Return of the NFTs?

by · June 3, 2023

The vibes are back and so are non-fungible tokens (NFT). That’s right, while we’ve speculated that NFTs feel they may have turned a corner, now the numbers confirm it. Last month’s total NFT transactions and unique sellers reflect that we had the highest month of NFT transactions in well over a year, with almost 9 million unique transactions in May. Only January and February 2022 were higher with 11.2 million and 10.3 million transactions.

Before we get too excited, we need to understand that the NFT landscape is very different from last year. Today we have projects such as DMarkets game skin on Mythos Chain, which did over 2 million transactions in the last 30 days alone. Nevertheless, growth is not measured in sales alone, and the cover in May can only indicate that mass adoption is happening right under our noses.

When we talk about growth, it is happening in every corner of NFTs. From Bitcoin to art, and even a new reputation ranking system powered by crypto, Web3 is evolving at a breakneck pace.

Remember, if you build it, they will come. So let’s get into what is being built in NFTs.

Notable events

Nike and EA Sports join forces in a new cooperation, and NFTs act as their handshake. Nike’s newly launched Polygon-backed. The Swoosh platform, home to their virtual wearables, recently created news when they sold digital shoes for over 1 million dollars. Their new partnership with EA will bring select virtual shoes to future EA Sports games, where players can outfit their shoes for in-game use.

While the news is not yet market impactful, it is another indicator that NFTs are growing and highlights why traders are so bullish on the Polygon blockchain and the class of NFTs it is attracting.

Polygon sales, unique buyers and unique sellers.

Bitcoins $OXBT still hangs at the top of the NFT Collection Rankings by Sales Volume leaderboard for the week, and at the same time leaves its mark on the NFT space. Orange PFPs are all over Twitter, and the space is buzzing with the potential of a growing Bitcoin ecosystem revolving around the new payment token. The creator of $OXBT, BitGod, has teased the first project built on the new BRC-20 token called ORD, and while it is not directly connected to the $OXBT team, it shows how an ecosystem can flourish when a seeds are planted.

To open of Jack Butcher (and a growing stable of artists) continue to pick up as people uncover the next-level mechanics of the PFP collection. The project is impossible to explain in just a few sentences, but that my friends is exactly the reason why it keeps gaining momentum. Put a CryptoPunk, Pepe, and incredibly well thought out features and game theory into a blender and you have a basic understanding of what Opepen is. As collectors unravel the mechanics of the project, they can hardly resist taking a position in an ecosystem that feels like it came from the distant future of art collecting. I think you will be hearing about this project for a long time to come.

Open 4712

Although not yet in the top 10 in seven days, a new project called The Grapes has done what few new projects have managed to do in months; sell out and then command a 10x floor price. The Grapes minted on OpenSea on May 30 for just over 0.03 ETH (US$56.73), and at the time of writing has a bottom price of over 0.3 ETH. The project talks about upcoming plans to partner with Fortnite, but likely by creating assets in Fortnite Creative 2.0 rather than a true partnership. Regardless, it’s fun to see that NFTs have caught the attention of collectors again and, even if only fleetingly, brought back the vibe.

Nakamigos has had an impressive resurgence, thanks to a shopping spree by Ben.eth, the creator of $BONE and $PSYOP tokens. Ben currently has over 500 Nakamigos, which is more than 2.5% of his massive 20k collection. In the short term, he helped raise the floor price up to over .7 ETH, but the collection has since come down to under .4 ETH. Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess, but their community is strong and the attention economy rules everything at the moment.

The NFT community was punched in the stomach this week when an artist named hope exists her tough fundraising project, Pixel Penguins. Hopeexist was supposed to raise funds for cancer treatments and was somehow able to convince the highly regarded Andrew Wang to further her cause. After blowing over 200 ETH with NFT sales, hopeexist deactivated their Twitter account, leaving the NFT space asking how we keep falling for this.

NFT art platform Superiors is launching a controversial new social reputation system that allows $RARE holders to stake their platform tokens into pools linked to anonymous wallets for each artist/creator. In theory and over time, this will help artists build a reputation based on their work without any other factors. Anonymity is important to many, and while this is not the final solution, it is a big step towards finding that solution.

Look at the lists

There is a lot of green to look at seven day NFT collection rankings by sales volume. A Bitcoin project remains king, but the reigning king of NFTs, BAYC, has seen some significant selling this week as some collectors secure the grail ahead of a possible entry from Chinese collectors.

BAYC, MAYC, AzukiTo open, The Captainzand Nakamigos show us that demand for PFPs is still strong, as they represent Ethereum’s top 10 holdings.

DMarket and Estates Unchained represents NFT games and occupies the center of the chart.

The blockchains of NFT’s sales volume rankings show that the battle for third place is still raging, with Solana holding it down at almost US$10 million in sales volume. Ethereum and Bitcoin are still the top dogs, and no one expects that to change anytime soon.

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