Are NFTs Dead? Don’t Count on it

Commentary: Pronouncements of the death of the NFT are premature. True, NFTs are hurting bad. But so is everything else.

NFTs don’t look too healthy right now.

On Sunday, just $52 million worth of nonfungible tokens were sold on OpenSea, the biggest marketplace for such wares. That’s the lowest single-day volume the platform has seen since December and a significant downswing from April, when trading dipped below $100 million on only a handful of occasions, reported the cnet.com.

Less buying means precipitous falls in NFT prices. After enjoying a starting price of $400,000 in April, Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs are now going for half that. Similar drops have been seen in other big ticket collections. The entry price of pixelated Moonbirds has cratered from an April high of $110,000 to $45,000, while Reese Witherspoon-backed World of Women’s entry price is $10,000, down from $34,000.

Compounding the chaos, NFTs are dumping right alongside bitcoin and ether. Bitcoin on Wednesday fell below $28,000 for the first time since 2020, and ether came close to $2,000, far below its high of $4,600 in November. Web3 isn’t euphoric right now.

Citing a huge fall in the number of NFTs bought, the Wall Street Journal reported last week that NFT sales were “flatlining,” while Yahoo questioned whether a $140,000 sale of a CryptoPunk bought for $1 million six months prior signaled “the death of the NFT.” This has sparked another type of euphoria: Punters calling the imminent demise of NFTs.