In the ever-fluctuating world of nonfungible tokens (NFTs), 2023 has so far been a year of sobering reality. Despite the crypto market witnessing a 40% upswing since the year’s start, the NFT mania that swept the previous years seems to be losing momentum.
Prominent NFT collections that soared to dizzying heights in 2022 are now witnessing a startling nosedive. The hyped meteoric rise seems to be giving way to a seemingly inevitable fall, as outlined by industry insider ‘HashBastards NFTs‘ on May 22.
One notable case is the Doodles collection, a community-centric project showcasing art by “Burnt Toast.” The collection’s floor price saw a steep 90% fall, plummeting from 23 ETH to a modest 2.3 ETH. Current data from OpenSea shows an even lower floor price of 2.169 ETH, equating to roughly $3,900. The Doodles sales volume took a hit, diving from $53 million in April 2022 to $2.4 million in the same month of 2023, as reported by CryptoSlam.
Moonbirds, another hot NFT collection of 2022, has also been hit hard. The floor prices have crashed by a massive 94%, spiraling down from 32 ETH to 2.1 ETH. Moonbirds’ sales volume, once a staggering $484 million at the project’s launch, dwindled to a mere $3.1 million in April 2023.
The once coveted Goblintown NFT collection hasn’t been spared either. It saw a precipitous drop from a floor price of 6 ETH to just 0.27 ETH, equating to $490. Furthermore, the sales volume plunged by an astounding 99%, collapsing from $37 million to just $257,670 in a span of a year.
Even the Invisible Friends collection, an array of 5,000 animated invisible characters by Markus Magnusson, couldn’t escape the slump. The floor prices fell dramatically by 85%, from 8 ETH to 1.15 ETH, with sales volume dropping from a robust $68 million in February 2022 to a relatively paltry $847,266 in April 2023.
According to a report by CryptoSlam, the overall NFT sales volume has shrunk by a whopping 84% from April 2022 to April 2023. This trend was further exemplified when the ‘NFTstatistics‘ Twitter account reported on May 21 that a significant number of NFTs were offloaded on the Blur marketplace, including a substantial dump of 350 Doodles and 190 from the Millionaire Ape Yacht Club.
However, there is a silver lining. Bored Ape Yacht Club continues to hold its ground as the top-selling collection over the past 30 days, with a recorded $43 million in volume.
The capricious NFT market thus paints a picture of drastic highs and lows, symbolizing the uncertainties of the emerging digital frontier. As some previously esteemed collections lose their sheen, only time will tell what new surprises the crypto-art world holds in store.
