2021 Was the Year of NFT’S, Will 2022 Be the Year of NFT Regulation?

At the start of 2021, NFTs were only known to a niche group within the crypto community. By year’s end, the market had swelled to over $40 billion (1) and had become a rakish phenomenon even to non-crypto adopters due to a rapid surge in investor demand.

Large sums of money have historically been hidden and shuffled around under the guise of art. Agglutinating this commodity within a rapidly expanding digital market has inadvertently broadened the pool for money laundering under the guise of NFT trading.

As outlined in the updated guidelines for cryptocurrency providers, FATF considers NFTs, or "crypto-collectibles," distinct from cryptocurrency (2).