OpenSea sees a slump in Ethereum and Polygon NFT sales; Details inside

• Ethereum and Polygon-based NFTs on OpenSea gear up to close Q1 at their lowest sales volume yet.
• OpenSea’s market share has declined significantly since the year began.

The Q1 sales figures for Ethereum and Polygon-based non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on OpenSea are on track to register the lowest monthly volume of the year so far, according to data from Dune Analytics.

Ethereum-based NFT sales on the marketplace soared to a nine-month high of $643.61 million by the end of February. However, with four days left to end the first quarter of the year, OpenSea has logged $324.30 million in Ethereum-minted NFT sales in March, representing a 50% decline in sales volume from the February high.

Source: Dune Analytics

Following a record-breaking NFT sales volume of $109.12 million in February, sales of Polygon-based NFTs on OpenSea have experienced a sharp decline this month. Over the past 26 days, only $2.5 million in sales volume have been recorded, indicating a staggering 97% drop in sales.

Source: Dune Analytics

The steep decline in sales volume of  Ethereum and Polygon-based NFTs on OpenSea was attributed to the drop in the count of NFTs sold so far this month.

Regarding Ethereum-minted NFTs on OpenSea, 715,925 NFTs have been sold so far. This represented a 16% decline from the 853,391 total NFTs sold in February and a 37% fall from the 1.13 million total Ethereum-based NFTs sold in January. 

Source: Dune Analytics

Regarding Polygon NFTs on OpenSea, sales have plummeted by 93% this month, with only 35,064 NFTs sold compared to the 565,964 NFTs sold last month, and a 98% decline from the 1,514,895 NFTs sold in January.

Source: Dune Analytics

OpenSea’s dominance has dwindled severely 

Data from DappRadar revealed a steep decline in key growth metrics for leading NFT marketplace OpenSea since the year began. 

For example, the count of unique active wallets that trade on the marketplace has dropped by 98% in the last 90 days. Likewise, the transactions count on OpenSea has witnessed a 99% decline during the same period. 

Source: DappRadar

The decline in OpenSea’s dominance is attributable to the launch of Blur, which has gained significant traction since it became operational in October 2022. 

According to a recent report from Glassnode, Blur’s market share experienced a notable surge following the airdrop of its token on 14 February.

Before the distribution of the BLUR token, the NFT marketplace and aggregator held 48% of the NFT transfer volume across the entire market. However, the airdrop led to a significant increase in Blur’s NFT transfer volume, which soared to 78% at its peak.

During the last week, Blur accounted for a significant portion of the total NFT sales volume, representing 73.8% of the market share. In contrast, OpenSea held a smaller share of 17%.

Source: Dune Analytics