As in the cryptocurrency market, the crypto winter continues in the NFT sector: many projects and marketplaces are in decline. At the same time, not everyone was affected by the bearish investor sentiment and the downtrend. Moreover, some such players got rich quite well against the background of the general crisis.
This article analyzes the latest trends in the NFT industry, recorded in the October report from DappRadar.
Growing demand for the NFT sector
According to the report, trade volume fell 30% to $662 million, the lowest in all of 2022. Also, the number of sales decreased by almost a third.
However, the number of unique traders in the NFT market has increased over the last month. The increase was 1.11 million people, i.е. fourteen%. And this is much better than the August and September figures.
Also increased interest in the so-called. Fractionated NFTs (F-NFTs) allows you to earn not on the entire NFT but only on its part (as shown in the pictures below).
NFT is also gaining popularity as collateral against which you can take a loan. During the year, the number of requests on this topic increased by 136%.
In October, companies increasingly began to turn to NFTs as a source of financial investments. According to the DappRadar report, organizations from various industries, including Formula 1, Visa, and many others, have filed for NFT trademarks.
Ethereum and Solana in decline, Polygon on the rise
October had different meanings for blockchains. On the one hand, the sector of NFT projects working on Ethereum, Solana, and Flow suffered. Thus, NFT trading volumes on Ethereum fell by 21%, reaching the lowest level since June 2021. Sales of projects on Solana fell by about half, canceling the September high and returning to July and August figures. Flow survived a 60% drop.
On the other hand, there are also lucky ones. Polygon was the luckiest of all: not only did the volumes jump by 770%, but also the number of sales increased by 109%. The rise is primarily due to the success of the NFT avatars collection on Reddit, which was created back in July.
Theta also boasts a 55% increase in sales, attributed to the launch of Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan’s NFT collection. BNB Chain is also a successful blockchain: sales increased by 60%.
Threat to the monopolist
Trading turnover is declining on the leading NFT exchanges, but OpenSea ‘s position has been shaken the most. Its NFT market share has decreased by 8.3% since August.
At the same time, two marketplaces expanded their market coverage. First, it is X2Y2 (+8.4%). Its growth is associated with launching a service that allows you to borrow Ethereum while providing NFT as collateral.
Secondly, it’s Magic Eden (+2.3%). Since the “0% royalty” trend has spread in the crypto industry, aimed at abolishing authors’ commissions for NFT sales, the marketplace has not been able to bypass it. He ended up making NFT royalties optional and thereby attracting new users. Now about 90% of sales of NFT projects on Solana are carried out on Magic Eden.
There is also a new Ethereum-based NFT marketplace, Blur, designed for professional traders and offering zero fees for NFT trading. Recently, the site launched an airdrop of a native token.
Outcome
Although trading is declining in the NFT industry, things are not as bad as they might seem at first glance. For example, new NFT marketplaces are opening, the presence of individual blockchains is expanding, and the share of monopolists is decreasing. In addition, interest in the NFT industry is gradually growing from ordinary users to large institutional ones. In a word, the market continues to live. It includes both losers and winners.
