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Consumers from Asia and Oceania were more interested in NFTs than their counterparts from Europe, Latin America, or MENA. This is according to information that was compiled from Google Trends, looking at how often people from around the world were searching for the keyword “NFT ” Charts to measure whether an NFT hype was still present or not in 2022 started to appear as consumer data was not always available. One global consumer survey on NFT adoption per country, for example, was held in September 2021—or half a year before the figures shown here. Either way, figures from both 2021 and 2022 suggest that consumers in the United States, the UK, and Germany were initially less interested in NFTs than those from other countries in the world. Why is that?

NFT interest tied to high-profile announcements

Many heard about NFTs for the first time when news outlets reported the high-value sale of Beeple crypto art piece “The First 5,000 Days” by auction house Christie’s. From that moment on, early adoption became a motivator for several U.S. consumers to acquire NFTs. The main motivation behind buying NFTs in the U.S. by that time, however, was return on investment. The rebranding of Facebook into Meta—by introducing the metaverse, a further application of NFTs, to a large audience—likely caused awareness to grow further. NFT-related announcements did not stop there: Canada’s increase in NFT searches, for example, might be caused by the news of KPMG Canada buying a World of Women NFT in March 2022. Celebrity promotions on Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) in early 2022, while sparking outrage from some, may also have added to the growing familiarity of what an NFT could be.

GameFi and the early interest in (Southeast) Asia

Several countries at the top of this ranking are found in Asia. Many believe this is due to the rise of blockchain games and the growing number of GameFi users—especially in this region. Take, for instance, the Philippines: the country hit the news in the summer of 2021 as it decided to make cryptocurrencies earned within the NFT game Axie Infinity—originally from Vietnam—taxable. This caused sales made within Axie Infinity  one of the world's most valuable NFT collections, to decline, as many believed the game to be an environment where you could earn money by just playing the game.