Since the first quarter of 2023, the scale of NFT has rebounded gratifyingly, trading activities on the chain have gradually become active, the market has begun to intensively launch new ones, and competition between new and old players has intensified. In order to have a clearer understanding of the real performance of the NFT market in Q1 this year, PANews and NFT data service provider NFTScan jointly analyzed the main data of the market in the first quarter.
Summary of main points:
1. The total transaction volume of the NFT market in the first quarter has exceeded 60 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of about 6.79 billion U.S. dollars. Ethereum is still the largest NFT market, accounting for 96.7% of the market with a total transaction volume of US$58.38 billion;
2. A total of more than 464,000 new projects have been added to the NFT market. Polygon’s new projects accounted for 74.5% of the total, while Solana only had 6,998 new projects, with a low average daily growth rate;
3. As of the first quarter, a total of over 100 million NFT assets have been minted in the NFT market. Among them, Polygon and BNB Chain accounted for 76.7% of the total newly minted NFTs, and the daily average new minted volumes of Ethereum and Solana were far below the average;
4. Since entering Q1, the number of interactive wallet addresses related to NFT assets has exceeded 92.724 million. The addresses of BNB Chain and Polygon have grown at a rate of 31.8% and 21.8% respectively, and the total number of addresses of the two accounts for 83.2% of the total;
5. The market value and average price of blue-chip projects both fell, and there was a clear differentiation, but they were still favored by market funds, and the overall transaction volume increased by an average of 14.7%;
6. Regardless of the growth in transaction volume, sales volume or user scale, Blur has achieved a crushing "acceleration", but OpenSea still holds the market leader with an absolute advantage and has a significant advantage.
Ethereum Remains at the Top, Polygon Surges in Users and New Projects
Since entering Q1 of 2023, the NFT market has picked up significantly, and trading activity has increased significantly.
In the first quarter of this year, the total transaction volume of the NFT market has also exceeded US$60 billion, an increase of approximately US$6.79 billion, and the average daily transaction volume exceeded US$7.544 million. Among them, Ethereum accounted for 97.3% of the market with a total transaction volume of US$58.38 billion, while Solana, Polygon, and BNB Chain accounted for 2.5%. From the perspective of average daily transaction volume, Ethereum ranks first with an average daily transaction volume of over US$6.486 million, followed by Solana at US$1.163 million, Polygon at US$514,000, and BNB Chain at only US$433,000. However, from the perspective of market expansion speed, Solana and Polygon's transaction volume growth rates are in the leading position, respectively 36.5% and 27.7%, while BNB Chain is 14.7%, and Ethereum is 12.5%.
The number of newly minted NFTs is also one of the important indicators of the transaction activity of the NFT market. In the first quarter, more than 100 million NFT assets were minted, with a growth rate of over 15.6%, and the average daily new minted volume was 1.127 million. Among them, Polygon has the largest number of new castings, accounting for about 60.5% of the total number of new castings, with an average daily casting volume of about 672,000; followed by BNB Chain, which accounts for about 16.2% of the total, with an average daily casting of nearly 181,000; The number is about 1.749 million, and the average daily casting is only 17.1% of the whole, far below the average.
At the same time, as the number of NFT projects has also seen a significant increase, a total of more than 464,000 new projects have been added this quarter, with an average daily rate of about 5,155 new projects. Among them, the number of new projects on Polygon surged by 346,000, accounting for 74.5% of the total, with an average of 3,884 new projects per day; BNB Chain and Ethereum were about 44,000 and 41,000, respectively, and Solana was only 6,998 new projects , and their average daily project growth rate is low.
From the perspective of user scale growth, the number of interactive wallet addresses related to NFT assets exceeded 92.724 million, an increase of 22.7% in the first quarter. Among them, the number of addresses of BNB Chain and Polygon grew at a rate of 31.8% and 21.8% respectively, and the total number of addresses of the two accounted for 83.2% of the total. The average number of NFT assets held by each wallet address of the former reached 233.7, while the latter was 65.3; the growth rates of Solana and Ethereum were 14.1% and 12.7% respectively, among which Ethereum was lower than the average number of assets held by the overall wallet address.
Blue-chip NFTs are clearly differentiated, and these potential stocks are worthy of attention
The total market value of NFT is one of the most direct and concrete on-chain indicators to track and measure the performance of the entire NFT market. In the first quarter of 2023, the total market value of NFT rose to US$29.47 billion, an increase of 82.5%. Although the overall NFT market value has increased by more than 13.33 billion US dollars, the development status of blue-chip projects as more resilient assets is not optimistic, and there is a clear differentiation.
Judging from the performance of the representative Top 10 leading projects on Ethereum in the first quarter, the market value of these blue-chip projects did not rise with the overall market, but shrank by about 410 million US dollars, with an overall average decline of 18.72%. Among them, Azuki's performance was strong, with a market value rising by 17.5%. Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, Otherdeed, Bored Ape Kennel Club and Azuki did not show significant declines, with an average decline of 4.4%. However, the market value of CloneX, Moonbirds, Doodles and Meebits was There was a sharp drop, with an average drop of 40.1%.
At the same time, the anti-risk ability of blue-chip NFT assets has weakened, and the overall average transaction price of this quarter has dropped by more than 23.1%. Average prices at Mutant Ape Yacht Club fell slightly, averaging 8.7%. However, blue-chip NFTs are still favored by market funds, with an average increase of 14.7% in overall transaction volume. Among them, the overall increase of Yuga Labs projects is obvious, with an average increase of 27%.
At the same time, active seed players can be observed from the Gas consumption of Ethereum. In the first quarter, the top 10 NFT projects in gas consumption consumed more than 10,000 ETH, of which XEN Torrent, Base, Introduced, Uniswap V3 Positions NFT-V1 and ENS were the main force of gas consumption, contributing nearly a quarter of the total Gas consumption.
In addition, the number of castings is also one of the indicators to measure the popularity of the project. Judging from the statistics of the top 10 Mint NFTs on Ethereum, the total minting of these projects in the first quarter exceeded 1.358 million, accounting for 9% of the total. Among them, Base, Introduced, The Escher Edition and ENS minted far more than other projects, with a total of more than 767,000 NFT minted.
The growth rate of the transaction market is crushed by Blur, and OpenSea still has a significant advantage
Liquidity is the life of assets. The emergence of the secondary market has injected higher liquidity into NFT and provided strong support for the expansion of the market. This article selects 5 leading trading markets to observe the overall flow of NFT assets in the secondary market.
According to statistics, the cumulative transaction volume of these six major trading platforms in the first quarter was about 30.133 million ETH, an increase of about 12.7%. Among them, Blur is the main driver of the rise, with a transaction volume as high as 2.412 million ETH, an increase of more than 4.7 times, which is related to its innovative airdrop incentives and royalty system. The growth rate of OpenSea, which was firmly in the market leader before, was crushed by Blur, with a transaction volume of about 14 million ETH, accounting for 46.4% of the total; LooksRare’s transaction volume this quarter was about 10.241 million, and there was no significant growth; The transaction volume of X2Y2 exceeded 3.072 million ETH, an increase of about 19.3%.
From the perspective of total sales volume, OpenSea still has a significant advantage, with its sales volume reaching 34.448 million; while Blur’s sales volume soared this quarter, increasing by about 4.2 times; LooksRare, X2Y2, and SudoSwap’s transaction volume only achieved single-digit growth .
But from the perspective of user scale, the situation is different. Although OpenSea has an absolute advantage with 42.823 million addresses, its growth rate is only 12%; while Blur has increased by about 3.6 times, and the total number of addresses has increased to 199,000; X2Y2 has risen by 11.1% in Q1, and the number of addresses is about 170.2 Ten thousand; LooksRare and SudoSwap only rose by 7.1% and 6.9% respectively, showing a slow growth trend overall.