NFT collectors sent $37 billion to the market in May, the same as last year

Original title: NFT collectors will send $37 billion to the market in 2022, almost the same as 2021

This year (as of May 1), collectors of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have sent more than $37 billion in value to the NFT market, a figure that almost exceeds the total for all of 2021.

According to a report by Chainalysis, investors sent $40 billion worth of cryptocurrencies to smart contracts related to NFT collections and marketplaces in 2021.

Source: Chainalysis

Since the beginning of last year, the volume of NFT transactions has increased significantly, but the overall growth of the industry has not been stable.

The report noted that NFT trading volumes have been erratic and have been in a downturn since mid-February. Since then, as of mid-April, the NFT market has seen a brief recovery — likely due to the recent hype surrounding Moonbirds and Bored Ape Yacht Club’s metaverse project Otherside.

Despite short-term fluctuations in NFT transaction volume, the number of people buying and selling NFTs around the world remains strong, with 950,000 unique addresses buying and selling NFTs in Q1 2022.

As of May 1, 491,000 unique addresses have traded NFTs in the second quarter of 2022, continuing the growing trend in the number of market participants.

By analyzing the network traffic of major NFT markets, Chainalysis pointed out that NFT has attracted users from all corners of the world, with the majority of users in Central and South Asia, followed by North America and Western Europe.

Source: Chainalysis

The report contradicts the conclusions of a recent Wall Street Journal article. According to the article, NFT sales have stagnated. The article stated that "the NFT market is collapsing," however, in the same week, the primary and secondary sales of the top five NFT series alone exceeded $1 billion.

The day before Chainalysis released the report, Coinbase launched its internal NFT marketplace without any major concerns. On-chain data shows that only 150 transactions occurred on May 4, the first day of trading, and the platform’s transaction volume was only $75,000.