After reaching heights in 2021, the so -called “non -fungible” tokens market, which notably allows you to acquire digital works of art, has packed in early 2022, and remains very volatile.
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it pitch on the NFT market (non-Fungible Tokens, “non-fungible tokens”), these digital property certificates registered in blockchain (a technology for storing and transmitting information based on cryptography) and which , for the past year, the meters have been panic. According to a report published on May 5 by the Chainalysis watch platform, the craze for these tokens shows a severe drop in diet in the first quarter of 2022. In the wake of the 69 million dollars record (65.4 billion of euros) for the sale of an NFT of the artist Beeple in March 2021, the volume of transactions had exploded, cheerfully crossing the 40 billion dollars mark over the whole year.
According to data from the Hiscox insurer, the three main auction houses, Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips, who had never ventured on this ground, then sold for $ 185 million in NFT. But this growth is irregular and fluctuates drastically from one month to the next. Chainalysis thus noted a peak of activity in August 2021, coinciding with the release of the NFT Mutant Ape Yacht Club collection of the start-up Yuga Labs. At the end of January, the transactions rebounded again after the launch of the Looksrare platform.
Since then, the market has been experiencing a serious kill. In one month, between February and March, the volume of expenditure dropped from 3.9 billion to $ 964 million. For Ethan McMahon, economist at Chainalysis, “the collapse of NFT transactions in the first quarter of 2022 coincided with the broader market of cryptocurrency”. In his eyes, however, “the interest of people grows and decreases independently of cryptocurrencies, which also constitutes the strength of this market”.
“Towards a bubble”
This volatility does not worry specialists. According to Chainalysis, NFT buyers have already spent more than $ 37 billion since the start of the year. And the market has resumed in mid-April, when Yuga Labs, to whom we also owe the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, has put up virtual plots of its next metavese project (virtual world), baptized Otherside. The potential is such that the NFT Superrare platform will open a well-physical gallery in New York on May 19 to expand its community and convince the last recalcitrants.
The study of Chainalysis also reveals that this class of assets attracts buyers from around the world, Central Asia and South Asia arriving at the head, followed by North America and the Europe. Their motivations could not be clearer: the taste for placement rather than passion for art. According to a survey published by Hiscox on April 25, the return on investment remains the first engine of more than 80 % of NFT buyers. Barely a quarter of them, mainly women, declare to seek crypto arts that please them.
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