Like most crypto projects this year, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) felt the pain of 2022’s crypto winter as sales are down a lot and blue-chip NFTs have been reduced in value. For example, last month there were approximately $534 million in NFT sales compared to $2.77 billion in NFT sales sold in December 2021.
The NFT Industry Takes a Hit in 2022 – Sales and Google Searches Down Significantly
2022 has not been kind to non-fungible token (NFT) holders, and statistics show that interest in the subject has dropped a lot this year. Data from Google Trends (GT) shows that the keyword “NFT” had a score of around 52 for the week of December 26, 2021 – January 1, 2022. The term also skyrocketed to a peak score of 100 on January 16 – 22 .January 2022.
However, today, for the week of December 18 – December 24, 2022, the keyword “NFT” has a score of around 16. There has been a slight uptick in interest recently in NFTs according to GT data, starting around December 4, 2022. GT data shows that the most interested region in NFTs today is China, followed by Hong Kong, Singapore, Nigeria and Taiwan.
Statistics also show that NFT sales volume has dropped a lot since last year. Cryptoslam.io data indicates that there were $2.77 billion in NFT sales sold in December 2021, and last month only $534 million in NFT sales were recorded. Calculations stored on archive.org indicate that during the week of December 27, 2021, $414.84 million in sales were recorded.
Sales during the week of December 27, 2021 were also down 32.05% lower as the past seven days saw $610.53 million in sales. In terms of NFT sales via blockchain at the time, Ethereum saw $334.83 million out of $414.84 million in total sales that week. For the week of December 27, 2021, Ronin had approximately $45.65 million in sales and Solana had just over $16 million in sales over the seven-day period.
The top five projects or collections in terms of seven-day sales during the last week of December 2021 included Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), Cryptopunks, Axie Infinity, Bored Ape Yacht Club and The Sandbox. This month, roughly a year later, the NFT sales pale in comparison to the purchases made last year. As of December 25, 2022, NFT sales fell 12.22% this week as $154.02 million in sales were recorded over the past seven days.
Over the last seven days, there were 295,338 NFT buyers and just over one million NFT transactions. This week, the top blockchain in terms of NFT sales is still Ethereum (ETH), and over the past seven days there have been $129.23 million in NFT sales coming from the ETH chain.
ETH is followed by Solana, Polygon, Immutable X and Cardano in terms of the biggest sales last week by blockchain. Last year, on December 27, 2021, an NFT called “Mega” sold for 888 Ether which was worth $3.6 million at the time. Furthermore, on the same day Cryptopunk sold #9137 for 310 Ether or $1.21 million at the time of sale.
Dappradar statistics indicate that Cryptopunk #9137 is now worth anywhere between 63.95 Ether or $77,995 (Cryptopunk’s current floor), or 377.24 Ether or $460K (Dappradar estimate). Last year’s archived data from nftpricefloor.com indicates that the floor value of a Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT was around 87.5 ether. ETH was also trading at $4K per unit at the time, meaning 87.5 Ether was around $350,000 at the time.
A Cryptopunk could be bought for 65 Ether on December 19, 2021, and its value at that time in US dollars was around $260K. Sales recorded on December 25, 2022 are a completely different story, as current statistics from nftpricefloor.com show that one BAYC can be purchased for 69.88, which is worth approximately $85,159 using today’s ether rates.
A cryptopunk NFT purchased at the current floor value on December 25, 2022, will cost 63.95 ETH or about $77,000 in USD value. GT data also shows that interest in the term “Bored Ape Yacht Club” has dropped a lot since last year. Last year, in the week of December 26, 2021 – January 1, 2022, the keyword “Bored Ape Yacht Club” had a score of around 50, and in the week of January 16 – January 22, 2022, the keyword hits 100.
Today, the BAYC-related keyword is down to a score of 10, which is a significant drop in overall interest since last year. Similarly, China dominates this week in terms of BAYC interest, followed by Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada and Australia. GT data related to other blue chip NFTs such as Cryptopunks, Mutant Ape Yacht Club and others have also seen GT search interest drop a lot.
What do you think about this year’s NFT sales and general interest in digital collectibles falling much lower than last year? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comments section below.
Jamie Redman
Jamie Redman is the news editor at Bitcoin.com News and a financial technology journalist living in Florida. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. He has a passion for Bitcoin, open source and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 6,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.
Image credit: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Cryptoslam.io, nftpricefloor.com, BAYC, Cryptopunks,
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