NFT Market Reached $4.7 Billion in Sales in Q1: DappRadar
The NFT sector appears to be clawing back as sentiment around the broader crypto market picks up again.
The emergence of new players and changing dynamics has resulted in the rapid development of the non-fungible token space. Despite a hectic start, NFTs had a strong Q1 2023.
NFT Market Recap: Q1 2023
According to a report from DappRadar, the NFT market has had an impressive start to the year. In fact, Q1 2023 turned out to be the best quarter since Q2 2022. While NFTs trading volume recorded a slight decline of 15.65% in March due to turbulent market conditions, the overall performance remained bullish. Let’s take a closer look at the key highlights from Q1 NFT market results.
Trading volume for the entire Q1 increased by 137%, reaching a total value of $4.7 billion. February’s figure was boosted by the Blur token breeding period, while the number of NFT sales for the following month only fell by 4.63% in March, with 2.7 million NFTs sold.
Zooming out, NFT sales totaled 19.4 million in Q1 2023, representing an increase of 8.56% from last quarter 2022.
In terms of blockchains, Ethereum remains the dominant player in the NFT market by volume, accounting for nearly 90% of the market share in March. Its quarterly trading volume also increased by more than 245% to $4.1 billion in the first quarter of 2023, compared to the fourth quarter of 2022.
Following is Solana, with a trading volume of 242 million dollars. Since last quarter, the layer 1 blockchain has seen an increase of 4.55%.
Polygon also had a notable start to the year, with trading volume exceeding $29 million in March, despite a 24.20% decline from the previous month. Furthermore, measuring quarterly data, the layer 2 scaling solution had a trading volume of $85 million in the first quarter of 2023, which represents an increase of 125.04% from the previous quarter, making it one of the best three-month periods recorded since the fourth quarter 2021.
Highlight: Blur vs. Open sea
OpenSea has long held its position as a dominant NFT marketplace. However, the rise of Blur raised an open battle against the once undisputed market leader. The report revealed that Blur dominated the NFT market in the first quarter of the year, recording a trading volume of $2.7 billion, an astonishing 783.89% increase from Q4 2022, and a market dominance of over 57%.
Blur was hit by a 6.56% drop in trading volume to $1.2 billion, yet the platform held more than 70% market dominance.
Facing stiff competition from Blue, OpenSea’s market share reached its lowest figure since February 2021, at just 22% in March. As for Q1 2023, the marketplace recorded an increase of 68.41% with a trading volume of $1.4 billion. Its quarterly market dominance was 31.10%.
