Do you think the cryptocurrency market is suffering? Take a look at what happened to non-fungible tokens – also known as NFTs.
Data from DappRadar shows that trading volume on OpenSea – the world’s largest NFT marketplace – has fallen 99% in less than four months. While the company has somewhat disputed the figure, it has acknowledged that the significant drop in activity is real and expected.
The sad state of NFTs
According to DappRadars stats pageOn May 1, ETH daily trading volume on OpenSea peaked above $400 million. By comparison, the platform generated just $5 million in ETH volume on August 28.
In an email to Fortune, OpenSea noted that the number is a bit exaggerated, comparing a day of unusually high volume to a day with the lowest volume on the platform. He also said that measuring volume in ETH, rather than dollars, was preferable to removing ETH price volatility from the equation.
In fact, the magnitude of the drop in volume is reduced when it is set against ETH, a cryptocurrency that itself has fallen nearly 50% since May 1. According to Dune Analytics, OpenSea volume fell 62% from May to July, but is heading for more pain in August.
The fallout continues the general downward trend that began in January. Monthly volume is down 90% since then when it was denominated in dollars and 82% when it was denominated in ETH.
Meanwhile, the number of daily OpenSea users dropped from 58,870 on January 9 to just 23,620 on August 27. Daily transactions decreased from 137,500 to only 53,300 in the same time frame.
Terrestrial NFT rates – meaning the lowest value of the NFT in a given group – also have with fuel Throughout the year. Bored Monkeys are now heading for 72.4 ETH at their cheapest price, compared to 153 ETH on April 30, according to NFT Price Floor. Similarly, CryptoPunks have fallen from 84 ETH to 67 ETH since last month.
OpenSea VS Crypto Winter
The slowdown in the cryptocurrency market and the NFT has had a huge impact on OpenSea operations. In July, the company was forced to lay off 20% of its employees are in preparation for what CEO David Finzer believes could be a five-year crypto winter.
With that said, Finzer remained bullish in the longer term on the NFTs at the time. “This winter, I expect we will see an explosion in innovation and usability across NFTs,” he said in a statement.
Trading volume after OpenSea appeared at 99% from an all-time high on CryptoPotato.