Where next for NFTs?

It’s not been a good year.

Do as I say…

When a Malaysian businessman bought an NFT of Jack Dorsey’s first ever tweet for $2.9 million, he described it as the digital Mona Lisa. In April, he made a loss of just under $2.9 million. We figure he’s not the only one.

The fledging NFT sector stood little to no chance when the market largely turned away from growth stocks in favor of safe investments. Inflation, interest, and the overdue tech correction all meant that NFTs and cryptos were some of the first investments to get the cold shoulder, leaving lots of buyers very much high and dry. Now, the question on everyone’s lips is – is this a dip or is the market never coming back?

Pump up the volume. Please.

When we take a look at the stats, the scale of the market collapse becomes clear. Sales volume on leading NFT platform, OpenSea, is down to $700 million – from a January peak of $5 billion. The price of the average NFT is now about $412, whereas only a few weeks ago in April, it was $1,754. We’ll file this one under not having a good time.

But bulls will be bulls. Some are saying that this is the perfect time to ramp up corporate NFTs for the masses. But even those close to the NFT industry are more doubtful. Gauthier Zuppinger, Co-Founder of NonFungible.com, recently said in an interview, “We have seen so much speculation, so much hype around this kind of asset… Now we see some sort of decrease just because people realize they will not become a millionaire in two days.”

So, will NFTs ever reach the peak again? One of the great tests for the crypto and NFT industry was how they would hold up in an inflationary, high-interest market. And while they’ve performed just as badly as almost every other tech stock, it seems likely that maybe NFT-agnostic investors might just stay away next time.