Full steam ahead as NFTs record $946 million in January trading volume
The NFT market made a massive comeback in January, with $946 million recorded in trading volume and an equally high sales count of 9.2 million transactions.
NFT market on recovery lane from bearish 2022
Traders and collectors of NFTs have a reason to celebrate as the NFT market is recovering after the unrelentingly bearish past year.
According to the January report published by DappRadar, the NFTs trading volume went up by 38% while the sales count increased by 42% from last month. The market saw a six-month high in trading volume in the first month of the year, indicating bullish sentiment. This is the highest volume recorded since the $1 billion peak made before the start of the bearish move in June 2022.
The report also claimed that the total value of digital assets in DeFi rose to $74.6 billion. This value is up 26.82% from December. Lido Finance took the lead as the most extensive DeFi protocol and established the increasing demand for LSDs.
Polygon also expanded in trading volumes and sales count, increasing by 124% and 157.39%, respectively. OpenSea registered a whopping 66.58% increase in trading volume, which thus rose to $495 million. OpenSea numbers represent 58% of the total NFT trading volume.
Bullish sentiment attributed to the re-entrance of big players, among other factors
The January spike in NFT trading volumes and sales may be attributed to fresh new launches by the big players in the NFT space, such as Yuga Labs, Moonbirds, and Doodles. The easing macroeconomic tensions also contributed to the rapid growth.
Yuga lab’s newest NFT collection, the sewer passes used for access to the dookey dash game, significantly contributed to the ecosystem’s growth. The exhibition created a buzz in the NFT space yielding about 4,000 ETH within hours of release.
Even so, all collections belonging to the bored ape parent company grossed $324.8 million, translating to about 34.3% of total NFT transactions in January.
Solana’s monkey kingdom and degods collections also contributed notably to the NFT ecosystem’s growth. The company saw its trading volume increase by 23.7% in January, grossing $86 million, even as its sale count declined by 5%. The gains in volume can be attributed to the strong performance of its native token, SOL.
The acquisition of the Emmy-nominated animation studio by Doodles marked a looming integration of NFTs with Hollywood. This move, together with Moonbirds sealing a contract with a top-flight Hollywood talent management company, drove the market confidence to new heights.
January 2023 also had the lowest recorded losses due to exploits since the beginning of last year. The 12-month low of about $14.6 million meant that hacking and related exploits were being efficiently tackled. This decrease can be credited to the increased security measures within the blockchains.
The strength of the NFT market in early 2023 shows stable growth in the coming months.
Continual expansion of the DeFi platforms and NFT integration into the day-to-day lives of people globally is a positive indication. It instills an optimistic vision of crypto in the coming months.
