NFT trade volumes soar in December – A Santa Claus rally?

Journalist

Posted: December 19, 2023

• Last week saw a significant uptick in NFT trading activity.
• In the last 30 days, the Bitcoin network has recorded the most NFT sales volume.

Marking the highest weekly total for the year, non-fungible token (NFT) trading volume across leading chains skyrocketed to a record-breaking $516 million between 10th and 17th December, according to The Block’s NFT dashboard data. 

Source: The Block

This surge comes amidst a relatively quiet period for NFTs, with trading volume having plateaued for most of the year. 

There has been a notable upswing in NFT trading volume since October. AMBCrypto found that NFT monthly sales volume experienced a remarkable 198% increase between October and November, to reach $918 million.

The last time NFT’s monthly sales volume reached such heights was in March when the market recorded a total sales figure of $931 million.

Due to the general market bearishness and low interest in digital collectibles, between March and October, this plummeted by 67%, according to data from CryptoSlam.

Source: CryptoSlam

Bitcoin leads, while Ethereum follows

Due to the recent boom in the activity around inscriptions and BRC-20 tokens on the Bitcoin [BTC] network, it has rallied above Ethereum [ETH] in terms of NFT sales volume in the last month.

Between 10th and 17th December, the Bitcoin network accounted for $305.44 million out of the overall NFT sales volume of $516 million recorded during that period.

Over the past 30 days, the NFT sales volume on the Bitcoin network has surged by 161%, reaching a current total of $695 million. 

In contrast, sales on the Ethereum network have grown by a mere 9% during the same period to total $382 million as of this writing. 

This has occurred despite Ethereum taking the lead in terms of buyer and seller count within the period under consideration. According to CryptoSlam, the total number of NFT traders on Ethereum in the last 30 days has totaled 178,617.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, has seen only 88,305 NFT traders during the same window period. 

Source: CryptoSlam

High activity around inscriptions 

There has been a general uptick in the activity around inscriptions across multiple blockchain networks in the last week. This has resulted in network transaction fees climbing to multi-month highs due to the surge in network usage.

Last week, on 16th December, the Bitcoin network recorded a single-day high of $10 million paid as fees to mint inscriptions on the blockchain, according to data from Dune Analytics. 

Source: Dune Analytics