- Sales of NFTs exploded on New Year’s Day 2022 reaching its highest level since October. (NFT Stats, which must be tracking beyond OpenSea doesn’t have Jan. 1 as a peak day, but instead has Dec. 31 as the day with the highest volume of NFT sales (62,126) since October. Either way, NFTs are skyrocketing–again.)
- OpenSea provides some indication of the consumer demand for NFTs. As shown in the chart below, 900,000 wallets are now connected with OpenSea and have been used to buy at least 1 NFT. That’s the highest number yet.
- So what are the reasons for the increased sales on Dec. 31, 2021 and Jan. 1, 2022?
- Remember that the stock market closed down on Dec. 31. Ethereum, which is the main cryptocurrency used to buy NFTs, was trading down to around $3,700, well below its high of over $4,100.
- So why would NFT sales go up over Dec. 31, 2021 and Jan. 1, 2022?
- One possibility is that the holiday gave people more free time. Experienced NFT investors could use that free time to snatch up some more NFTs. Because who doesn’t want to buy more NFTs?
- And, for novices, perhaps they know a family member or friend who told them about NFTs over the holiday (or perhaps gifted them an NFT). What better way to spend quality time with the fam?
- We can also speculate whether the pandemic dampened some people’s desire to get together. So, instead, maybe people stayed home–and bought NFTs! No more chill and Netflix.
- Prices of NFTs also increased from the increased demand for some collections. It’s difficult, though, to get a precise handle on the increase because some of it was due to the recent drop in ETH conversion rate as noted above. According to NFT Price Floor, of the Top 10 NFT collections, 6 collections experienced increases in floor prices in the past 24 hours. The highest increase was for Mutant Ape Yacht Club at 19.78%, which has been on an absolute tear.
Table 1. Top 16 NFT collections in sales volume on OpenSea in past 24 hours and past 7 days.
- As you can see from Table 1, in the past 7 days, only 3 out of 16 collections didn’t see increases in sales volumes.
- If you thought 2021 was a big year for NFTs, just wait. 2022 will be epic.