Flow hits new low after NFT trading craters, good cutbacks

Flow came to prominence in early 2021 as NBA top shot led the charge for NFTs into the mainstream. But in the middle of a significant decrease in trade transactions on the platform and after the last layoffs from creator Dapper Labsthe blockchain’s native coin just set a new all-time low.

Flow, the network’s eponymous native cryptocurrency, fell to $0.89 early this morning, marking a new low according to data tracked by CoinGecko. It has rebounded slightly to above $0.90, but Flow is still down 6% on the day, nearly 14% in the past week, and around 26% in 30 days.

That’s a stark contrast to the biggest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, Bitcoin and Ethereum, which have each posted gains in recent weeks. Bitcoin has risen nearly 5% in the past month, while Ethereum has risen around 3% over the same time period.

Overall, Flow has fallen 98% in price since peaking above $42 per coin in April 2021, just as the first NBA Top Shot hype cycle began to fade. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum are down around 75% from their respective records.

Flow’s accelerated decline recently comes amid collapsing NFT trading volume on the network, with sharp month-on-month drops in network trading and declining activity on Dapper’s flagship platforms NBA Top Shot and NFL all day.

In accordance data from DappRadar, NFT trading volume on the Flow blockchain dropped from nearly $39 million in September to around $15.6 million in October, and then again to around $7.7 million in November. Trade so far in December is trending below last month’s figures.

A closer look at individual projects reflects recent declines, with NBA Top Shot hitting its worst month in nearly two years with marketplace trades worth less than $2.1 million in November, per CryptoSlam. It is down from approx 2.7 million dollars in October$4.7 million in September and $7 million in August. The number of transactions and unique buyers have also fallen.

NBA Top Shot had its heyday in early 2021, such was the platform flooded with users when NFTs first found a wide audience outside the crypto world. Top Shot had a trading volume worth $224 million in February 2021 and almost as much the following month, but prices fell sharply soon after as the initial NFT buzz died down.

NFL All Day, Flow’s newer sports NFT platform, has seen similar declines in recent months. It achieved a record $14.3 million in trading volume in September, but then dropped to nearly $6.7 million in October and $3.6 million in November. According to CryptoSlam, All Day has only collected about $769,000 in marketplace trades so far in December.

Dapper Labs, the original creator of Flow and core contributor to the decentralized network, recently held significant layoffs amid the declining NFT market and the so-called crypto winter. The company announced 22% reduction in staff in early November, although the number of affected individuals was not disclosed.

While Flow’s NFT trading has fallen more sharply than other popular networks such as Ethereum and Solana in recent months, the broader NFT market has lost significant momentum since early this year. The market generated $5.36 billion in organic NFT trading volume in January, per data from DappRadarbut only $643 million in November.