The NFT industry is showing signs of decline after OpenSea’s sales volume plunged to $2.5 billion last month.
In January, OpenSea’s sales volume was double that amount.
Moreover, the number of people buying NFTs dropped to 635,000, with an average price of $247 last month.
“Obviously the enthusiasm and interest that we had at some periods last year is not here anymore,” Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile, an NFT enthusiast, told Reuters. “I think we achieved something that wasn’t sustainable.”
The director of finance and analytics of DappRadar, Modesta Masoit, explained that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine might be a factor for investors showing caution. She added that the market is in a consolidation stage rather than a decline.
“Everybody was expecting that there was going to be a consolidation period,” she told Reuters. “It’s not going away, it’s just consolidating.”
Art Blocks NFT, a pack of computer-generated collectibles, sold at an average price of $15,000 in September last year. But, by March, the prices dropped to $4,200.
But the prices of six-figure NFTs, like the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, remain around $300,000.
Breaking the $17 billion mark
In 2021, the total transaction volume of digital collectibles surpassed the $17 billion mark. In addition, the number of NFT holders and traders totaled 2.5 million, while the number of buyers reached 2.3 million, 2.2 million higher than the 75,000 in 2020.
But, according to a survey by digital security company Privacy HQ, nine out of ten respondents said they had experienced some form of scam as half of them had lost access to their NFTs at some point, and two-thirds had panic-sold in the past.
