Trading volume on NFT marketplaces is approaching its peak. And news surrounding the largest collections keeps investors hype going

The NFT market is recovering from the disappointing end of 2022. According to a new report from the DappRadar platform, there was a sharp increase in both prices and the number of NFT units sold on marketplaces at the beginning of the year.

There were 9.2 million transactions in January, a 37% increase over December. This was the highest marketplace volume in six months. Trading volume in dollars also rose, reaching $946 million, up 38% from December. And it’s the highest since the market peaked at $1 billion last June.

Importantly, DappRadar excludes data from transactions falling under any suspicion of manipulation in its calculations. The most popular method is so-called “wash trading”. When owner from his own wallets makes fake sales of NFT, artificially inflating its price or imitating the appearance of excitement for a little-known project.

Most popular NFT collections

The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) collections remain the ” Blue Chip” of NFT market. And the Yuga Labs behind them retains its status as one of the most recognizable brands in the industry. In January, a new collection of NFT company products called Sewer Pass. Which serve as keys to the blockchain game Dookey Dash, accounted for 34.3% of all transactions in January’s marketplace. The passes were issued to owners of images from the BAYC and MAYC collections. And their daily turnover on the secondary market after the launch exceeded $27 million.

Other famous collections also had high-profile infomercials in January. Doodles creators acquired Emmy-nominated animation studio Golden Wolf. And PROOF, the company behind Moonbirds collection, contracted with Hollywood’s United Talent Agency to promote the brand outside of the Web 3.0 sphere in traditional advertising and TV shows. The average image price from Doodles was up 1.82% in January and Moonbirds was up 3.43%, according to NFT Price Floor.

Overall, collections in the top 10 by market capitalization survived the market downturn best. They also had the top 10 sales in January, according to a DappRadar report. They were also the first to recover from last year’s market decline. For example, the Bitwise Blue-Chip NFT Collections Index showed a 28.6% increase in prices from December. However, it is still nearly 65% lower than in January 2021.

Main NFT marketplaces

Marketplace sites oriented toward collectors are gradually wresting market share from those whose focus is primarily on traders and speculators. Blur, which seeks to minimize commissions for art creators. They accounted for 20% of the market for the third month in a row. In terms of turnover, the site is second only to OpenSea, with X2Y2 and Magic Eden in third and fourth place, respectively.

PFP-collections (NFT-collections with profile images) remain the most successful in terms of sales on the platforms. This is due to their high liquidity and hype in social networks. OpenSea remains the largest site in terms of trading volume, ($495 million in January). Platform received about $12.3 million of income from commissions from the trades and placement of NFT by their creators.

Our experts note that despite encouraging crypto market results. NFT platform Coinbase, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, announced that it is suspending new collections listings. However, company representatives stressed that this does not mean the closure of its platform.

Coinbase’s NFT platform was not one of the top six trading platforms. And its trading volume, according to Dune Analytics, is only $7.3 million for its entire existence, roughly equivalent to 7% of OpenSea’s January results.

Market trends

In January, sales increased at all significant blockchains. For example, NFT sales on the Ethereum blockchain jumped from nearly $558 million in December to more than $772 million in January. And on Solana – respectively, from $69.5 million to $86 million. The largest NFT collection on Solana blockchain, called “DeGods,” showed a 113% increase in trading volumes in January. This was despite the fact that at the end of December its authors announced plans to migrate to Polygon.

NFT sales on Polygon were up 157% from December, reaching 4.5 million units. This was greatly aided by the launch of Donald Trump’s NFT collection, which has seen sales of $12.1 million since its launch.
As well as popularity of NFT passes to the “Mocaverse” meta universes from Animoca Labs and The Sandbox. Polygon token (MATIC) also had a successful start to 2023, rising 72% to $1.23 since Jan. 1.

Lending platforms that allow you to borrow crypto assets against NFT are also showing growth. NFTfi hit record highs in January with $300 million in turnover, 4,399 loans and 907 active borrowers and lenders. According to Dune Analytics, NFTfi and BendDAO together account for about 70% of the NFT lending market.

Despite the skeptical sentiment of the past six months. NFT market is starting to come to life, although its trading volumes as a whole have clearly correlated with the rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Crypto-Upvotes experts conducted their analysis and told about prospects of NFT segment

Throughout 2022, application solutions with NFT have been actively developed in a variety of projects. The audience of the technology continues to grow at a tremendous rate due to the introduction of the technology by social media. This year, some tools related to NFT were implemented by Twitter (audience of about 400 million users), Reddit (audience of about 430 million users), Onlyfans (audience of about 175 million users).Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and Youtube also announced their plans to implement NFT.

Based on these data, we can consider a long-term investment portfolio, taking into account the prospects for the development of NFT

We would suggest dividing the investment portfolio into two parts. The first would be a liquid backbone, the tokens of projects that provide infrastructure for NFT. Polygon blockchain turned out to be the most popular for application solutions. Therefore, as the audience grows, the entire ecosystem could get developed, so the demand for native blockchain tokens would grow accordingly.

Other top blockchains – Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain – may also get a comparable effect from the development of NFT.

Another interesting application of NFT is the Fragment platform from Telegram. It is likely that in the future the supply will expand and the demand for TON will increase.

We suggest forming the second part of the portfolio from specific tokens of various promising NFT tokens. In a growing market, which by all projections should occur in the second half of 2023 and all of 2024. Therefore, collections with high social capital could go up in price several times over.

When to buy ?

Today, terrific conditions for opening long-term positions for at least 1-2 years, better from 3 years or more. The ongoing scandals around centralized exchanges are constantly weighing on the value of the Binance exchange’s native token. And rumors around the potential centralization of Ethereum due to the move to PoS, with validators predominantly in the same jurisdiction, are also negatively affecting the price of ETH in the medium term.

The market as a whole continues to be in a global bearish trend, which opens up the possibility of buying any tokens at undervalued prices.

What is the right investment portfolio structure ?

• Polygon (MATIC) — 20%
• Toncoin (TON) — 20%
• Ethereum (ETH) — 10%
• Binance coin (BNB) — 5%

Another 5% can be allocated under ApeCoin (APE) acting as a native token in the company’s developed meta-universe. The company that owns the world’s most popular NFT-collections Bored Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks and Meebits.

The remaining 40% can be distributed among different NFT-collections.

For example, find interesting offers among applied projects from social media, like collections from Reddit or Twitter.

Risks

The first part of the investment portfolio is quite conservative by the standards of the crypto market. It lists well-established, reliable projects that have many growth and development factors other than the NFT segment. Therefore, the risks in 3/5 of the portfolio do not exceed the overall risks of the market.

However, the rest are extremely risky investments. You have to consider that NFTs have several orders of magnitude less liquidity. And predicting the value of NFTs in the future does not differ in its essence from flipping a coin for luck. But, with all that, the investment can pay off many times over, given a lucky set of circumstances. For example, one appreciated token can potentially outweigh the value of all the others that will fall. But there is absolutely no guarantee that this will happen to you, to your chosen collection, with tokens owned by you.

That’s why it’s worth investing only as much as you’re willing to lose at least half of that amount.

Disclaimer

Crypto-Upvotes experts do not give investment advice, this material is published for introductory purposes only. Cryptocurrency is a volatile asset that can lead to financial losses.

The latest version of Winamp allows users to link a Metamask wallet through browsers. As well as access audio and video files on Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. Crypto-Upvotes expert review

Winamp media player has released an update with support for NFT tracks. The new 5.9.1 version of the player for Windows desktop systems allows users to link their Metamask wallet through Brave, Chrome or Firefox browsers. And access NFT-formatted audio and video files, this company said in a press release.

Winamp will now support ERC-721 and ERC-1155 tokens on Ethereum and Polygon blockchains. NFT tracks can be listened to and added to playlists, just like any other audio file format.

NFT support will be added with several other important updates. The capabilities of the player will be complemented by a feature-rich cross-platform service for content creators. This service is scheduled to launch in early 2023.

Winamp, launched in 1997, was a key player in the first digital music innovation – the mp3 format. Now the player, keeping up with the times, is introducing the next generation of formats. As more and more writers and artists use web3 technology.

Market for virtual art continues to grow, despite falling prices for cryptocurrencies and collectibles. Which of NFT artist’s works sold the most, and what was bought this summer.

NFTs are unique crypto-assets that are often objects of art and digital collectibles. Rapid growth in popularity of NFTs began in 2021. And by the end of which NFT trading volume exceeded $13 billion.

This figure was up almost 400 times from 2020 ($33 million). However, due to the downturn in the cryptocurrency market in 2022. The NFT industry has shown a significant decline in sales: in July, it was about $647.23 million.

Despite this, investors and NFT enthusiasts continue to be interested in digital art. Prices for some works by virtual artists approach those of luxury goods. And in particular, they are comparable to the cost of a luxury home. The most popular tokens continue to be items from the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Cool Cats and Crypto Punks collections. Such NFTs are owned by celebrities including rappers Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, footballer Neymar, Madonna, Ozzy Osbourne and others.

Our experts found the most expensive NFTs ever sold

The Merge – $98.1 million

This work of art was created by Pak, a student of Mike Winkelmann (also known as Beeple). This painting is made up of balls of different sizes. About 29 thousand people invested in The Merge, and total value of NFT was $91.8 million.

The First 5000 Days – $69.3 million

Work by American graphic designer Beeple. NFT was sold in 2021 for $69.3 million at Christie’s auction. First 5000 Days is a collage of Beeple work from 2007.

Clock – $52.7 million

This NFT was created by digital artist Pak to support Wikileaks journalist Julian Assange. The clock counts down how many days Assange has been in prison. It was bought by an activist group AssangeDAO.

HUMAN ONE – $28.8 million

Another NFT by Beeple, sold by him at Christie’s auction. HUMAN ONE is an animated 3d image of an astronaut. Beeple has access to this NFT and can change it periodically.

CryptoPank No. 5822 – $23.7 million

Pixel NFT with a blue punk in a bandana was sold for 8,000 ETH. It was bought for that amount in early 2022.

Expensive NFT buys over last few months

The Answer

The Answer was sold for 100 ETH ($174,900) This work is by one of the most successful digital artists of anyma. Who illuminates in his work the interaction between technology and nature.

gn

NFT gn desktop wallpaper by artist Rajon Bliss (@rivenribbon) was purchased by Snoop Dogg for 64.0 ETH ($97.3k).

88MPH In SoHo

A work by photographer Guido Di Salle was sold for 55.0 ETH ($74,000).

Synth Garden

NFT by Indian artist Archana Nair was sold for 124.69 ETH ($138,100).

Painting by actor Jim Carrey– Sunshower for 62,04 ETH ($69,500 )

Cristiano Ronaldo will launch the first NFT collection in partnership with Binance by end of 2022

Football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo will release several NFT collections. Sportsman entered into a multiyear partnership with Binance exchange, according to a Binance blog. So a goal of this partnership would be to create digital collectibles and attract soccer fans to Web3 ecosystem. “Nothing is more important to me than the fans, so the idea of bringing unprecedented experiences and access through this platform is something that I wanted to be a part of” – says Ronaldo. “We are thrilled to provide his fans with exclusive engagement opportunities to connect with Ronaldo” – said Binance CEO “CZ”.

So the first collection, set to launch at the end of this year. Will feature NFTs with an original design developed by Binance in collaboration with Ronaldo. According to an exchange blog, through a series of NFT collections, Ronaldo will provide a unique experience for soccer fans from many countries. Binance does not disclose details about this partnership, we do not know pricing or other options for this NFT collection at this time. Cristiano Ronaldo already has experience with crypto projects. In 2019, he played for Italian Juventus Football Club, which launched token JUV, which gave fans the right to vote in a number of decisions.

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