NFT boom: OpenSea trading volume skyrockets 76,240%

The NFT boom caused OpenSea trading volume to explode 76,240% year-to-date. The non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace processed 1.18 million transactions worth $1.06 billion just in the last 30 days. Trading volumes on peer-to-peer nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea in 2021 have surged by over 12,000%.

According to DappRadar data, the total incoming value to OpenSea’s smart contracts on Wednesday increased to $56.07 million compared to $73,556 on Jan. 1. Meanwhile, the marketplace’s user count increased from 315 to 14,520 in the same period — a 4,423% increase.

A major part of the trading spike happened after June. At the start of the month, the capital entering the marketplace’s smart contracts was just about $3.6 million. However, by last Sunday, it had surged over $71.238 million.

Moreover, OpenSea processed 1.18 million transactions worth $1.06 billion on the previous 30-day average alone. The marketplace’s cumulative volume year-to-date was $1.02 billion as of Aug. 2, by the Messari data.

The total sales volume for NFTs increased to $2.5 billion in the first half of 2021 compared to $13.7 million in the first half of 2020, by the data of research platform Dune Analytics. OpenSea’s average daily fee revenue in 2021 was $4.2 million, about 7% higher than decentralized exchange service Uniswap. In June, it posted a record $150 million in crypto collectible sales.

Data on NonFungible.com data tracker shows that the NFT boom witnessed in the first and second quarter of 2021 saw about 60,000 new wallets interacting with NFTs.

NonFungible.com data tracking service pointed that more than 45,000 new wallets engaged with crypto collectible services in May and June alone. Despite the dip in sales in April and early May, the number of active NFT wallets increased from 3,107 in Jan.-Feb. 2021 to 6,418 in Mar.-Apr. 2021, it added.

“This indicates a good proportion of new users who became interested in NFTs at the very beginning of the 2021 hype then remained active over the following months,” said the NonFungible.com report. “The USD indicator is certainly always interesting to observe but looking more deeply at the number of active wallets and especially new wallets gives much more precise indications on the state of the NFT market.”

Jeff Dorman, Chief Investment Officer of US-based investment management firm Arca, recently said on Twitter: “The rise of NFTs is similar to what we’ve seen in TradFi [traditional finance] markets for 2 decades. While Bitcoin is a great asset, it’s no longer representative of the asset class as other sectors are leading the way forward.”