EXAMINING THE HYPE BEHIND THE BLOCKCHAIN NFT MARKET

Abstract

Gartner's Technology Hype Cycle has Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) at the peak of the hype cycle in 2021 while not even having appeared on the hype cycle in 2020. This exploratory study looks at the spread of the hype from a social media context by examining all tweets related to #NFT. We find evidence that the communities are highly dynamic in nature which is indicative of a decentralized social movement with no strong leaders. Sentiment regarding NFTs was strongly positive across all communities with no indication of any growing negative sentiment. The community expanded at exponential rates throughout the period of study with the communities becoming more interlinked and sharing more content over time. This analysis provides a foundation on which future NFT studies, or alternative emergent technology studies could build upon.