NFT Market Report for January
After massive problems in 2022, the crypto space began 2023 with some positive signs. For instance, for the first time in over a month, Bitcoin cracked the $20k mark and surged toward $23k. The upsurge brought a positive sentiment in the crypto market. The case was almost similar for NFTs in the early days of the year.
NFT sales surged in 1st week of 2023
Statistical and chart analytics suggest that in the first week of 2023, the NFT market recorded an upsurge in sales. The first seven days of the year saw an increase of 26.01% from the last seven days of December 2022. As such, the reports indicate that there was about $208 million worth of NFT sales in just that week.
According to metrics from the crypto stats platform Cryptoslam.io metrics, in the first week of 2023, about 1.2 million NFT transactions, with about 400,000 buyers involved. The surge was massive compared to the values of the last week of 2022.
NFT Market Performance in January 2023
As already reported, the general NFT market showed massive gains and upswings at the start of 2023. However, the trend has yet to carry on through the month. The charts from Nonfungible.com show a rise between Jan 1st and 5th, reaching a peak of 18.9k on the 5th. However, since Jan 6th, the NFT verse took a downward trend, hitting as low as 12k sales on Jan 30th.
Despite the number of sales constantly decreasing in the month, there was some strong fluctuation in the average sales prices of the NFTs. It translated into fluctuating sales volumes in USD, reaching a high of $28.6 million on Jan 6th. However, the lowest sales volume was recorded on the 30th, at a little over $12 million.
So, what about the number of unique buyers and sellers? Based on the charts, the numbers of new buyers and sellers began at a high in the first week of January. However, the numbers took a diminishing turn as the month moved on, with the monthly low recorded on Jan 30th.
For instance, on Jan 1st, there were 6415 unique buyers and 6353 unique sellers. The number surged to 6647 unique buyers and 6869 unique sellers by January Jan 3rd. However, this trend continued until about Jan 5th, when the number of Unique buyers stood at 8965, and unique sellers were 9560. Notice this was a colossal upswing in just a few days.
However, since the 5th, the NFT market took a downturn and began recording plunges. For instance. On Jan 9th, the number of unique buyers and sellers in NFT was 6424 and 6470, respectively. On Jan 30th, the numbers were 6164 and 5211 for unique buyers and sellers, respectively.
So, what about individual NFT trade segments? How did they perform in January?
NFT market – Segmental Performance
There are several categories of NFTs, all of which suffered vastly towards the end of the year. The categories include:
Collectibles
Let’s start with the largest NFT segment, collectibles. How did this segment perform in the markets last month?
Like the general market, collectibles started the first week with immense hype. On Jan 5th, collectibles reached the apex in the number of sales for the month, hitting about 11425 actual sales. However, on this same day, the volume of sales in USD was just about $23.08 million. At this point, collectibles sales remained the largest in the entire market.
On Friday, Jan 6th, the sales volume in USD hit its peak at $26.5 million despite the sales volumes dropping to just about 7437. This surge in volume could have resulted from an increase in average sales price per NFT from just $2k on the 5th to $3.6k on the 6th.
The average price of the NFTs seemingly continued increasing till its peak of $5.7k in January. It later dropped to a low of $2.5k on Jan 30th.
The unique buyers and sellers chart took a similar shape to the charts of the general market. It was a rise for the first 5 to six days — But a plunge from 7th towards the end of the month. The number of unique buyers and sellers dropped from 5.2k and 6.2k on the 5th to 1.6k and 1.9k later in the month.
Despite some of its metrics dropping throughout the month, collectibles still maintained their title as the largest segment of NFTs. The upswings recorded in the first week of January can all be attributed to a rise in collectibles demand and activities.
Art
The second NFT segment to look at is art. Art NFTs have enjoyed massive traction in the NFT space since their first invention. But how did they perform in January?
The number of NFT art sales began the month at a low of about 471, with the complementing value standing at $765.6k. On Jan 4th, the sales hit 690, with the complementing total USD value standing at $906 thousand.
Unlike collectibles, whose charts showed steady moves in positive or negative directions, art charts were quite unstable. On some days, the sales would surge high, with the complementing USD value also surging; the reverse also happened on other days.
The peak number of NFT sales was 1024 on Jan 21st, where the USD value was $1.03 million. The highest USD sales volume in the month was recorded on Jan 9th, at $1.05 million.
The numbers of unique buyers and sellers also continued with up and downswings throughout this month. The peak number of unique sellers was 482 on Jan 9th, with the lowest recorded on Jan 29th and 215. For unique buyers, the peak was 537 on Jan 21st, and the lowest was 215 on Jan 29th.
Game NFTs
The third category to look at is Game NFTs. Game NFTs are one of the earliest categories of these digital assets. Stats indicate that game NFTs performed quite reasonably in January. The number of sales took a slightly increased angle in the month.
On Jan 2nd, the number of sales stood at 6.9k, with the complementing USD value standing at $1.3 million. In the middle of the month, sales peaked at 7.9k, but the USD volume was mere $487 thousand. Despite an increase in sales, this drop is mainly because of a plunge in average sales price per Game NFT, which only stood at $49.66 on Jan 17th.
The number of Unique buyers and sellers began the month at a low of 2203 and 2601, respectively. On Jan 11th, when sales rose, the number of unique buyers and sellers increased to 3036 and 3539, respectively.
Since the 11th, the number of unique traders has been steadily reducing, to 2852 and 2723, towards the end of the month.
Metaverse NFTs
Based on the charts provided by Nonfungible.com, it looks like Metaverse NFT sales increased from the first week to the second till the last week of the month. On Jan 2nd, there were merely about 317 sales capped at $655 thousand.
The sales peaked on Jan 27th, hitting 690, and the complementing USD value stood at $2.12 million. However, the largest sales value was recorded on Jan 29th, with 517 sales made, valued at $2.14 million.
So, what about the entries of unique buyers and sellers? Based on Nonfungible.com’s data, the numbers of unique buyers and sellers seemingly increased from Jan 1st until Jan 17th. On the latter date, the number of unique buyers and sellers of metaverse NFTs peaked at 363 and 464, respectively. That indicates that in the early days, there was a rise in users of metaverse NFTs — possibly new entrants into the metaverse.
Utility NFTs
The last NFT sub-category is utilities. According to charts, the number of utility NFTs sales ranged between 1836 and 2878 throughout the month. However, most of the month’s sales were more than 2 thousand. The volumes of sales in USD also ranged between $130.8k and $619k, with the peak recorded on Jan 27th.
The lowest number of unique sellers occurred on the 17th at 296, when the number of buyers was at its peak of 1.6k. The peak of unique sellers was 529, reported on the 29th when there were just about 1.2k unique buyers.
From the analysis of the five segments, it’s clear that the ‘collectibles sub-category’ is the leading market mover for NFT, just like BTC is for crypto.
Best Performing NFT Collections
With the many NFT collections available in the markets today, it’s only fair to let the investors know which ones performed the best in the month. Here we look at the stats about sales volumes and many more. These are the best-performing collections;
- Sewer pass — The best-performing NFT collection through January is Sewer Pass, with a sales volume of $59.32 million. There were 9931 traders and over 13 thousand sales. It is a new NFT collection, hence attracting traction speedily.
- Bored Ape Yacht Club — One of the regulars, the BAYC collection was the second-best performing in January. With 525 traders and 627 trades, BAYC accumulated $57.12 million in trading volume.
- Mutant Ape Yacht Club — MAYC takes position three among the best-performing collections of $49.4 million in trading volumes. There were about 2040 MAYC traders in the month, completing 3192 sales.
- Bored Ape Kennel Club — This collection recorded over $31.37 million in trading volumes, with 2123 traders and 3896 sales.
- Otherdeeds and Otherside — Finally, we have Otherdeeds, the NFT collection launched specifically for the Otherside metaverse. This NFT collection has remained among the best metaverse NFTs since early 2022. In the month, this collection had $31.34 million in sales volumes.
The five collections mentioned above are mainly based on the ethereum blockchain. It indicates that Ethereum is still the most dominant home for non-fungible tokens. While Solana looks like the closest Ethereum competitor, only one of its collections, i.e., Degods, made it in the top 20 performing collections in January.
Since Ethereum-based NFTs remained the most active, Opensea, the Ethereum-focused marketplace, was also the best place to purchase the assets.
Top NFT sales in January
It’s also important for investors to know which individual NFTs performed the best in January. Here were the top 5 NFT sales in January;
- Zunk 14142 — This NFT was sold on Jan 13th at 1313 ETH, which translated into $2.07 million. Zunk investors witnessed the most significant value in NFT sales in January.
- Bored Ape Yacht Club #4025 — This NFT exchanged hands for 395 ETH, an equivalent of $623k, on Jan 16th.
- Bored Ape Yacht Club #8483 — The NFT sold for 310 ETH, about $489 thousand, on Jan 31st.
- Bored Ape Yacht Club #4281 — Sold on Jan 28th, this NFT was valued at 305 ETH, which equals $481k.
- Cryptopunk 7674 — Finally, a Punk NFT closes our list. The digital assets were sold for 286 ETH ($455k) on Jan 18th.
BAYC dominated the most expensive sales in the month, with collections like CryptoPunk and Azuki also maintaining relevance.
Biggest News, Porsche NFT collection
Last December, Porsche reported the impending launch of its NFT collection at the Art Basel Miami event. In the news that NFT.news covered, Porsche even highlighted the collaboration with Patrick Vogel to launch the collection in January.
On Jan 23rd, Porsche launched the new NFT collection. However, this NFT collection received high criticism and community backlash soon after.
The community complained that only 20% of the 7500 promised NFTs had been minted in the first 24 hours. Moreover, soon after the launch, another establishment was created at Opensea, selling the NFTs cheaper, leading to value drops.
Just a day later, the company announced the conclusion of this rollout, halting the minting on Jan 25th. The network announced they must find a suitable plan for executing this NFT debut.
The most awaited NFT event in January 2023 ended just a few hours after the start as a failure. Things worsened as scammers began taking advantage of the situation and stealing from unknowing investors.
Final words
While the NFT market looked to recover in the first week, uncertain trends took over till the end of the month. Let’s see if bullish sentiment continues and if NFTs can rebound to the levels seen during the last bull run.
