NFT sales hit $512 million over the past week. These were the 5 best-selling digital collections.

• NFT sales had a breakthrough year in 2021, with total sales volume surging to $14 billion.
• The NFT market is dominated by a handful of standout leaders due to their popularity and rarity.
• These are the five best-selling digital collectibles that helped drive $512 million in NFT sales over the past week.

The cryptocurrency boom over the past few years has helped propel a newer market to record heights: digital collectibles known as NFTs.

In fact, 2021 was a breakthrough year for NFTs, with total sales volume topping $14 billion as artists, investors, and entrepreneurs descend upon the nascent Web3 space.

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique, irreplaceable, mostly digital items that users buy and sell online.

NFTs use blockchain technology to keep a digital record of ownership, similar to cryptocurrencies. They were first launched on ethereum, the same blockchain that supports the cryptocurrency ether, and most NFTs can still only be purchased using ether.

In the past week alone, sales of NFTs hit $512 million, according to data from NonFungible.com.

With NFT sales soaring, these are the five best-selling NFT collections over the past week, according to NonFungible.

5. Art Blocks

7-Day Sales Volume: $14.9 million
Number of Sales: 3,504
Highest Sale Price: $783,432

Explainer: "A storefront for genuinely programmable and on-demand generative artwork that is stored directly on the Ethereum blockchain."

4. The Sandbox

7-Day Sales Volume: $17.9 million
Number of Sales: 1,229
Highest Sale Price: $56,401

Explainer: "The Sandbox is a community-driven UGC-voxel platform where users own their LAND and host their creative magic."

3. Doodles

7-Day Sales Volume: $26.0 million
Number of Sales: 934
Highest Sale Price: $572,245

Explainer: "Doodles come in a joyful range of colors, traits, and sizes with a collection size of 10,000. Doodles are a funky bunch that like to role play or transmogrify themselves into delicious treats. Holding a Doodle allows you to participate in coordinating the Doodles Community Treasury."

2. CryptoPunks

7-Day Sales Volume: $32.8 million
Number of Sales: 109
Highest Sale Price: $1.2 million

Explainer: "10,000 unique collectible characters with proof of ownership stored on the Ethereum blockchain. The project that inspired the modern CryptoArt movement."

1. Bored Ape Yacht Club

7-Day Sales Volume: $206.4 million
Number of Sales: 3,069
Highest Sale Price: $844,381

Explainer: "BAYC is a collection of 10,000 Bored Ape NFTs -- unique digital collectibles living on the Ethereum blockchain. Your Bored Ape doubles as your Yacht Club membership card, and grants access to members-only benefits."