The red-hot NFT market is starting to cool off, as both prices and volumes fall. These 3 sectors are the hardest-hit so far by the slowdown
- The NFT art sector has been hit the hardest by the market slowdown over the past month.
- Sports and collectibles followed in the second and third spot respectively.
- Metaverse was the only sector in which sales and prices rose this month.
After going stratospheric earlier this year, the red-hot NFT market is starting to cool down. Based on data from nonfungible.com, a tracking and analysis hub for the non-fungible tokens (NFTs), almost every sector has seen a decline both in terms of sales and dollars spent in the last month.
The art sector, where a piece of digital work recently changed hands for a record of nearly $70 million, lost the most ground, followed by the sports and collectibles sectors.
The total amount of NFT sales has declined by almost 28% and the total value of sales fell by almost 14% between March 30th and April 28th, data showed.
NFTs are digital assets such as videos, images, or audio that are based on blockchain technology. They are unique and not exchangeable. Often, anyone online can still access them - but crucially, only one person can own them.
Sale volumes for art NFTs declined by almost 42%, making this the sector with the biggest losses. In the same timeframe, prices dropped by 40.5%. This translates to a sales value drop from over $71 million to $41.5 million as of today.
Crypto artworks had led the NFT craze and were selling for record highs just a few weeks ago. Digital artist Beeple set a record by selling a piece of art for $69 million at a Christie's auction in March.
Sports and collectibles NFTs followed in second and third place. Sports NFTs, which include player cards, virtual racing cars and even digital racing horses, brought in over 28% less cash and sales declined by over 20%.
Collectibles, which include some of the earliest NFTs like CryptoPunks and CryptoKitties, and are commonly part of a series, saw a price decline of 17.3% and a drop of over 32% in sales. Both prices and sales started to recover in mid-April, but are heading for an overall decline this month.
Collectibles are also the most valuable sector, worth just under $101 million at the end of April, according to the site. In March, the sector was still worth almost $122 million.
The only sector that grew in terms of both sales volume and dollars spent is metaverse - where virtual plots of land and digital real estate are sold. Despite only adding 1.4% sales volume, prices spiked by almost 32%. Metaverse NFTs sold on April 28th were worth almost $21 million.
Gaming NFTs, which are purchasable parts of online games such as a specific player, saw sales volumes decline by around 18%, but were still worth over 123% more, as dollars spent in this sector more than doubled over the last month, reaching over $26 million.