It appears optimism has returned to the non-fungible token market. According to a new report from DappRadar, the NFT market started to recover in the first quarter of 2023 alongside the crypto market.
The report shows a strong first quarter of $4.7 billion in total NFT sales. That makes quarter 1 of this year the best quarter since quarter 2 of 2022. Although March saw a slight decline in NFT trading by around 15%, overall performance for the first three months of the year was positive.
Here’s a closer look at the numbers:
- Trading volume increased by a whopping 137% to reach $.4.7 billion in Q1 2023.
- One of the main boosts in trading came from the Blur token farming period in February.
- A total of 19.4 million NFTs were sold in the first quarter. In March, 2.7 million NFTs were sold.
The report also noted that Ethereum remains the dominant blockchain for NFTs. The blockchain accounted for nearly 90% of the market share in March. Its quarterly trading volume also increased by more than 250% to $4.1 billion. Solana came in second with a trading volume of $242 million, an increase of 4.6% from the previous quarter.
Polygon also put up big numbers, exceeding $29 million in sales in March and $85 million for the quarter — a 125% increase from Q4 of 2022. For Polygon, this is the best three-month period since the fourth quarter of 2021.
While OpenSea has been the dominant NFT marketplace for some time now, Blur marketplace sparked a battle in the first quarter of the year. The new marketplace registered $2.7 billion in total trading volume in the first quarter of this year, a mouth-dropping 783% increase from Q4 of 2022. The tough competition from Blur put OpenSea’s market share at its lowest levels since February 2021, at just 22% in March.
Novel NFT Projects in 2023 Boost Sales
The new report from DappRadar confirms what many people are feeling, that the NFT market is starting to recover some steam. One reason is because several new and creative NFT projects have hit the market this year, and at Rarity Sniper, we’ve covered all of them. Here are some of the top NFT projects from 2023.
First, about a week ago, we reported that the NFT collection Nakamigos, a 20,000 NFT set from HiFo Labs surged in trading volume and entered the Top 10 collections on OpenSea. One reason the project became popular is because HiFo Labs created honorary NFTs for influencers in the crypto and NFT space.
Next, about a month ago, Yuga Labs netted $16.5 million in its first NFT drop on the Bitcoin blockchain. The drop consisted of 288 generative art pieces inscribed directly on Bitcoin. The NFTs were auctioned off, and one received a bid as high as 7 BTC.
Lastly, in January, Jack Butcher and Visualize Value dropped a new NFT project called “Checks VV.” The 24-hour open mint period saw 16,027 NFTs minted for the price of $8 each — a nod to Twitter’s controversial verification checkmark. The current floor price on OpenSea for a Checks NFT is .82 ETH, or around $1,500.
After a rough year in 2022, the report from DappRadar is exciting news for the NFT community. Whether the space can keep the momentum going into Q2 is still unknown, but for now, things are looking bright for NFT collectors, fans, and creators.