NFTs and games remain intact in the middle of the coldest winter

While the coldest crypto winter overturned all areas of crypto, NFTs and the blockchain gaming industry remain bullish. NFT trading volume increased by 23%, while the blockchain gaming industry attracted record investments.

The total market value fell by 34% since the Terra disaster, which pushed the market into a winter. Since then, all areas of crypto have been difficult. Even the most prominent crypto companies have laid off up to 25% of employees. Crypto exchanges, mining companies and even the pro-crypto regulations stopped in the middle of the bear market. Problems with leading crypto companies such as Celsius, 3 Arrows Capital and BlockFi further triggered the fear and accelerated the bearish mood.

NFTs

Although the NFTs also received a blow from the bear market that was ignited by the Terra collapse, they are still bullish.

Total sales figures have increased by 59% since the second quarter of 2021. This increase looks insignificant compared to trading volumes, which have increased by 553% since the same quarter.

When analyzing NFT trading volume in recent months, it appears to have fallen by 70% since May measured in US dollars. But in the same period, measured in Ethereum (ETH), the fall was smaller, and was down by 55%.

In comparison, NFT, the market value, measured in ETH, shows growth despite the bear market. The lowest was recorded at 3 million ETH in October, and the highest at over 6 million ETH in April. As of June 2022, NFT trading volumes are around 5 million ETH.

The reports say:

“Year after year, the statistics look even more impressive as Ethereum – based collections have grown by 2093% while Polygon grew by 456%, with an overall increase of 1999%.”

The study also notes that Opensea lost market share to the new platforms such as LooksRare, x2y2 and Solana’s Magic Eden. Opensea’s recent experience with phishing attacks may play a part in this distribution. In any case, Opensea is still the leading NFT marketplace.

Gaming

Blockchain-based games also still manage to register a bullish sentiment in the middle of winter.

Although the blockchain gaming industry fell by 5%, the rest of the industry fell by as much as 26%. The reports say:

“This is a bullish indicator for blockchain gaming, as many have speculated that gaming dapps would lose most of their player base if they ceased to be financially profitable for the average user. It was proven that this was not the case.”

Spliterlands emerged as the most played blockchain game. It had been there for eight months now, with over 350,000 active daily users with only a small drop of 4%.

Alien Worlds, Farmers World, Upland and Axie Infinity followed Splinterlands as the top five blockchain-based games.

Although Axie Infinity came in fourth place, a recent study showed that it was the most sought after NFT community in 122 countries.