In the second quarter of 2022, the crypto market witnessed a decline, which also affected the prices of NFTs and experienced a massive downturn in the same quarter.
NFT trading volumes are down 97% from the record highs seen back in January, according to Bloomberg.
NFT wallet activity decreased 88 per cent to about 14,000 last week from a high of 119,000 in November 2021, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Earlier this year, monthly sales were up to $19 Billion, but in September 2022, sales were recorded at $466 million. This made us, the crypto and NFT industry question, is this the end of NFTs?
Despite the massive decline in sales and drop in the price of Non-fungible tokens, lots of people have said that it is not yet over for NFTs and it shall recover again.
The Massive Decline Of Value of NFTs
According to DappRadar analytics, OpenSea, the world’s largest NFT marketplace, saw its trading volume drop by 99 per cent between May and August 2022.
In 2021 and the early months of 2022, we witnessed Non-fungible tokens being bought and sold for thousands and millions of dollars. It gave rise to NFT millionaires, but it has been challenging since the decline.
Have you ever heard of Jack Dorsey’s first-ever tweet sold as an NFT? Well, it is true.
The first ever tweet on Twitter was sent by Jack Dorsey, the then CEO and founder of Twitter. This tweet was turned into an NFT, and it was bought by Sina Estavi, a crypto entrepreneur. He purchased it for a whopping $2.9 million.
He went ahead to put the NFT up for resale on OpenSea, a popular NFT marketplace with an asking price of $48 million in April 2022, but his highest bid was $6,800. He definitely was not expecting that.
There have been more cases like this.
According to an article by The Washington Post, “an NFT of a pixelated man with sunglasses and hat that sold for roughly $1 million seven months ago brought just $138,000 on May 8.
A digital token of an ape with a red hat, sleeveless T-shirt and multicoloured grin — part of the famous Bored Ape Yacht Club — purchased for over $520,000 on April 30 was sold for roughly half that price 10 days later.”
American Youtuber Logan Paul is also a victim of the NFT value decline. In August 2021, he invested over $620,000 in Bumblebee NFT by Azuki.
This NFT is now worth just $10, plummeting his investment by 99 per cent.
Logan Paul is known for his extravagant spending. Over the past year, he has spent over $2 million on NFTs, so he is not new to heavy investments in NFTs. Still, he seemed to be very unlucky in this particular one.
It is pretty strange since it is known that Azuki NFTs are one of the most expensive NFTs, and the Azuki Bumblebee NFT is actually Logan Paul’s most expensive NFT purchase so far.
Conclusion
It is unsure if the NFT market will return to its glory days, but we have not entirely given up on it yet.
Although NFT artists and investors seem to be struggling with sales at the moment, we remain hopeful for the future.
