NFT
The NFT market surged in February, topping $2 billion in complete buying and selling quantity per knowledge from DappRadar—a 117% enhance from the earlier month. And that momentum remained practically intact into March, with knowledge displaying solely a slight dip to below $2 billion.
Market-wide knowledge from DappRadar, supplemented with further on-chain knowledge from Dune, factors to only over $1.95 billion value of buying and selling quantity in March, down about 4% from the February complete of $2.04 billion.
The overwhelming majority of that buying and selling quantity once more got here from Blur, with practically $1.35 billion value of Ethereum NFT trades on {the marketplace}, up barely from about $1.32 billion in February. Blur buying and selling exercise surged in mid-February when {the marketplace} launched its BLUR reward token, which has incentivized mass flipping from “whale” merchants—that’s, merchants who maintain massive positions in a given assortment and act as so-called market makers.
NFT Gross sales Surge to $2 Billion in February—Highest Since Terra Crash
The surge in buying and selling quantity, and the ensuing enhance in total NFT market gross sales, has raised questions over whether or not such buying and selling exercise needs to be categorized as “manipulated” and even “wash buying and selling,” as knowledge platform CryptoSlam has carried out. DappRadar counts it as respectable buying and selling, nonetheless, and the development has continued with extra token rewards promised for customers.
OpenSea, nonetheless the main NFT market by way of complete distinctive wallets, logged about $424 million value of buying and selling quantity in March, down from $587 million in February. Total, Ethereum NFT buying and selling was practically even in March—from $1.81 billion in February to $1.82 billion.
Together with the slight dip in complete March buying and selling quantity, fewer NFTs have been additionally offered in comparison with February. Knowledge from DappRadar and Dune collectively level to about 5.8 million complete NFTs offered in March in comparison with virtually 6.5 million NFTs in February. Regardless of February’s huge surge in buying and selling quantity, much more NFTs (over 6.6 million) have been offered in January.
How A lot Wash Buying and selling Is Actually Occurring on Blur?
February’s $2.04 billion tally was the biggest month-to-month complete for NFT buying and selling quantity since Could 2022, when the market sank amid the collapse of Terra’s crypto ecosystem.
However with a lot quantity nonetheless tied to Blur’s rewards scheme, which is dominated by a small variety of whale merchants, it’s debatable whether or not the latest rise in NFT market gross sales is absolutely “natural”—not to mention sustainable, ought to the attract of token incentives fade.
