It’s safe to say that, like any other crypto endeavour, the crypto crash has hit OpenSea hard. Yesterday, OpenSea recorded the lowest daily volume for 2022 – $29.1 million USD. This is significantly different from the $100 million USD plus daily volumes OpenSea used to record during the bullish period. However, is this a cause for concern? What does this mean for the future of NFTs?
OpenSea and the crypto crash
The value of crypto was heavily affected by inflation, the post-Covid-19 recession, and the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Bitcoin fell by 58% from its all-time high of $69,000 in November. Ethereum, the most popular cryptocurrency for NFTs, is also down 60%. Additionally, the crypto market has experienced an industry-wide sell-off in response to the collapse of the stablecoins LUNA and UST.
According to NonFungible, the number of NFT sales per day is around 24,000 this week, with the money spent on NFTs last week being $205 million USD. Undoubtedly, these figures are much lower than the peak of 225,000 NFTs per day in September 2021 and the peak of $1.9 billion in August 2021.
In addition, reports that NFT collectors have lost their NFTs have not helped OpenSea and other marketplace. Blockworks estimates that 50% of all NFT owners have lost access to their NFTs. This is particularly damaging when high-profile individuals, such as the Winklevoss twins and Seth Green, publicly mention these phishing scams.
Will the market ever recover?
The NFT boom of 2021 set incredibly high expectations for investors and collectors. However, as with any other market, NFTs are also affected by the general climate, and the crypto crash has not helped this emerging industry.
However, experts like blockchain entrepreneur Gaurav Somwanshi say we are currently experiencing the filtering of NFTs. Therefore, projects with useful or artistic value will stand the test of time, while others will crash and burn.
Finally, it is important to note that OpenSea and other marketplaces are going through a period of stabilisation. According to NonFungible, “Of course, following the boom in the markets in 2021, this slowdown was predictable, and to a certain extent we can even consider that this stabilization of the markets is beneficial for the industry.”
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All investment/financial opinions expressed by NFTevening.com are not recommendations.
This article is educational material.
As always, make your own research prior to making any kind of investment.
