Collectors of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have already sent more than $37 billion(R594 bn) in value to NFT marketplaces this year (as of May 1), a figure that nearly exceeds the total amount in 2021.
According to a Chainalysis report, investors sent $40 billion (R 641bn) in cryptocurrency to smart contracts associated with NFT collections and marketplaces in 2021.
The volume of NFT transactions has increased significantly since the beginning of last year, but the industry’s overall growth has been inconsistent.
According to the report, NFT transaction volume occurs infrequently and has been declining since mid-February. The NFT market has since made a brief recovery as of mid-April, most likely due to the recent hype surrounding Moonbirds and the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s metaverse project, Otherside.
Despite short-term fluctuations in NFT transaction volume, the number of people buying and selling NFTs around the world remains strong, with 950,000 unique addresses buying or selling NFTs in Q1 2022.
As of May 1, Q2 2022, 491,000 unique addresses had transacted with NFTs, putting the market on track to maintain its growth trend in terms of participants.
Chainalysis discovered that NFTs attract users from all over the world by analyzing the web traffic of the major NFT marketplaces, with Central and Southern Asia leading the charge, closely followed by North America and Western Europe.
The report contradicts the conclusion of a recent Wall Street Journal article, which claimed that NFT sales were stagnant. The article stated that “the NFT market is collapsing,” yet in the same week, the top five NFT collections alone accounted for more than $1 billion(R 16bn) in primary and secondary sales.
Chainalysis’ report also comes a day after Coinbases’ launch of its in-house NFT marketplace failed to generate much interest. On-chain data revealed that only 150 transactions occurred on May 4 — the first day of trading — with only $75,000 (R 1.2m) in volume moving through the platform.
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