S’pore ranks 2nd in most NFT company HQs in the world

New research revealed that Singapore ranks second to the United States in having the most NFT (Non-Fungible Token) company headquarters globally, having over 10 per cent of the global companies being based on the island nation.

Amid a crashing crypto market and consequently a decrease of 92 per cent this month in NFT transactions compared to last year, the opportunities posed by this virtual token, still in its infancy stage, continue to push companies to join the bandwagon.

A global study utilising Google search data by NFT Club showed that Singapore is highly engaged in the world of NFTs, with 24 NFT companies based in the country.

“This is a huge number of companies for such a small country and is a testament to the nation’s burgeoning tech credentials,” noted NFT Club, an online NFT community.

The research also revealed that Singapore is home to one of the highest-funded companies, Sky Mavis, with $161 million in funding.

Meanwhile, the countries with people most interested in NFTs based on their search histories are Taiwan (9,629 NFT-related searches per 100,000 people), followed by Australia and Canada. India came last in terms of interest, with just 254 searches per population.

NFT Club used Google Keyword Planner and a range of common NFT-themed search queries to measure public interest.

They also used information from Blockdata to measure the size of the NFT industry in each country.

Read the full study here.

An NFT is unique digital data such as a drawing, Tweet, meme, music, or game character that can’t be replaced with something else. The owner of an NFT can then trade or sell the unit of data on digital markets.

In a local scene, Singapore-based Chinese influencer and Instagram model Yuqing Irene Zhao listed her NFTs early this year, giving her earnings of S$7.5 million in 10 days.

NFT earnings of S$7.5 million in 10 days for S’pore-based influencer Irene Zhao

Despite NFTs operating on a virtual platform, those who’ve purchased them are acquainted with the high gas fees, which is the fee buyers pay to execute the transaction on the blockchain.

With a bulk of NFTs still tied to the Ethereum blockchain, a cryptocurrency known to exhaust considerable energy to mine, the overall process has sparked criticisms on its sustainability.

Experts have noted that the environment will be the entity paying a heavy price./TISG

Cryptoworld’s Dark Secret: S’poreans making big bucks with NFTs, but experts say the environment will pay heavy price!