If you told me at the beginning of the year we would see a 76,240% increase in trading volume in the NFT marketplace, I would be laughing at you so hard and calling you delusional. Yet here we are- experiencing insane growth in an ever-expanding segment of the crypto industry.
While the entire crypto market was in a slump for the last few months, the non-fungible tokens took everyone by storm and did unimaginable numbers month over month. We saw NFT sales go from $13.7 million in Q1 2020 to $2.5 billion in the first half of 2021. We see famous collections like Bored Ape Yacht Club hit floor price of 13.9 ETH.
It feels like yesterday when these cartoon apes were less than $1000, and now you need to spend at least $25,000 to get the cheapest ape. This is huge- not only for this one particular collection but for the entire NFT world. In parallel, we saw an entirely new model of gaming- play-to-earn attract thousands of traditional gamers who are now making a decent side income from just playing a video game.
Axie Infinity witnessed more than 6,500% revenue growth by the end of July, and they recently hit 1.1 billion USD in sales. All these numbers indicate a surprising boom in the NFT space, but to get an overall view of how well the market is performing, we need to look at some metrics.
NFT User Growth
We are witnessing something very similar when crypto tokens took off a couple of years back. The rate at which NFT space is growing in terms of users is fascinating. A lot of this has to do with brands, companies collaborating with top artists and celebrities around the world. A good portion of users wants to just explore the market and collect as many rare collectibles as possible. At the beginning of the year, we saw the same collectors exchange digital assets, and it was only them contributing. But now- we are seeing younger entities in the network, making smart moves and minting some of the rarest NFTs like BAYC or Meebits.
NFT Monthly Sales
The primary market sales involving non-fungible tokens have only been climbing month over month. In April, we roughly saw 23.7 thousand NFTs being sold and now, in August, we have over 89 thousand in an aggregate number of sales, considering the last 30 days. If we take into account all top marketplaces like OpenSea, Rarible, and Crypto Punks, the NFT monthly sales have already crossed a billion dollars. In comparison to last month, we nearly doubled.
Median NFT Sale Price
The average price of some of the best NFT collections went up significantly. Crypto Punks, one of the top collections in this space, now sits at an average price of $195,000. It was only $6000 in January. We have seen similar growth in many other collections. The median NFT sale price across the marketplace sits at $210. We can expect this to go even higher by the end of this year.
NFT Transactions Per Day
With the volumes we are seeing every day, it is expected for the number of transactions in the NFT marketplace to go parabolic. We went from 100,000 transactions to 250,000 transactions per day in just over a month. This means the Ethereum network is experiencing more congestion, resulting in high gas fees. Even for low-cost NFTs, we are seeing gas fees in thousands of dollars. Apart from that, we are seeing incredible growth in transaction rates and overall growth in the marketplace.
Born and brought up in India, Karthikeya Gutta is a crypto journalist and freelance contributor for ItsBlockchain. He covers various aspects of the industry with in-depth analysis and research. His passion towards blockchain and crypto ecosystem is mainly because he believes it can really change the world and help millions of people.
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