Published on: 06/02/2023

NFT market posts 1.23% weekly increase to $232.49M in total sales

The NFT market saw a weekly increase of 1.23 percent to $232.49 million in recorded sales, with Otherdeed and Doodles dominating the sales chart.

On-chain data reported that 481,917 buyers participated in NFT sales last week, a 19.30 percent increase from the previous week. There were also 1,390,784 NFT transactions processed across marketplaces, a 3.21 percent increase from the week before.

Otherdeed’s sales rose by 44.37 percent to $17.33 million. Meanwhile, the sales of the Doodles collection went up 58.49 percent to $13.88 million. Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) and Checks VV Edition trailed with smaller sales volumes.

Ethereum accounted for 81 percent of the total NFT sales last week, or around $188.51. Solana, the second-largest blockchain for NFT sales, accounted for $27.40 million of NFT sales, a 3.21 percent decline from the previous week.

Immutable X finished third in sales, increasing by 37.85 percent in a week to $4.5 million. Cardano, Polygon, Flow and BNB Chain were among the largest networks processing NFT sales.

The largest growth by percentage in NFT sales happened in Fantom, which showed a 73.81 percent increase amounting to $17,064 in sales.

On February 5, Cryptopunks posted the highest NFT floor value of the week at 63.99 ETH. The second highest NFT floor value was the BAYC collections at 63.5 ETH.

The most expensive NFT sold last week was the #8,483 collectible from the BAYC collection at $581,000. The second most expensive NFT on the market in the same week was Cryptopunk #2,311 at $511,000. Cryptopunk #9092 placed third in the rank with $496,000.

The fourth most expensive NFT was BAYC #8,483 on the first rank. The new holder re-sold the NFT for $490,000 a few days after purchasing it. Cryptopunk #9,611 followed suit at $482,000.

NFT market grows in January after big-name launches

The NFT market grew in January following the disappointing result at the end of last year. Analysts attributed the growth to the more conducive macroeconomic environment and launches by several big names in the NFT sector, like Yuga Labs and Doodles.

Analytics platform DappRadar noted 9.2 million NFT transactions in January, a 37 percent jump from the previous month. NFT trading volume also hit $946 million, going up 38 percent from December. It was also the biggest trading volume in six months.

Bitwise Asset Management research analyst Juan Leon said the cooling inflation and smaller interest rate hikes by the Federal Research improved investors’ sentiment toward riskier assets.

Leon added that the hype in the NFT market also grew. Recently, Yuga Labs introduced the Sewer Pass collection, an integral part of the developer’s latest blockchain game. The sales of Sewer Pass NFTs accounted for 34.3 percent of all NFT transactions last month.

“They were the driving factor behind trading volume in January,” Leon said.

Doodles also recently acquired the animation studio Golden Wolf. At the same time, Moonbirds signed a collaboration deal with talent management company United Talent Agency (UTA), which further drove investors’ confidence in the potential market growth.

NFT Price Floor reported that the average price of Doodle’s collectible went up by 1.82 percent, while Moonbird’s average price rose by 3.43 percent following the new contracts.

Marketplaces geared toward collectors saw significant revenue increases. Blur, for example, accounted for over 20 percent of the total sales for the third consecutive month. Blur’s upcoming launch of a reward system for traders also boosts its popularity among collectors.

Despite that, in January, NFT marketplace OpenSea remained a market leader with a $495 million trading volume. Leon said many people were already comfortable with the platform to try anything else.