- Last week, the leading NFT marketplace OpenSea processed $95 million in transactions in just two days.
- OpenSea has transacted more than $1 billion in volume year to date.
- CryptoPunks generated around $207 million in sales last week alone.
At the beginning of the year, NFTs saw considerable growth as a number of high-profile artists and renowned celebrities launched hundreds and thousands of NFTs. The growth was interpreted as the start of a new era, where blockchain-based non-fungible tokens rivaled masterpieces by prominent artists like Picasso and Giotto.
In March, Mike Winkelmann, a digital artist professionally known as Beeple, sold an NFT for approximately $70 million. The sale, which placed Beeple “among the top three most valuable living artists,” marked the most expensive digital token ever sold. The news made headlines across all social media outlets, placing NFTs on everyone’s lips.
However, the frenzy around this emerging market started to fade out quickly. The total NFT sales per week were estimated at $239 million in the month of March but plunged to around $193 million by April. By May, the market for NFTs was down by around 90%, with the NFT sales delivering only $19.4 million per week.
Nevertheless, fresh data regarding the NFT markets suggest that this quietness can soon come to an end.
NFTs Are Resuscitating
Following a period of sharp inactivity in the NFT market, it seems like the market is gathering pace again. Devin Finzer, CEO at the largest NFT marketplace by volume OpenSea, has recently announced that his company has transacted a staggering $95 million in two days. He further added that they had cumulatively transacted $21 million in the entire 2020.
In 2020, OpenSea did about $21M in total transaction volume.
In the last two days, we did $95M.
The growth curve for NFTs is insane.
— Devin Finzer (dfinzer.eth) (@dfinzer) August 2, 2021
In addition, data from the leading blockchain analyzer Messari declares that OpenSea has transacted more than $1 billion in volume YTD. In comparison, the NFT marketplace processed $24 million in transactions for the entirety of 2020. “Just absolutely insane growth,” said Mason Nystrom, research analyst at Messari.
OpenSea has officially surpassed $1 billion in gross market volume after a record few days.
More impressively @opensea facilitated $1 billion in volume in 2021 alone!
2018 – $473k
2019 – $8 million
2020 – $24 million
2021 (YTD) – $1.02 billionJust absolutely insane growth. pic.twitter.com/loH0jw5cqr
— Mason Nystrom (@masonnystrom) August 2, 2021
Furthermore, data collected by The Block shows that NFTs have exceeded $339 million in weekly trade volume. Considering that the weekly trading volume of NFTs during the latest peak was around $210 million, this shows an increase of more than 70%.
CryptoPunks, punky-looking guys and girls in the form of NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, have been the most popular kind of NFT recently. Last week alone, CryptoPunks generated around $207 million in sales. Axie Infinity, an NFT-based video game that utilizes blockchain technology, also showed strong results last week, bringing in $127 million in sales.
