Author: Daniel@footprint.network
Source: NFT Monthly Report
Two interesting trends occurred for NFT chains and marketplaces in March. Despite breaking out in February to reach 4.2% of total NFT trading volume, Polygon fell to under 1% of the total market, making it once again the 3rd largest NFT chain. On the other hand, Blur didn’t slow down and instead widened its lead as the most popular marketplace. It now has 66% of total trading volume, making it a truly disruptive project in an industry where the adjective is thrown around too loosely.
ETH, and the market in general, reflected the stock market, dipping sharply at the beginning of the month then bouncing back strongly.
Despite decent price support and user numbers, the investment environment for NFT projects was relatively muted. The largest round — a joint venture between Animoca Brands and Hex Trust — raised $7.5M. All rounds were either Seed or Pre-Seed.
ETH dropped to 1,429 on March 11, but then rebounded 30%
This jump is a 7-month high, showing a relatively strong performance for the cryptocurrency. The price action correlates to a weak beginning of the month for the S&P followed by a strong rebound, although not as closely as the correlation during the bull market.
NFTs reached a 20.4B market cap on March 18
Note that this figure excludes wash trading detected by Footprint Analytics. This is slightly lower than its highest in February — $21.2B. However, NFT trading volume decreased markedly, to $1.5B.
The number of weekly NFTs users declined MoM
Since this chart and metric is summarized on a weekly basis, it’s possible to give a rough figure of 25 to 35% based on the general price areas.
Ethereum remains the largest chain for NFT trading volume
The network saw $1.4B in volume in March, while others saw their largest contraction ever relative to the overall market. Polygon was especially hard hit, going from from $84.2M in volume to $15.2M.
OpenSea generated $5.3M in platform fees in March
The marketplace remains far-and-away the most profitable, followed by LooksRare.
Blur accounted for over 66% of trading volume
The aggregator marketplace focused on high-performance NFT trading continued to expand its lead in the market. This is unsurprising considering the bear market selects for the participation of the most advanced traders. Whether it retains its dominance and attracts casual users upon a market recovery remains to be seen.
While total rounds in the blockchain industry declined by 38%, the NFT sector saw a 20% drop MoM
Eight NFT projects closed rounds in March, but amounts were relatively small. Gryfyn, a decentralized custodial wallet joint venture between Animoca Brands and Hex Trust, raised $7.5M. All rounds last month were Seed or Pre-Seed.
This piece is contributed by Footprint Analytics community.
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