In the last ten days, non-fungible token (NFT) sales have sunk 23.37% and 63.10% in the month prior. Despite these somewhat alarming numbers, a new study has pinpointed certain countries that still have the NFT fever.
Singapore and Hong Kong, for example, are two parts of the world where NFT interest remains as strong as ever. According to the report conducted by cashnetusa.com, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Canada continue to exhibit excitement about what NFTs can offer.
The study combed through search data in every country in March 2022, then calculated the number of monthly searches per 1,000,000 people in that location. Researchers also picked through tweets matching search terms ‘NFT’ and ‘NFTs.’ They then ran a sentiment analysis on the data. Finally, the team calculated the top 100 NFTs of all time on the OpenSea marketplace and did a scrape of those search volumes in every country.
Researchers used several online tools and software to get their data, including Ahrefs, Twitter API, Snscrape, and a Cardiff University-developed Hugging Face tool, which provided them with the sentiment analysis portion of their research.
Based on the date, cashnetusa.com made four different lists for comparing countries to each other. The lists were: NFT Interest, NFT Love, NFT Hate, and Most Popular NFT.
Through all of that, the team found some interesting information. As the research showed, Singapore is the ‘most hungry’ for NFTs as it was atop the ‘NFT Interest’ list. The report stated, “Singapore searches for NFTs more than any other country, with 18,717 searches per million inhabitants per month.” The study further concluded that Montenegro is considered the most pro-NFT nation, as it captured “862 out of 1000 tweets proving positive.”
Iceland and the U.S. rounded out the top 5 list for ‘NFT Interest’ behind Singapore, Hong Kong, and Canada while Bosnia and Herzegovina, Luxembourg, Cuba, and Curaçao fell behind Montenegro for ‘NFT Love.’
On the other end of the spectrum, the statistics show that Poland is the “most anti-NFT country.” Sitting at the top of the ‘NFT Hate’ pile, Poland had “227 of every 1,000 NFT-themed tweets found to be negative in sentiment.” Following Poland were Nicaragua, Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados.
The blockchain NFT game Axie Infinity is the most popular NFT project in the world, according to the study. The game has seen a massive $4.23 billion in NFT sales among 2,115,063 traders, as per dappradar.com. Axie Infinity is the leading search in 112 countries while Decentraland is the second most searched in 43 countries and Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is top in six countries.
The cashnetusa.com research team wrote, “As a limited-edition collection with a steep entry price, the Apes may be headline news — but they’re not at the fingertips of the average NFT enthusiast when Googling for new acquisitions.”
The study also added some analysis into the nature of NFTs, adding there is a lot of “social, technical, and environmental weirdness. They comment further, “Where money and prestige lead, divided opinions follow. Wild investments, scams, environmental fears, and hard-to-fathom technology shroud NFTs in controversy — NFT commentators fall into two camps: evangelists and skeptics. And among NFT evangelists, everyone has their allegiance, be it to Bored Apes or Axie monsters.”
