NFT collections, which gained great popularity worldwide in 2021, have experienced a significant decline in performance in recent months. As the transaction volumes and active user numbers of NFT platforms continue to decline, popular NFT collections have also suffered large-scale value losses.
Is the NFT Craze Coming to an End?
NFTs gained significant popularity worldwide in 2021. During this period, the number of users on NFT platforms increased exponentially, and there were significant increases in the number of NFT collections and the base prices of popular collections. In this process, the transaction volumes of NFT platforms such as OpenSea reached very high numbers in a short period of time.
However, with the cryptocurrency market experiencing a downturn towards the end of 2021, the NFT ecosystem also suffered significant losses. NFTs without any artistic value or any use cases faced value losses exceeding 90% in a short period of time. In addition to the value losses in collections, there were also striking decreases in transaction volumes and active user numbers.
Historic Drops in Transaction Volumes
Popular NFT collections like BAYC, which gained significant value towards the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 with the increasing popularity of NFTs, witnessed striking drops after the market reversal. The base price of the BAYC NFT collection, which reached 153.7 ETH on May 1, 2022, is currently below 30 ETH according to current data.
In addition to the value losses in collections, there are also significant decreases in transaction volumes. During this period when the base prices of collections were rapidly increasing, OpenSea, which reached 250,000 active weekly investors, currently has around 40,000. Furthermore, according to data from The Block, the total monthly transaction volumes of Ethereum-based NFTs decreased from $1.72 billion recorded in February 2023 to $455 million in July 2023.
