Trouble for the Crypto Art market. According to the latest data, it appears that sales of non-fungible tokens fell 31% in March, with $882 million in NFT sales. Let’s see what and why this happened.
Drop in non-fungible token sales: data on the Crypto Art market
As anticipated above, according to statistics, the number of sales of non-fungible tokens (NFT) in March was 31.42% lower than the previous month, down from $1.03 billion in sales in February to $882.89 million.
In addition, the number of NFT buyers and transactions also decreased, from 22% to 29%, over the past 30 days. Of these sales, $537.89 million were settled on the Ethereum blockchain (ETH), which dominated March sales with over 60%.
Solana-based NFT sales accounted for 10.57% of March sales, with $93.36 million settled. In terms of NFT sales, Solana was followed by Polygon ($36.16 million), Immutable X ($28.82 million) and Cardano ($10.08 million).
At this point, the question arises as to why the NFT market is proceeding slowly despite the partial recovery of cryptocurrency prices. It should be emphasized that the March data may not fully reflect reality, as it lacks data on non-fungible tokens on Bitcoin, which have recently entered the market.
To date, there are still no platforms to measure the buying and selling volumes of these non-fungible tokens. According to Galaxy Research, a company that conducts data analysis on blockchain, the Bitcoin NFT market could be worth 4.5 billion in 2025.
Crypto Art: which non-fungible token collections sold the most in March?
Regarding the Crypto Art market, we see that the best-selling NFT collection in March was Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), which generated sales of $35.81 million, although this figure represents a 48.19% decrease from the previous month.
Cryptopunks was the second largest NFT collection in terms of sales, with $30.11 million, an 87.95% increase over February. According to cryptoslam.io statistics, the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Cryptopunks NFT collections were followed by Otherdeed ($29.20 million), MG Land ($25.71 million) and HV-MTL ($18.59 million).
Among the top ten NFT collections, Degods recorded a 70.53% increase in sales in March compared to February, just below the 87.95% increase recorded by Cryptopunks during the same period.
Other noteworthy collections that recorded increased sales this month include Y00ts, Claynosaurz, and Whiko NFT. Finally, the most expensive NFT sales this month were Azimuth Points #236, sold for $704,000, followed by Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) #5,116, sold for $689,000 and Fidenza #971, sold for $561,000.
BAYC #2,062 sold for $557,000 a few days ago, while Fidenza #395 sold for $547,000 just over a month ago. According to 30-day statistics, not a single NFT was sold for more than $1 million in March.
Not only that, according to Dappradar.com and Dune Analytics, Blur dominated sales with over 70%, while Opensea captured 19.9%.
What’s new coming in the NFT and Crypto Art market
Despite declining NFT sales, Yuga Labs had a rather exciting month of March. Indeed, we see two important new developments: the collaboration with Gucci and the launch of Twelvefold, the company’s first collection built on Bitcoin.
Specifically, Gucci announced its entry into the NFT market on Twitter, using an image showing the trademarks of the two brands on the bottle in the trailer for the Bored Ape metaverse, Otherside.
However, the unexpected and enigmatic announcement makes it impossible to predict how the collaboration will play out. Meanwhile, the Twelvefold auction, Yuga Labs’ first collection of non-fungible tokens on Bitcoin, consisting of 300 unique pieces, raised 735.7 BTC ($16.5 million).
These digital artworks can be bought on Magic Eden, a platform started on Solana that also released this month a section dedicated to inscriptions, NFTs on Bitcoin.
Furthermore, we see production studio Baobab Studios, winner of nine Emmy Awards, entering the NFT market with its new project, Momoguro. Created by director and multimedia animator Martin Allais and writer/director Nico Cassavecchia, Momoguro is a colorful fantasy world where creatures called “Momos” can merge together to form hybrid characters.
The collection generated more than 10,000 ETH in volume, though the floor price of the NFTs, after spurting upward in the days immediately following the minting, fell below the initial value (0.2 ETH) and is now around 0.1 ETH.
Finally, paintings by Lee Mullican, an artist who has exhibited his work in the halls of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), also landed on the Tezos blockchain in March.
Source: https://en.cryptonomist.ch/2023/04/09/nft-crypto-sales-drop-march/