How NFT market lost $65b in 2022
The Non-Fungible Token market was one of crypto’s rapidly growing sectors.
However, the Ethereum NFT market, accounts for 70% of the sector, lost 59.60% in 2022 which is caused by the economic downturn.
The market began 2022 at a valuation of $9.3 billion, and ended the year at $3.7 billion. This is a according to data from DappRadar, which employed the use of machine-learning algorithms to generate the figures.
NFTs surged in 2021, and it saw a few high-profile sales generating significant rave and driving up prices.
In 2021, an NFT artwork by digital artist Beeple sold for a record-breaking $69 million at a Christie’s auction.
Other groundbreaking sales are Jack Dorsey’s first tweet which sold for $2.9 million, a video clip of LeBron James dunking which was bought for $208,000, and a digital house for $500,000.
According to DappRadar, the Ethereum NFT market capitalization was made up of 81 collections.
The market for the 81 Ethereum collections went through a tough 2022.
However, ETH, the native token of the Ethereum blockchain, lost 60% of its value last year, which had a strong influence on the value of the NFTs.
Nonetheless, this retraction of the NFT market was not a reflection of NFT’s utility, but rather a result of bad actors and market manipulations, but still, many promising projects emerged from the bear market which showcases the uniqueness of digital assets.
The first half of last year saw a boom in NFTs and hype around the unique digital assets, this growth was a contrast to performance of other traditional assets such as ether, and bitcoin.
The highest value was $19.1 billion in February 2022.
However, this growth was shortlived as the Terra Luna collapse and the FTX collapse had a devestasting impact in the sector.
2022 was a challenging year for the NFT and, 2023, the NFT market has shown great signs, considering the positive on-chain metrics seen in January.