NFTs crashed. Some digital collectibles are still worth doing

Remember how big this got?

In 2021, NFT sales volume reached $24.9 billion according to DappRadar, up from $94.9 million the year before. Sport was in the thick of it. At its peak in March 2021, NBA Top Shot recorded more than $224 million in sales across over 1.3 million transactions, yet by October 2022 its monthly sales had fallen to $2.7 million, down 94% on a year earlier. Its maker, Dapper Labs, cut 22% of its staff.

The wider market followed it down. A 2023 analysis by dappGambl looked at 73,257 NFT collections and found that 69,795 of them, around 95%, had a market capitalisation of zero. That's about as clear a verdict as a market can give. By the second quarter of 2025, quarterly NFT trading volume had dropped to $867 million, down 45% on the previous quarter.

But the DappRadar report behind that last figure found something more interesting. The number of NFT sales rose 78% to 14.9 million, which tells you NFTs had got cheaper but people were still buying. Real-world asset NFTs, tokens linked to physical items, grew 29% in volume to become the second-largest category. The speculation went, but cheaper collecting, with a link to something real, stayed.

Before anything else, I'd ask what the collectible actually lets a fan do. Everything follows from that answer.

So what does work?

The clearest example came at the 2026 World Cup. FIFA Collect offered Right-to-Buy collectibles that let holders buy match tickets ahead of the public sale, and they could be traded on the FIFA Collect marketplace or converted into official tickets. More than 100,000 fans gained stadium access at the tournament this way. The collectible was really an early route to something fans already wanted.

None of that means every rights holder needs a blockchain. It means a collectible earns its place when it gets fans something they already value: priority tickets, a meet-and-greet, a members' event, a signed shirt. What you know about your fans should decide which of those you build, before anyone commits to a platform. Partners can then fund those moments and give their own customers a way in. FIFA's digital sticker app for the same tournament was built in collaboration with Coca-Cola: a sponsor owning a collecting habit rather than a logo.

Where it starts to look like gambling

There's a catch, though. In October 2025, Switzerland's gambling regulator Gespa filed a criminal complaint over FIFA Collect, saying the platform offered gambling services that were not licensed in Switzerland. It described the offers as 'partly lotteries and partly sports betting'. 'Right to Final' tokens had cost $999 each.

The uncomfortable part is that the complaint turns on mechanics most marketers wouldn't think twice about. Paying for a chance at something whose value depends on an uncertain outcome can look like a bet, and random packs, mystery drops and tokens tied to which team reaches a final all sit close to that line. Paid entry, chance and cash resale together are the danger zone. The safer designs remove at least one of the three and take legal advice before launch.