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Recent signs of life in the NFT space finally produced a significant jump in market activity in January, as organic trading volume grew 38% from December, per data from DappRadar.
Sales of NFT assets totaled $946.7 million last month, according to the research firm, which tracks data across multiple blockchain networks and marketplaces. That’s a significant increase from the $683.9 million figure recorded in December, and marks the biggest market-wide total since June 2022.
DappRadar excludes data from suspects wash trades, or sales that have been manipulated in any way. Often in wash trading, a user sells an NFT at an inflated price back and forth between their own controlled wallets, usually in an attempt to game a marketplace reward model or increase the visibility of a lesser-known project.
Organic trading volume increased in January, but so did the total number of NFT transactions during the month. DappRadar recorded more than 9.5 million NFT sales in January, which is the largest number recorded in almost a year—since February 2022. That’s a 42% increase from December’s total of about 6.7 million NFTs sold.
An NFT is a blockchain token that represents ownership of a unique item, and is often used for things like digital collectibles and artwork, as well as video game gear and clothing.
Every significant blockchain protocol saw NFT sales growth in January, according to DappRadar’s data, including Ethereum sales volume jumped from nearly $558 million in December to over $772 million in January, and Solana followed with an increase from $69.5 million in December to nearly $86 million in January.
Even Flowthe platform behind Dapper Labs NBA top shot and NFL all dayreversed a recent slide with a bump from nearly $6.8 million in December to nearly $7.8 million in January.
OpenSea remains the leading NFT marketplace with over $495 million in total trading volume in January, according to DappRadar’s figures, up from $297 million in December. The platform provided one of the earlier indications of a market-wide resurgence earlier in Januarysurpassing Ethereum NFT volume with more than a week left in the month.
The broader market accounted for about $25 billion in organic trading volume in 2021 and then again in 2022, despite declining activity in the back half of last year.
The marketplace’s jump this month was fueled in part by the launch of Yuga Labs’ Sewer Pass, an NFT access pass offered up to existing Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club owners. Yuga Labs blocked marketplaces such as Blur and LooksRare from the transaction of the pass – which allows holders to play a new online game – over royalty disputes.
By and large, the Bored Ape Yacht Club and its associated collections led the charge for NFT sales growth in January. Support data from CryptoSlam points to a 45% increase in Bored Ape trading volume over the past 30 days, with a market-leading $71 million in sales during the period. Sewer Pass has generated over $58 million worth of trade since its launch in mid-January.
But it wasn’t just Bored Apes that saw sales growth. Most other top projects like CryptoSlam are tracking such remarkable increases, with Azuki up 89% in the last 30 days, Art blocks climbing 62% in the same span, and the Solana project DeGods shows an increase of 113 percent.
Admittedly, most of these figures are down sharply from year to year. Last January, the NFT market set a new and still active peak with total trading volume worth $5.36 billion. But momentum, sales and NFT prices fell sharply in May as the crypto market fell.
Still, the significant increase in NFT trading volume and asset sales in January follows smaller month-on-month increases in December, and coincides with rising crypto prices in recent weeks as well.
Many NFT skeptics declared the market dead after the diminishing returns of recent months, but data shows broader activity and that prices for large projects have rebounded. We’ll see if the recent momentum—fueled in part by Bored Apes—carries forward and pushes the market to its first month above $1 billion since June.