20% of NFTs Generate 90% of Sales
Jun 16, 2022 Cryptocurrency, Non-Fungible Tokens,
What does an Italian economist from the early 1900s have to do with Non-Fungible Tokens?
In 1906, Vilfredo Pareto observed that 80% of the property in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. This observation was later generalized into the Pareto principle or the 80/20 rule which says that roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. Surprisingly, this 100-plus year old rule of thumb is still applicable today.
After completing a Pareto analysis on the all-time top 1000 NFT sales from CryptoSlam, I observed that NFT sales follow the 80/20 rule.
In the table below, you can see that roughly 90% of sales are generated by 20% of NFTs.
| Sales | Sales % | |
|---|---|---|
| Top 10% of NFTs | $22,349,722,095 | 79.2% |
| Top 20% of NFTs | $25,260,427,515 | 89.5% |
| Top 50% of NFTs | $27,745,516,198 | 98.3% |
| Total Sales |
|---|
| $28,228,493,462 |
This dataset is unusual in one respect. Axie Infinity, the top selling NFT on CryptoSlam, is not classified as an NFT on either OpenSea or CoinMarketCap. But even after removing Axie Infinity from the analysis, the ratio is basically the same.
| Sales | Sales % | |
|---|---|---|
| Top 10% of NFTs | $18,355,317,999 | 75.9% |
| Top 20% of NFTs | $21,239,210,330 | 87.8% |
| Top 50% of NFTs | $23,709,258,317 | 98% |
| Total Sales |
|---|
| $24,188,959,208 |
This dataset is available on GitHub in CSV format here.