NFT: Doomsday or Payday?

NFT marketplaces continue to struggle. The volume transacted on NFT marketplaces have decreased due to the crypto market conditions. Taking reference from the research done by The Block Crypto for the month of May 2022. There is a total volume of $4 billion, out of which more than 65% of the market is captured on Opensea, Looksrare has around $1.06 billion, while Magic Eden has $292 million.

Source: The Block Crypto; NFT Marketplace Monthly Volume

Before the crypto downturn in April, the total volume was $7.18 billion. There are more than 44% decreased. This has also made many analysts predict that the NFT market will continue to shrink to around $2.5 billion in June. The reality is worse than prediction. The total sales according to crypto research firm Chainalysis states that sales of NFTs only reach around $1 billion instead.

Personally, I think the NFT markets are still growing in its own rights. Exchanges are constantly growing. Let’s say Bybit NFT Marketplace for example, accordingly to an article on Harvard Business Review, their marketplace boasts more than 50,000 active members on Telegram, with transaction fees as low as 2%. When an NFT is sold on Bybit’s marketplace, 1% is a trading fee to Bybit, and 1% is a royalty fee to the original creator. That 2% fee is paid by the seller, while the buyer does not incur additional charges. These are some measures that centralized exchanges are adopting to increase their market share for NFT.

“Despite the market being down, we are still reviewing many NFT projects globally. Projects like Kishu Inu & Mighty Jaxx who came to our marketplace were sold out at such bear times. The bear market has not dampened the NFT’s community spirit for sure. Bybit continues to excel by building more partnerships and adding new features to the marketplace.” Jenny Zheng, Business Development Lead at Bybit NFT Marketplace said.

Is the NFT market really dying?

The straight forward answer is no. Ledger launched an NFT marketplace called Ledger Market. The core selling point is that they focus on security and transparency, these traits help to fill in the gaps that are filling in the Web3 environment and gel back to their firm’s mission on security. They want to build an enterprise solution that allow brands and creators to be in complete control, holding their hands throughtout their NFT journey and secure the whole stack from minting to distribution into production.

Apart from Ledger, many more NFT companies were presented at NFT.NYC. Despite the recent plunge in the crypto market., thousands gathered at New York City for the event to explore new opportunities. On the same day, Cannes Lions also started their fourth year of talk about NFT. The five day agenda has listed leading brands such as Coach and Celebrity businesswoman Paris Hilton spoke about NFTs and what they mean for brands.

More surprises. More builds.

Back to the crypto world, Binance has signed a signed a partnership with Cristiano Ronaldo for the promotion of NFTs. This is part of the multi-year agreement, the Portuguese soccer star and Binance will create a series of NFT collections for sale on the Binance’s platform. CZ, CEO of Binance tweeted “Now, we start” and this drew in a lot of confident for the NFT community.

OKX was named by City as the “Club’s Official Cryptocurrency Exchange Partner” as part of a commercial expansion by the Premier League champions. They then signed McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo as their Global Ambassador. When spoken to Jay Hao, CEO of OKX. He said to me that the bear market  means opportunities and improving products. He do not think the NFT market is going no where. “NFT comes with different varieties. Some sectors will be here to stay, and some will just go oblivion.” Jay added.

While writing my second book titled NFT: From Zero to Hero, I realised a common trend in the NFT markets- ‘Everyone is trying to copy everyone.’ If Binance heads to sports sponsorship, the rest of the exchanges follow. I urge all to put some efforts in to find their unique proposition in the bearish times.

The NFT world's version of survival looks a little different when compared to the crypto space in general. There is still a lot of money flowing into the NFT industry which is very optimistic for everyone. The current market may not be the best time for your NFT to grow 100X, but it gives you more time to decide and plan your NFT properly. Doomday or payday, it really depends on how you look at it.

“There are 365 days of opportunities in a year.”