Using Advanced Machine Learning Techniques to Predict the Sales Volume of Non-Fungible Tokens

Abstract

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a type of digital asset based on blockchain that contain unique codes verifying the authenticity and ownership of different assets such as art pieces, music, gaming items, collections, and so on. This phenomenon and its markets have grown significantly since the beginning of 2021. This study, using daily data between November 2017 and November 2022, predicts the volume of NFT sales by utilising Random Forest (RF), GBM, XGBoost, and LightGBM methods from the community machine learning methods. In the predictions, several financial variables, including Gold, Bitcoin/USD, Ethereum/USD, S&P 500 index, Nasdaq 100, Oil/USD, Euro/USD, and CDS data, are treated as independent variables. According to the results, XGBoost is found to be the best prediction method for NFT market volume estimation concerning several statistical criteria, e.g., MAE, MAPE, and RMSE, and the most significant influential feature in determining prices is the Ethereum/USD exchange rate.

JEL codes: G12, C53

Keywords: Financial assets, Non-fungible tokens, Machine learning