NFT sales decline ahead of Christmas

    29 Dec 2022
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    NFT sales volumes fell in the lead-up to Christmas in 2022 as well as in 2021.  Meanwhile, Yuga Labs’s Bored Ape Yacht Club’s floor price increased ahead of the holiday.

    For the second year in a row, NFT sales have dipped leading up to Christmas. NFT trading volume fell from over $24 million on Dec. 20 to $12.9 million on Dec. 25 of this year – a 46.5% decrease.

    According to the NFT data tracker CryptoSlam, NFT trading volume decreased this year from $80.8 million on Dec. 22 to $64.3 million on Dec. 25.

    In 2022, Christmas transaction volume fell 80% compared to 2021 due to the ongoing bearish sentiment in the crypto market. The downturn affected NFT marketplace transactions considerably, leading to consecutive decreases in transaction volume for the past eight months.

    On the other side, Yuga Labs’s NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) rallied ahead of Christmas for the second year in a row, The Block’s Dashboard revealed.

    In the five days before the holiday, the BAYC floor price increased by 3.81 ETH in 2021 and 10.28 ETH in 2022, respectively. Meantime, CryptoPunks’ floor price decreased last year and remained steady around the holiday in 2022, despite accounting for five of the 12 most expensive NFT sales in 2022.

    Meanwhile, creators of the popular Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, Yuga Labs, recently received a counterclaim in an ongoing lawsuit against an artist and his business partner who allegedly forged “copycat” versions of their NFT collection. 

    “Each of these NFTs is an entry on a decentralized digital ledger and entirely unique by design, making them both non-fungible and impossible to copy,” reads a filing by artist Ryder Ripps and the founder of NFT marketplace Not Larva Labs Jeremy Cahen.

    In June, Yuga Labs filed the lawsuit, accusing Ripps and Cahen of copying their NFT collections and devaluing the original Bored Ape products. The pair have denied the allegations. 

    Contrary, Ripps and Cahen claim that their take on the BAYC collection, called RR/BAYC, does not infringe on the copyright owned by Yuga Labs. Furthermore, they claim they “used conceptual art to critique hateful imagery” they saw used by the Bored Ape NFT maker.

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