NFT Trading Volumes Plummeted 88.6% in 3 Months, But That’s Not All
Trading Analysis

NFT Trading Volumes Plummeted 88.6% in 3 Months, But That’s Not All

CoinMarketCap checks out some of Nansen's charts on what is going on with the NFT market — are metaverses crowding out NFTs?

NFT Trading Volumes Plummeted 88.6% in 3 Months, But That’s Not All


As per data from Nansen’s Bluechip index — which measures the liquidity and market capitalization of the top 20 NFT collections — the last three months have seen a dramatic drop-off in liquidity and a concomitant decrease in the average market capitalization across these assets. 

After reaching a peak daily trading volume of 90,000 ETH in late August, this has now collapsed down to less than 4,000 ETH as of late November — equivalent to a more than 88% decline in under three months. 

The trading volume for the “bluechip” NFTs reached an all-time high on Sept. 16 at 20,518 ETH, and saw a low of 2,342 ETH on Oct. 18.

That said, if we zoom into the top five NFT projects by market capitalization over the past month, some projects have managed to buck the prevailing trend, whilst others are suffering terribly. 

Even with the almost 90% drop in volume, total market cap remained between about 2-3 million ETH.


First up, by far the largest NFT project by market capitalization is CryptoPunks

The last month has seen an overall downtick in trading volume, average price and floor price. Now, the minimum price for a single Punk sits around 82 ETH, while trading volume is down almost 60% in a month. The project retains its lead as the largest NFT project with a market cap larger than the next three biggest NFT projects combined.


The second-largest NFT collection by market capitalization, BoredApeYachtClub, eschews the overall trend and has seen its trading volume largely grow over the last month, reaching a peak of 5,473 ETH traded on November 16. Likewise, the average price has climbed from 38 to 50 ETH, with a minimum price now sitting at 45 ETH. 


The Sandbox’s LAND NFTs come in third place and are one of the few NFT collections with an overtly bullish trend. In the last month, the average price of a Sandbox LAND NFT increased from 0.4 ETH to 3.92 ETH, whereas the trading volume multiplied from just 24 ETH/day a month ago up to around 2,000 ETH/day on average through the second half of November. 


VeeFriend’s NFTs are one of the few NFT collections to see a roughly flat chart over the last month, both in terms of volume and price change. There has been essentially no change in the average price over the last month, but there has been an increase in the number of top-end sales. Likewise, the average trading volume has seen a slight increase in the last month.



Lastly, there’s Art Blocks, the fifth-largest NFT collection by market cap. 

In the last month, the project has seen a gradual uptick in trading volume, but also an extreme downtick in the average price of its NFTs. A month ago, the average Art Blocks NFT sold for more than 3 ETH, now this has fallen down to just 0.38 ETH — equivalent to a drop of more than 85%. Nonetheless, the total number of transactions and unique buyers has increased, seeing Art Blocks NFTs achieve a more widespread distribution among holders.

Overall, far from the frenzy that was Q2 and Q3 in the NFT market, things now appear to be leveling out, and stronger projects are maintaining their value, while gaming and metaverse-related projects are picking up momentum.

Time will tell whether the overall decline is just a transitory dip or a real change in overall momentum and tone.  

All images courtesy of Nansen

Disclaimer: Nov. 30, 2021, 7am EST, this article has been updated to correct the reported daily trading volume and market cap of the NFT bluechips on Nansen.
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