Trading volume on the OpenSea marketplace has dropped by more than 90%. Is it possible to say that the interest in non–fungible tokens has passed, and what are the prospects for this area?
In September, the volume of trading on non-interchangeable marketplace tokens (NFT) OpenSea fallen by 99% since the peak set in August. If on August 28, the daily trading volume on the platform amounted to $ 349 million, then by September 12 it dropped to $ 1.7 million.
Also, according to The Block , for the week from September 5 to September 12, the NFT trading volume totaled $ 312 million, although a month earlier set a record of $ 1.05 billion.
The current drop in NFT trading volumes should not be perceived as stagnation in the industry, explained Vitaly Kirpichev, Development Director at TradingView .
According to Vitaly , the dynamics of trading in art objects is always pulse-like. For example, if an interesting art object appears on the market tomorrow and there is demand from large investors, then a deal may occur, which in terms of volume will overlap all transactions made earlier.
August was the peak month for NFT, as well as for the entire market, added Vladimir Smetanin, CEO of the Swiss financial company Newcent. Usually at such times, crypto enthusiasts tend to buy NFT more easily, he said.
“I think the hype didn’t work – this is a new topic and it is changing very actively and rapidly,” Smetanin explained. He recalled that traditional artists and venues (Sotheby’s, Christie’s and even the State Hermitage Museum) enter the NFT sphere and try themselves.
In early September, the Hermitage held an auction on the Binance NFT marketplace, during which non-fungible tokens of paintings from its own collection were sold for over 32 million rubles.
In total, 5 works were exhibited there, the most expensive of which, “Madonna Litta” by Leonardo da Vinci, was sold for more than $ 150 thousand .
At the same time, Sotheby’s and Christie’s are actively selling NFT tokens. For example, in June, Sotheby’s sold a rare token “Alien” # 7523 (“Alien”) from the CryptoPunks collection for $ 11.8 million.
And in May, Christie’s announced the sale of nine rare NFTs from the CryptoPunks collection for $ 17 million.
#AuctionUpdate 9 rare CryptoPunks from Larva Labs' own collection makes history realizing $16,962,500 pic.twitter.com/qsPs5nqVYY
— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) May 12, 2021
“There will be a surge of interest in NFT, of course, and more than one – this is a completely new topic, at the intersection of art and technology,” Smetanin emphasized.
The current situation on the NFT market is the normalization and maturation of the market, says Nikita Zuborev, senior analyst at Bestchange.ru.
In Nikita opinion, the sphere of non-fungible tokens will continue to develop, there will be many more isolated cases of rapid growth, but all of them will be associated with the media power and social resource of issuers, and not with the popularity of the phenomenon itself, as at the beginning of the year.
The current drop in trading volumes does not mean the closure of companies and projects involved in NFT sales, the specialist added.
He noted that dedicated startups will be able to form a stable market and will remain in this state for a long time.
The dynamics of the popularity of topics about “NFT” in search engines indicates the continued development of the community, Zuborev is sure.
At the moment, according to Google Trends, the number of searches has returned to the level of the spring, which means that interest in the field remains, despite the correction.
“NFT startups will continue to exist and remain profitable, but the excess profits for such platforms are likely to be a thing of the past.
Tokens of popular NFT projects that will manage to survive the maturation of the industry will become a more conservative investment than before, ”the specialist predicted.
In his opinion, non-fungible tokens from the GameFi industry will be at the peak of popularity in the near future, rather than traditional collectible tokens from marketplaces.
There are also possible isolated cases of explosive growth for NFT large media personalities and sports clubs, it is worth keeping track of the announcements of such events, the expert advised.
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