OpenSea, the world’s largest NFT marketplace, has recently reached a major milestone — surpassing $1 billion in NFT transaction volume.

More impressively, the milestone was achieved this year alone, and we are only at mid August, with a little more than four and a half months to go before the year ends.

OpenSea has officially surpassed $1 billion in gross market volume after a record few days.

More impressively @opensea facilitated $1 billion in volume in 2021 alone!

2018 – $473k
2019 – $8 million
2020 – $24 million
2021 (YTD) – $1.02 billion

Absolutely insane growth. pic.twitter.com/NjTSxp0sqR
— Oliver Isaacs (@oliverzok) August 14, 2021

In 2020, OpenSea facilitated just $24 million in transactions, and the volume surged to a record $1.14 billion, representing a growth of over 12,000% so far this year.

According to DappRadar, the total incoming value to OpenSea’s smart contracts increased to $56.07 million earlier this week compared to $73,556 in January. Meanwhile, the marketplace’s user count increased from 315 to 14,520 in the same period — a 4,423% increase.

OpenSea statistics — Image Credit: DappRader

In the last 30 days, over 100,000 users interacted with the NFT marketplace, leading to a transaction volumeof over 1.14billion or 345 ETH.

OpenSea daily volume — OpenSea Daily Volume / Image Credit: Dune Analytics

OpenSea monthly NFTs sold / Image Credit: Dune Analytics

OpenSea monthly active traders — OpenSea motnhly active traders / Image Credit: Dune Analytics

According to Dune Analytics, the majority of the traction on OpenSea started in July and August, where collections like the Bored Ape Club and Pudgy Penguins were minted, attracting new users onto the platform.

The largest transacted volume on OpenSea was $2,645,132 for 1 NFT.

OpenSea is also witnessing a fast increase in the number of NFTs selling for more than $100,000 per NFT, suggesting that more and more crypto whales are treating NFTs as a new asset class among all the cryptoassets available.

Opensea number of sales — Number of NFTs sold on OpenSea that is over $100,000 per NFT / Image Credit: Dune Analytics

If 2020 was characterized by a DeFi summer, it is definitely safe to say that 2021 is the year of NFT, where crypto enthusiasts are flocking into the NFT space, causing the values of NFTs to skyrocket.

For example, the hottest NFT collection over the past few days on OpenSea is the Party and Pudgy Penguin collection, which saw prices appreciate almost 30000% for the Party Penguin collection in just 7 days.