Ethereum NFT transactions fall below 1 million, signaling bearish sentiment

by James · September 8, 2022

Ethereum non-fungible token (NFT) total transactions fell to a new low in August due to a reduced interest in digital collectible projects in the ecosystem.

Ethereum NFTs continue to dominate the digital art industry. That said, the blockchain saw reduced activity in terms of total transactions of NFTs in the last month. After seeing more than one million transactions each month between April and July, NFT’s transactions on the soon-to-be proof-of-stake (PoS) network fell to 998,433 in August.

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Unique buyers plunge to nine-month lows

Much of this came from a further reduction in unique buyers from 229,930 in July to 199,454 in August. This was the lowest number since the 152,064 unique buyers in November 2021.

The top-selling NFTs on Ethereum from Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) to Moonbirds also saw a significant drop in unique buyers. BAYC unique buyers hit a 16-month low of 263 and accounted for 438 transactions.

CryptoPunks, the third best-selling NFTs of all time, saw 103 unique buyers corresponding to 159 total transactions. Other well-known projects such as Otherdeeds from Otherside Metaverse also saw a three-month low number of unique buyers from 20,514 in May to 1,934 in August, which also equated to 3,778 total transactions, another three-month low.

Solana surpassed Ethereum in NFT total transactions

Ronin, the maker of Axie Infinity, the most successful NFT of all time in terms of sales, processed 10,455 transactions while Flow, the blockchain that hosts NBA Top Shot and NFL ALL DAY, saw 648,169 transactions.

Total NFT transactions on Polygon and Wax were 556,791 and 495,801 respectively. Within the same period, Solana was the only chain to surpass Ethereum with almost 1.6 million transactions.

ETH did not perform well in the month leading up to the merger

Many ETH holders felt the project would regain some lost ground in August ahead of the September merger. Unfortunately, total value has locked up, NFT sales volume and ETH price has fallen over the past month.

Ethereum TVL shed $3 billion ahead of The Merge after opening and closing August at $37 billion and $34 billion, respectively.

Ethereum continues to fall in TVL so far in September, and this has caught the attention of some of the major players in the industry.

“Total Value Locked (TVL) on Ethereum protocols has decreased by 5.50% to $32.92 billion in the last 24 hours, showing that investors’ focus has been diverted from the upcoming merger to the current global the macroeconomic outlook. While the factors pushing down the price of Ethereum are ominous, many are hopeful that the transition to Proof-of-Stake will help revive all of the protocol’s calculations. While it is true that “The Merge” will spell a new era which may make investors tilt more favorably towards Ethereum compared to its archrival, Bitcoin in terms of its reduced energy consumption, in the short term, the coin cannot be insulated from the inflationary pressures experienced by other coins. However, in the long term, Ethereum has the right fundamental and technical the support to support a renewed drive up to its previous all-time high (ATH) above $4,891,” said Ego Huang, CEO of Deepcoin.

Ethereum NFT sales also tested a 13-month low in August after generating approximately $497 million. This was the lowest since July 2021’s figure of $410 million.

ETH, the original asset used for on-chain transactions, traded below the $2,100 resistance level throughout the month and has yet to surpass the September mark.

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