NFT sales drop 10% last week despite surge in transactions

According to on-chain market data aggregator CryptoSlam, NFT sales experienced a marginal decline of 10 percent last week to record a trading volume of $153 million.

However, the NFT market also witnessed a seven percent surge in transactions to surpass the 2 million mark, with the number of buyers rising by 45 percent, totaling 522,464.

Battle of the giants

The battle for NFT market dominance has intensified between Ethereum and Bitcoin. With over 9 million ordinals minted, Bitcoin Ordinals now holds the second position in NFT trading volume, surpassing Solana NFTs.

However, Bitcoin NFTs experienced a sharp 47 percent drop in sales volume over the past week. Meanwhile, Solana NFTs rebounded, with a 47 percent increase in merchandise sales volume, amounting to $12 million. The new Mythos chain also emerged in fourth place with a trading volume of $7 million.

Wash trading

Ethereum is facing criticism due to the rise of wash trading, where the same person acts as both the buyer and seller in an NFT transaction, creating a false sense of high demand.

Ethereum accounted for over $117 million in wash trading, representing 57 percent of its total sales over the past week. Bitcoin also contributed $2 million to NFT wash trading, experiencing a 24,576 percent surge in such activities.

Lucrera, a digital market platform for Ethereum NFTs, dominated this week with the most NFT wash trades, accounting for 96 percent of such activities. The X2Y2 NFT Markets platform also recorded notable instances of wash trading.

Top-selling NFT collections

In the past seven days, several NFT collections topped the sales chart. Despite a 9.8 percent decline, the DMarket NFT collection on the Mythos Chain network shows the best performance, generating $7 million in sales volume.

Despite experiencing an 18 percent decline in the past week, The Bored Apes Yacht Club NFT collection from Yuga Labs still comes in second place with $6.4 million in sales volume. Gods Unchained NFT comes third, with sales exceeding $4 million.

Two collections from $OXBT BRC-20 NFTs were among the most expensive NFTs, selling for $684,505 and $339,437, respectively. Cryptopunks #4680 and Cryptopunks #6106 secured the third and fourth positions as the most expensive NFT collectibles, selling for $322,622 and $299,870 four days ago.

Bitcoin Ordinals inscriptions surge

Bitcoin Ordinals, encompassing NFTs and meme tokens, are experiencing an upswing, with the number of Ordinals inscriptions surpassing 9 million, as reported by public blockchain data from Dune. This surge reflects a tripling of digital artifacts on the Bitcoin blockchain since May 1, when the number was just over 3 million.

Ordinals, a protocol facilitating the “inscribing” of various items onto the Bitcoin blockchain, has garnered widespread attention since its launch in January. Users have leveraged this protocol to imprint artwork, profile pictures, applications and even playable games onto the blockchain.

While critics argue that Ordinals strain the Bitcoin network, leading to increased congestion and transaction fees, advocates like MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor view it as a catalyst for Bitcoin adoption.

“Every time someone builds an application that’s cool on Bitcoin, like all the Ordinals and inscriptions and whatever that are driving up transaction fees, it’s a catalyst,” Saylor said on the PBD Podcast earlier this month.

MicroStrategy, known for holding the largest stockpile of Bitcoin, is actively exploring ways to utilize Ordinals to deploy blockchain-based applications, as revealed during the recent Bitcoin 2023 event.