NFT Market Reaches $10 Billion in Sales in 2021
And the wild ride that followed…
I still remember the day a candidate casually dropped, “I just made more flipping JPEGs this month than I did in my last full-time dev job.” It was early 2021, and I’d already been knee-deep in crypto recruitment for years—but that moment? That’s when I knew the NFT wave wasn’t just hype. It was a proper movement.
And sure enough, the NFT market reaches $10 billion in sales in 2021 became the headline that echoed across the industry. From profile pic projects like Bored Apes to generative art, music rights, and virtual real estate—suddenly, everyone wanted in.
But behind the numbers and headlines were real people, real talent shifts, and real career chaos. So here’s my take—recruiter hat firmly on—on what that explosive growth actually meant for the space and the people in it.
From Artists to Engineers: The Talent Gold Rush
When the NFT market reached $10 billion in 2021, the first domino to fall was the art world. Digital creators who’d never made more than a few hundred bucks on Instagram commissions were suddenly netting six-figure sales on OpenSea.
Naturally, this spurred a chain reaction. Web3-native design and dev roles exploded. We had founders calling us asking for Solidity engineers who “also understand DeFi and generative art.” Spoiler alert: those unicorns didn’t exist back then.
What did exist, though, was a massive appetite for hiring fast. DAOs were onboarding contributors without even a Zoom call. Startups were throwing tokens around like confetti. And devs? They were spoilt for choice. Many skipped traditional employment altogether and jumped headfirst into freelancing for NFT drops or building their own projects.
Lesson learnt? In Web3, loyalty was replaced by liquidity.
The Rise (and Wobble) of NFT Startups
As the NFT market reached $10 billion, it wasn’t just individual artists cashing in. VC money flooded the space. Every other day, I’d see a new stealth startup raising $5M to “revolutionise digital identity” or “build the LinkedIn for NFTs.”
Some of these companies genuinely had strong visions and a need for smart hires. But others? Let’s just say they were a bit too quick to put ‘Head of Community’ roles on six-figure salaries before they’d even launched a product.
We placed a lot of talent into early-stage NFT ventures in 2021. Some went on to build sustainable businesses with loyal user bases. Others folded within months, ghosting both their hires and their token holders.
What worked? Founders who treated Web3 like an evolution of Web2, not a total replacement. Think: smart contracts, but also sensible business models.
Communities as Careers
If 2020 was about DeFi degens, 2021 was the year community managers became rockstars.
When the NFT market reached $10 billion, community became the moat. You could have the slickest artwork and the flashiest roadmap, but if your Discord wasn’t buzzing, your floor price was doomed.
I remember chatting with a candidate who turned down a six-figure product role at a major crypto exchange to run community for a small NFT project. Why? “I believe more in the community than the tech,” he said. And fair play—he ended up earning more in token incentives than he would’ve from that cushy salary.
This period marked the realisation that community wasn’t just fluff. It was ops, support, PR, and sales—all rolled into one. And it was exhausting. Burnout became common. We started coaching candidates on how to pick projects where they wouldn’t be expected to be online 24/7.
Beyond JPEGs: The Next Evolution
A year after the NFT market hit $10B, the dust started to settle. Projects that were only about aesthetics began to fade. But the underlying tech? That started to mature.
We saw major shifts in hiring towards use cases like:
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Gaming NFTs (hello, play-to-earn),
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Music rights management, and
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Tokenised real estate (yes, seriously).
The talent needed also shifted. Suddenly it wasn’t enough to be Web3-fluent—you had to understand licensing, royalties, and even entertainment law. This opened the door for a new wave of professionals—those from traditional industries curious about crypto.
We helped a surprising number of lawyers, artists, and ex-FinTech PMs make their first Web3 move thanks to these evolving NFT models. It wasn’t just about culture anymore; it was about utility.
The fact that the NFT market reaches $10 billion in sales in 2021 is more than just a milestone—it was a wake-up call.
A call that:
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Talent was (and still is) everything.
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Community is a career.
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And hype cycles may come and go, but the people building during the comedown? They’re the ones who’ll shape the next era.
If you’re still sceptical about NFTs because of the bubble or the scams, fair enough. But beneath the noise, real infrastructure was built. Real value was created. And some of the smartest people I’ve ever placed are still all-in.
Maybe you should be too?
