Despite declining sales months and falling prices, total NFT sales last year nearly matched the 2021 peak, according to data from DappRadar. The data shows that a brisk start to the NFT market in 2022 boosted the year-end settlement and helped offset the weaker months that followed.
The NFT market will generate around $24.7 billion in organic trading volume across blockchain platforms and marketplaces in 2022, DappRadar shared. Decode. That’s a slight drop from the $25.1 billion total in 2021, as the NFT market has grown in activity and interest as token collections have become more than just a special interest for the first time.
DappRadar’s “organic” data excludes trades suspected of being trade-washed, or trades that have been tampered with in any way.
Laundering often occurs when traders sell their own NFTs between the wallets they control at inflated prices, often in an attempt to exploit the token reward model in the market. The data excluded the laundering of billions of dollars, such as on marketplaces like LooksRare and X2Y2 that offered incentives to trade tokens.
While total trading volume for the year was largely flat, DappRadar saw a significant increase in the number of NFTs traded last year. The analytics firm recorded around 101 million NFT trades during 2022, compared to around 58.6 million NFT transactions in 2021. In other words, more NFTs were sold at lower USD values given the collapse in crypto and NFT prices.
NFTs in 2022
The cryptocurrency market has lost significant value over the year, with losses accelerating amid the collapse of Terra’s LUNA and UST in May. The so-called “crypto winter” was exacerbated by the crash of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange and the resulting contagion of the sector, which further affected the prices of cryptocurrencies.
The NFT market followed similar progress throughout the year. Sales surged in January and 2021 momentum carried into the new year as market leader OpenSea had a record month with $5 billion in trading volume.
Trading volume declined in the months that followed, but in late April, the mass release of NFT plots for Yuga Labs’ Otherside, a Bored Ape Yacht Club-themed metaverse game, boosted the market and pushed OpenSea to record volume. operations in one day. . At the time, it looked like 2022’s NFT sales volume could significantly exceed 2021’s.
However, that rise did not last. As cryptocurrency prices fell in May, so did momentum in NFT trading, causing prices to plummet. Monthly volume dropped from nearly $3.3 billion in May to just over $1 billion in June, according to DappRadar, but the market hasn’t broken the $1 billion mark in subsequent months.
Ethereum’s Bored Ape Yacht Club was last year’s best-selling NFT project, according to CryptoSlam, with a trading volume of around $1.6 billion. However, the vast majority of those transactions took place between January and May, as initial prices fell from $429,000 ETH in late April to a recent low of less than $60,000 in November.
December data
Compared to the highs reached at the beginning of the year, the NFT market ended 2022 with a relative sigh. However, overall trading volume increased slightly compared to November, while the number of NFTs traded in the final month of the year reversed the previous month’s decline.
According to DappRadar, the NFT market produced almost $684 million worth of organic trading in December, up from an adjusted total of more than $662 million in November. About 6.7 million NFTs were traded during the month, compared to about 4.8 million in November and 6.1 million in October.
According to DappRadar, OpenSea remained the top NFT marketplace by organic trades, with over $297 million in December. This indicator exceeds 259 million dollars in November. Blur, the latest competitor to promote NFT operations by promising upcoming token rewards, went from about $115 million in November to $177 million in December.
Solana’s blockchain continued its recent up-and-down pattern, rising to nearly $70 million from $95 million in November. It previously fell to $67 million in October, following a hot September that saw nearly $134 million in NFT sales thanks to the launch of y00ts. The value of SOL fell sharply in November and December due to the collapse of FTX.
For its part, Flow, the blockchain platform for NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day, stopped the bleeding after two straight months of declines of 50% or more. Flow made nearly $6.8 million in NFT sales in December, up from $7.7 million in November.
And Top Shot saw its first small monthly revenue in months after months of declines, down to $2.2 million in December (according to CryptoSlam) after selling less than $2.1 million in NFT in November. The FLOW token hit a new all-time low earlier this week after steadily losing steam amid a sharp drop in NFT activity on the platform.