NFT Market Hops Onboard 2023’s Recovery Trail, Overall Sales up 16 Percent

The NFT market, after recording a slump in sales and overall market last year, is seemingly jumping back to recovery. As per NFT data aggregator CryptoSlam.io, the sales volume of NFTs spiked by 16 percent in the first three weeks of 2023 from last year. Over 320,580 people purchased digital collectibles between January 1 and 21 alone, the report said. Built on blockchains, NFTs or digital collectibles are virtual representations of art, animals, and game characters amongst other things, that are operable in the metaverse.

In the last seven days itself, the sales of NFTs shot up by 43.48 percent from the week before that, a Bitcoin.com report said, citing statistics from CryptoSlam.io.

NFTs built on the upgraded, energy-efficient Ethereum Merge blockchain, recorded the maximum sales amounting to over $206 million (roughly Rs. 1,675 crore) of last week’s total NFT sales. The purchase of Ethereum-based NFTs has already risen by 24.78 percent this year.

Solana-backed NFTs became the second most-sold digital collectibles and churned a revenue of over $36 million (roughly Rs. 292 crore) in the last seven days.

NFTs created on other blockchains also like Theta, Fantom, Palm, an Eax also recorded an increase in recent times.

One NFT from the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and two from the CryptoPunk series emerged as three most expensive NFTs to have been stolen this past week.

Industry analysts had predicted in the last week of December that NFT sales would skyrocket in the first part of 2023.

“Brands will try to outshine each other for visibility among the crypto native audience. Retail adoption of crypto, largely driven by their indirect exposure to virtual digital assets through brands they tend to engage with will also see a rise,” Rajagopal Menon, Vice President at WazirX crypto exchange had said on December 30, 2022.

After the crypto industry fell into a slump in the second half of 2022, the low-risk sentiment also struck potential NFT buyers who decided to take a sabbatical from indulging.

As per a Bloomberg report, the sales of NFTs recorded a 16-month low in December last year.

Between January and December 2022, the NFT trading volumes reportedly slid by 97 percent and are now enroute recovery.