NFTs and blockchain games paint a bright picture

by Arthur · July 7, 2022

Despite the fact that DApp’s total active wallets fell in the last quarter, NFT sales have continued to increase significantly.
Innovation in NFTs has started with an increasing number of marketplaces that are out to compete.

The crypto market has been in great turmoil for the past eight months. In Q2 2022, the market correction was exacerbated by the collapse of the Terra ecosystem and major liquidity problems faced by CeFi lenders and crypto hedge funds.

But despite all the turmoil, DappRadar’s latest report shows that NFT space and blockchain gaming (GameFi) has shown better performance and resistance to the bear’s attack. The DappRadar report notes that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have withstood the storm relatively well.

Although there is a decline from quarter to quarter, the trend from year to year is still bullish for NFTs. “Total trading volume and sales figures are up by 533 percent and 59 percent from the second quarter of 2021, respectively,” the report states.

During the second quarter of 2022, Ethereum NFT trading volumes collapsed over 40 percent from the previous quarter. However, sales figures rose by 2 per cent in the same period. This is a clear indication that the demand for NFTs continues to be strong.

Similarly, Ethereum-based largest NFT marketplace OpenSea saw a decline in its market share. Bur DappRadar notes that OpenSea’s decline in trading is not an indicator of the fall of the entire market. The market value of Ethereum’s top 100 NFTs plummeted due to the collapsing value of ETH.

On the flip side, the NFT market value in the form of ETH has been on the rise. The DappRadar report notes: “It went from the low of 3 million ETH in October to the peak in April, reaching 6 million ETH. At present, the market value is over 5 million ETH, a fall of 8 percent since April, but an increase of 20 percent since May ”.

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Ethereum rivals gain market share

According to DappRadar, some of Ethereum’s rivals have been in the spotlight. During the second quarter of 2022, the NFT trading volume on Solana jumped by 23 percent compared to the previous quarter. Similarly, Ethereum Layer-1 competitor Avalance reported a 15 percent jump in NFT trading volume. Solana’s marketplace DApps wins out as they offer 0 percent listing fees and only 2 percent trading fees.

On the other hand, NFT marketplaces are seeing increasing competition. Despite the fact that OpenSea is the largest NFT marketplace, the market share has been declining. According to DappRadar, marketplaces such as LooksRare, x2y2 and Solana’s Magic Eden have eaten at OpenSea’s market share.

Furthermore, Ethereum-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Uniswap is making great strides in the NFT sector. Uniswap acquired the NFT aggregator platform Genie, which meets all NFT trading requirements in one place with reduced gas taxes.

But to keep market dominance intact, even OpenSea is making big strides. OpenSea launched SeaPort, an advanced open source trading protocol that allows trading multiple NFTs at once. In addition, it also started offering Solana-based NFTs and bought NFT market aggregator Gem.

At the same time, Solana’s leading marketplace Magic Eden has seen a solid influx of traders in the midst of the successful launch of several NFT collections such as the Okay Bears. Last quarter, Magic Eden contributed 10% of all NFT transactions, thanks to extremely low listing and trading fees.

The demand for blue-chip NFTs is back, and new NFT innovations

In the midst of the sharp decline in the NFT area, some of the NFT projects also saw their value fall earlier this year. The most popular Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection saw a 38 percent drop in floor prices from April 30th. During the last quarter, BAYC’s floor price fell from 150 ETH to 90 ETH. Similarly, the MAYC project saw a 57 percent drop in floor prices. As DappRadar explains:

This withdrawal has been a combination of macroeconomic trends related to the recession in the capital markets and the release of new projects such as Goblin Town and Moonbirds, and has enticed many to sell their older NFTs to acquire new ones.

Interestingly, there has been a solid improvement for these blue-chip projects during the last week of June. In the last two weeks, BAYC’s floor price has jumped by 24 percent. Similarly, Doodles and CryptoPunks have seen NFT prices rise by 44%. During the same period, Meebit’s NFT floor price grew by a staggering 76 percent.

Similarly, Metaverse-focused NFTs had a good second quarter 2022. The trading volume for Ethereum-based Metaverse NFT collections jumped 101 percent. However, “Polygon collections have unfortunately declined by 26%. Overall, there has been a 96% growth,” according to DappRadar.

Related: Chain analysis report: Real estate and games continue to see great demand in the meta-verse

In the midst of all the volatility, NFT projects have continued to innovate even during this market correction. Back in April 2022, Moonbirds NFT collected a record sales volume of over 100,000 ETH or one trillion USD. Record sales came from a very strong and loyal community that supported it.

Another interesting innovation in the NFT area is the Ethereum Name Service. This feature allows users to purchase domain names on Ethereum and host content such as wallet addresses or websites. Each domain name is unique and acts as NFTs. People began to imprint domain names on ENS.

The emergence of blockchain games

Blockchain-based games that are popular as GameFi has seen a reasonable growth in the midst of market turmoil. As DappRadar notes, the total number of Unique Active Wallets (UAW) across blockchain DApps has fallen 26% in the last quarter. However, blockchain-based DApps experienced an increase of 5 percent. The report notes:

This is a bullish indicator for blockchain games, as many have speculated that game-dapps would lose most of their player base if they ceased to be financially profitable for the average user. It was proved that this was not the case.

For the eighth month in a row, Spliterlands emerged as the most played blockchain game with 350,000 daily active wallets. Alien Worlds and Upland are also among the most played blockchain daps with minor changes to UAWs. Gamified fitness DApps like STEPN took the market by storm by leveraging the Move-to-Earn (M2E) trend. Other similar projects such as Genopets, Step App and DotMoovs, which deal with an active lifestyle and token rewards, are seeing increasing demand.