The market value of Ethereum NFT fell more than 59% in the last year
On February 9, DappRadar published a report showing that the Ethereum NFT market cap fell by 59.60% from $9.3 billion in 2022 to around $3.7 billion in early 2023.
DappRadar’s study is based on the market value analysis of 81 of the largest NFT pools running on the Ethereum network.
According to DappRadar, the collapse of Terra Luna in May 2022 was the main reason for the loss of 88% market value of NFT projects running on Ethereum by June 2022.
Therefore, the fall in the market value of NFT projects was not due to a lack of interest from investors, but to manipulations by bad actors in the ecosystem. This is probably the main reason for the broader collapse of the crypto industry, since during the collapse of FTX, the market cap of the entire NFT ecosystem crashed after the global crypto market.
These were the highest grossing NFT collections on Ethereum since 2022
The report noted that some projects launched during 2021 and early 2022 had “significant market value growth” of up to 260%. Among these projects were the collections Azuki, Pudgy Penguins and Degen Toonz, whose market value was appreciated by 113.89%, 260% and 204% respectively.
Among the newer NFT projects, launched after the collapse of Terra Luna are: The Potatoz with a market capitalization growth of 134.68%, Renga with 211.63%, DigiDaigaku with 209.88% and God Hates NFT with 1,653.28 %.
It is worth mentioning that all of these projects managed to see dramatic growth, despite ETH, the native currency of the Ethereum network, seeing a 60% price drop in the past year due to the bear market.
Bored Ape Yacht Club dominates the market
According to DappRadar, Yuga Labs, the parent company of the Bored Ape Yacht Club project, dominated the Ethereum network’s NFT market, “establishing itself as a leading player in the NFT industry”, despite the exponential decline of other projects.
Despite Yuga Labs’ collection accounting for 67% of the total value of the NFT market on Ethereum, Bored Ape Yacht Club’s market cap saw a 64.92% decline from $2.6 billion to $934 million by the end of 2022.
However, that did not stop Yuga Labs from acquiring two of the largest NFT collections on the market, CryptoPunks and Meebits, for an undisclosed sum to date. Both collections are already seeing a significant recovery after suffering declines of up to 60% in 2022.
But now that the crypto market is showing signs of recovery, the NFT ecosystem is likely to have a chance to breathe. And we can see greener pastures ahead, as trading activity around blue-chip pools recently started to pick up, and now there are even NFTs taking over the Bitcoin network.
