In 2021 and 2022, NFTs became an unavoidable topic. With major brands like Nike releasing NFT collections and artists like Beeple fetching US$69.3 million from just one piece, such eye-watering sums were bound to capture the attention of the masses.
Some people looked at NFT stocks instead of NFTs: shares in listed companies with an NFT business. This article covers what NFT stocks are, how they differ from buying NFTs directly, what happened to the NFT plans of some well-known companies, and what to check before buying shares.
Note (October 2026): This article is for information only and is not investment advice. Most of the companies below have closed, sold or scaled back their NFT businesses since 2022. Do your own research, or speak to a licensed financial adviser, before you buy any stock.
What are NFT stocks?
These are shares in publicly-traded companies that invest in NFTs and other innovations in the NFT ecosystem. An NFT stock may also be a share in a privately-owned company that has invested in the NFT space.
Please keep in mind that the NFT space is nascent, so you’ll hardly find a publicly-traded company that is all about NFTs. Most companies we’ll talk about as NFT stocks are already established in other industries like tech, food and beverages, fashion, and more.
Why opt for NFT stocks?
Some people prefer NFT stocks to buying NFTs directly because:
· They are subject to a more concrete regulatory framework. When you directly own NFTs, often, the issuers are anonymous. So if there are copyright issues, insider trading, or even fraud, it might be harder to find someone to hold accountable.
With NFT stocks, there are executives behind every deal, and they have to comply with strict rules set by the respective securities regulators in their region. In that sense, you have more legal recourse if the company you invested in doesn’t keep its promises.
· NFT stocks may be underpinned by more significant expertise and resources. Buying NFTs on your own can be very expensive. Additionally, you may not have enough time and skill to conduct thorough research and always pick the next big NFT project.
These factors make NFT buying harder for individuals. A listed company can put a much bigger budget into research and security, but that does not guarantee a profit, as the closures below show.
· NFT stocks spare you the job of securing NFTs yourself. As the NFT space became more lucrative, the number of crafty scams and hacks also increased. So as a retail investor without a huge cybersecurity budget, holding an NFT in a self-custody wallet might be extra risky as its value increases.
Luckily, companies holding NFTs can invest more in securing them, so on that note, it might be safer to have indirect exposure through NFT stocks.
· NFT stocks make it easier to diversify your NFT investment. You can have a finger in several NFT pies even with stock in just one company. Moreover, you can also buy different NFT stocks and benefit from the various companies’ investment philosophies.
So if one company misses out on a good pick, another might spot it. In essence, you’re like an investor buying into an index instead of just one or two companies in that index. If one NFT bet fails, others might offset part of the loss, although spreading your money does not remove the risk.
Well-known NFT stocks
These companies were often named as NFT stocks in 2022. Here is what they planned and what has happened to their NFT businesses since:
eBay
It’s hard to deny that eBay has significant brand recognition in the e-commerce space. Given eBay’s position this gives them a major head start over lesser known competitors when it comes to customer acquisition in new markets.
eBay’s NFT plans centered on running a marketplace, earning from trades rather than from betting on the price of a specific NFT. In June 2022 it bought KnownOrigin, an NFT art marketplace. KnownOrigin has since shut down as an active platform; its site now describes it as running from 2018 to 2024, and its artworks can still be traded on other marketplaces such as OpenSea.
DraftKings
DraftKings, the sports betting and fantasy sports company, entered the NFT business in 2021 and sold NFTs directly through its own marketplace.
It worked with Autograph, the NFT company co-founded by Tom Brady, on collections tied to sports stars such as Brady, and later launched Reignmakers, a fantasy sports game built on NFTs.
On July 30, 2024, DraftKings shut down Reignmakers and its NFT marketplace with immediate effect, citing recent legal developments. Weeks earlier, a federal judge had allowed a class action to proceed that claimed its NFTs were unregistered securities. Collectors could still access and transfer their NFTs.
Coinbase
Coinbase is one of the top crypto exchanges in the U.S. Having launched the beta version of their NFT marketplace in April 2022, the platform garnered 900 transactions amounting to US$210,000 in sales volume.
Coinbase NFT’s sales volume hit US$668,668 after two weeks, attributed to 1,287 active users. The marketplace never became a large one, and in February 2023 Coinbase paused new NFT drops while saying the marketplace itself was not closing.
The old Coinbase NFT address, nft.coinbase.com, now redirects to the Coinbase Wallet website.
Cloudflare
Cloudflare is another company often listed as an NFT stock because of its foundation in tech. It runs a content delivery network and secures multiple web and application resources, serving about 115 million HTTP requests per second on average, according to the company.
In April 2021, Cloudflare added a way to link videos on its Cloudflare Stream service to NFTs on Ethereum. That feature no longer appears in Stream’s documentation. Cloudflare still offers Ethereum and IPFS gateways for Web3 developers.
NFT technology is changing the way ownership is verified digitally and the implementation of the owner’s rights. One of the common ideas was that whenever a song, video, or some other piece of art is sold, the original owner can get some of the proceeds.
Takung Art
This online trading platform enables people to secure partial ownership of fine art, primarily from Asia. From paintings to jewelry and more, investors and collectors can buy and sell minus the forgery and price manipulation common in such markets.
Takung Art launched its NFT trading website in April 2022. The company now trades as NFT Limited on NYSE American under the ticker MI (it was TKAT) and still runs an online platform for trading artwork as NFTs, mainly in China.
Dolphin Entertainment
Dolphin Entertainment owns marketing and PR agencies such as The Door, 42West, and Shore Fire Media. In 2022 it partnered on NFTs with FTX, the crypto exchange that filed for bankruptcy in November 2022.
The two launched an NFT marketplace mainly geared to sports and entertainment brands, and Dolphin also worked on NFT projects with Hall of Fame Resort and Entertainment. Dolphin’s website no longer mentions NFTs and presents the company as an entertainment marketing and PR group.
Other notable NFT stocks
Many other brands have tried NFTs in one way or another, including Nike, McDonald’s, Heineken, Playboy, Funko and Hasbro. Several have since pulled back. Nike, for example, sold RTFKT, its NFT and virtual sneaker studio, after shutting down its NFT operations, CoinDesk reported in January 2026. Check whether a company still runs an NFT business before you treat it as an NFT stock.
Extra tips on NFT stocks
Before you settle on NFT stocks to invest in, do the same things you’d do for regular stocks:
· Find out whether the company pays dividends or not
· Analyze the stock’s performance in recent years, especially during market downturns
As for the NFT-specific due diligence:
· Find out which NFT creators the company is partnering with or which NFTs they are buying (yes, humans run companies, so they aren’t immune to FOMO and “hopium”). Remember that big companies often get it wrong when venturing into new spaces.
· Keep track of the ownership and partnerships of the NFT part of the company. You don’t want to wake up one day wondering why your NFT stock isn’t going up only to find out that they sold their NFT-related assets a while back or have minor shares in them.
How to invest in NFT stocks
Buy Stocks At Robinhood
1. Conduct research and create an NFT stocks list with your preferences
2. Look through various online trading platforms and find out the NFT stocks they have
3. Select one or more that have the NFT stocks you’re interested in and open an account with them
4. Perform the necessary Know-Your-Customer steps and other verification processes
5. Deposit funds into your trading account and purchase shares of the NFT stocks you like
Wrap-up
Investing in companies is already quite tricky and even more so if they are venturing into new businesses. Many big brands used NFTs as a marketing gimmick to reach younger customers, and several have since closed or sold their NFT units.
Check each company’s latest annual report for its NFT activity before you buy, and only invest money you can afford to lose. If you decide to buy shares, you can do so through a broker such as Robinhood.
