an NFT project that was launched on December 20, 2021. It is a collection of 10,000 colorful cute alien NFTs and had an initial mint price of 0.02 Eth. Alien Frens is an example of a profile picture NFT project.

The goal of Alien Frens is to “build the biggest group of frens in the Metaverse.” It is one of the best examples of a community-focused NFT project. Ownership of an Alien Fren NFT provides many benefits such as invitations to IRL events, exclusive merch, comic books, staking of $FRENS TOKEN and invasions (giveaways). The team is fully transparent and has doxed itself. 

Alien Frens may be an amazing pick for 2022 due to its strong community. This theme of friendship is important to this NFT project. The team likes to say that owning an Alien Fren will introduce you to “a lifelong frenship with 10k other Frens.” 

The project currently has over 52k Twitter followers, as well as over 24k Discord members. The project also has very notable celebrity backing, including Gary Vee and Meek Mill.

Another reason Alien Frens may be a good pick for 2022 is their ambitious roadmap. They have already completed a streetwear drop, a 30-page comic, the $FREN cryptocurrency, and their own mutant NFT collection called Alien Frens Evolution.

Proof of Beauty Studios: $Hash, $London, $Embers

Proof of Beauty Studios is among the most unique and underrated projects in the entire NFT space. Its first collection, $HASH, allowed users to take Ethereum transactions and turn them into unique art pieces. The details of the transaction were reflected in color pallets, shapes, complexities and more. Now its 3rd hash collection is out and you can mint any transaction hash you want by entering it here. Proof of Beauty is still a bit of a sleeper pick but it could become one of the top NFT projects of 2022.

When Vitalik Buterin began selling his Shiba Inu to donate to COVID relief, the market went nuts. The $HASH for this unique Ethereum collection was quickly scooped up by a member of the Historians DAO, who use proof of beauty to document and collect Ethereum’s history. 

Proof of Beauty Studios is entirely self-funded and has dropped several other collections to reward its early adopters. Check out our interview with the visionary creator of POB on Benzinga’s YouTube show Moon or Bust.

Pick 2: Art Blocks

Art Blocks is an NFT platform built on the Ethereum blockchain that is for generative art collections. These collections can span a wide array of different artists, all with their unique touch and style. 

The platform currently has three tiers of collections: Art Blocks Factory, Art Blocks Curated and Art Blocks Playground. The Curated Collection is the most prestigious collection, and only features artists handpicked by the platform's curation board. A few NFTs in each of these collections have become some of the top NFT projects in 2022 and many years previous. One of the most famous in the Curated collection is Fidenza which once reached an incredible floor of hundreds of ETH.

Art Blocks Playground is another tier where existing curated artists may release projects with less oversight. Finally, the Art Blocks Factory is the least prestigious tier and has the least oversight and requirements from the platform.

To understand Art Blocks, it’s important to understand generative art. Generative art refers to art that in whole or in part has been created with the use of an autonomous system. Artists may choose different types of materials and tools to create their art. Generative art refers to art created by artists who choose computer code to be their tool of choice. 

Every work of art on Art Blocks is generated on the Ethereum blockchain. The artist will create an algorithm and deploy it to the Ethereum blockchain. 

Then, during mint, the hash string of the NFT is fed into the algorithm to create a unique one-of-a-kind work of art. The different pieces of art will contain similar elements and motifs, but each will be unique in some way due to the different hash strings provided for every one of the NFTs.   

You should join the Art Blocks discord chat to find out about upcoming Art Blocks projects.

GODA: Gallery of Digital Assets

GODA is one of the most exciting NFT projects of the year. It functions somewhat similarly to ArtBlocks but it focuses on transitioning mainstream artists to the web3 space. The GODA NFT will give holders exclusive access to NFTs by top mainstream artists. The first drop, made by the creator Nina Chanel Abbey is one of the more unique NFT collections in the world. Abbey is a relatively well known artist and even designed Meek Mill's last album cover.

The best thing going for GODA is the team. Abbey seems to be a strong founder and has been able to bring in massive artists to help build the project. Pharrell Williams, the incredibly famous singer-songwriter, rapper and entrepreneur, is on the team. One of the most popular sculpture artists in the world right now, KAWS, is also acting as an artist advisor for GODA.

If the GODA team can bring in huge artists to the platform for big drops, tons of NFT investors will have to buy the GODA NFT to get exclusive access to the drop. This could easily help it become one of the most successful NFT projects in 2022.

Keep an eye on news from GODA as they start to announce their upcoming drops and the artists behind them. A big announcement could translate to a price spike extremely quickly.

Will NFTs Grow in 2022?

The NFT market is expected to grow significantly in 2022. The top NFT projects will likely grow much more than the market as a whole too. This is due to the mass adoption this technology is continuing to see. Coinbase just launched its NFT platform which will hopefully help onboard many novice cryptocurrency investors into the world of NFTs. Even if Coinbase isn't the catalyst to an explosion of adoption, NFTs will likely still take off. They seem to be growing more and more popular every day and more and more celebrities are buying and promoting the technology.

Many NFT platforms like Opensea are working to make the platform more user-friendly to non-technical users by allowing fiat onramps. NFT gaming will continue to develop and become more popular with the masses, and the development of Ethereum 2.0, Layer 2 solutions and other Layer 1s will allow for lower gas fees and also reduce concerns about the environmental impact of NFTs. 

Are NFTs a Good Investment In 2022?

If the NFT space continues to gain mass adoption, NFTs will most likely be an excellent form of investment in 2022. However, not all NFT projects are alike. Be sure to thoroughly research any project before investing. One NFT buy could mean incredible 10x or more profit or it could go to 0 in a matter of days.