The NFT sector has seen exponential growth, tripling in transactions since January and pushing through the market crash this month.
The popularity of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, shows little sign of slowing down, despite the extraordinary marketwide crash that wiped more than $1 trillion off the crypto market cap.
According to a report by decentralized app marketplace DappRadar, the average number of NFT sales rose almost 300%, from 21,815 per day in January, to 82,373 in May (so far). This number rose even higher as crypto prices started to plummet on May 12, with sales surging to almost 94,000 NFT transactions a day.
The crypto market crash, which created a widespread panic as almost 1 million leverage trades got liquidated, also resulted in serious congestion and exorbitant transaction fees across the Ethereum network.
These surging gas fees didn’t deter NFT traders, however, with many turning to other marketplaces on alternate blockchains like the Atomic Market on the EOSIO blockchain. Its daily transaction volume of 20,296 accounts is higher than any other NFT marketplace (excluding NBA Top Shot).
Top 5 NFT Marketplace transactions over time. Source: DappRadar
Although the number of trades has increased, the value per trade took a hit immediately as crypto prices started to drop. The first 11 days of May saw an average of $14.9 million traded daily, however, since then, the volume dropped to under $6 million per day. Many NFT owners appear willing to take a loss this month with the average token sale price dropping from $180 to $70.
Retail traders aren’t the only ones pushing through challenging market conditions.
Yesterday, internet trend platform Meme.com announced it had raised $5 million for a new marketplace focusing specifically on meme cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Ultimately, Meme.com developers plan to create a “CoinMarketCap for memetic content” with charts and timelines where users can compare each meme and trend. The company’s Instagram account already has 7.2 million followers
The platform’s investors include Outlier Ventures, Digital Finance Group, Morningstar, Blockhype, Spark Digital Capital, CEO of mobile developer Altitude Games Gabby Dizon, and Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal.