NFT resurrects despite Rumors of Decline
2023.02.14 02:00
NFT resurrects despite Rumors of Decline
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – It has life! Despite predictions of its demise, the NFT market is waking up from its slumber.
According to market tracker CryptoSlam, total NFT sales on the ethereum blockchain, which hosts the majority of trading, increased to $780.2 million in January from $546.9 million in the previous month.
One of the most popular collectibles was digital art. For instance, “CryptoPunks #7674,” a pixelated character smoking a pipe, sold for $433,555 while “Bored Ape Yacht Club #5840,” a cartoon monkey shooting green lasers from its eyes, sold for $822,730.
CryptoSlam found that the average NFT sale price was a more manageable $372.38.
Sales of $780 million last month pale in comparison to the roughly $5 billion in January and $2.7 billion in May, when the market and a large portion of the cryptosphere experienced a non-fungible decline.
However, CryptoSlam data indicates that the market has been slowly recovering since November, when it hit a low of $324 million. Some traders are betting on the use of NFTs in gaming and branding in the future.
Teng Yan, lead researcher at Delphi Digital, stated, “We will see another run like 2021 when we are able to really bring on board the next big wave of participants into the space.” He estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 individuals are currently actively trading NFTs.
The future of non-fungible tokens is still a mystery, despite the nascent bounce. Few crypto experts anticipate a similar boom to that of 2021 anytime soon. Paying to be recorded on a blockchain as the owner of a digital file that anyone can view online for free raises questions about its long-term viability.
According to Saro McKenna, CEO of Alien Worlds, an NFT metaverse and blockchain game company, NFTs could assist celebrities and businesses in engaging with fans and customers.
“When more and more of the Disneys and Dua Lipas of the world increasingly turn to NFTs,” McKenna added, “that will be the most promising aspect of this technology.”
According to some market participants, the introduction of Blur, a brand-new online marketplace that has piqued investor interest since its launch late last year and announced a series of free coin “airdrops” and other rewards, contributed to the January increase in NFT sales volumes.
According to data from DappRadar, NFT trading volumes on Blur’s platform have reached 101.2 million over the past seven days, slightly more than the $100.4 million seen on OpenSea, the dominant marketplace.
However, OpenSea still leads the market with $443.98 million in volumes over the past 30 days, compared to Blur’s $366 million.
The novel use of the bitcoin blockchain to mint an NFT collection has sparked controversy among crypto enthusiasts in yet another non-fungible development.
Punks is a derivative of the hugely popular CryptoPunks collection that consists of NFTs with a monkey theme. According to some media reports, Bitcoin Punk NFT can be purchased for as much as 9.5 bitcoin, or about $205,000.
Teng Yan at Delphi Digital stated, “We are going through a little bit of a hype phase for this because it’s just new, it’s novel, and people are rushing to try and be the first few people to mint NFTs on bitcoin.” He noted that there was no marketplace for bitcoin NFTs, and all transactions were conducted over the counter.
“Over the next few weeks, the hype will lessen.”
