Feb. 14 (Reuters) - He's alive! The NFT market is coming out of its slumber, defying reports of its demise.
Total NFT sales on the ethereum blockchain, which hosts the majority of transactions, rose to $780.2 million in January from $546.9 million the previous month, according to market tracker CryptoSlam.
Digital art collectibles were among the big hits. "Bored Ape Yacht Club #5840," a cartoon ape who shoots green lasers out of his eyes, sold for $822,730, for example, while "CryptoPunks #7674," a pixelated character smoking a pipe, sold for $433,555. Dollars.
The average NFT sale price was a more modest $372.38, according to CryptoSlam.
The $780 million in sales seen last month is a fraction of the roughly $5 billion seen last January and $2.7 billion in May, before the market went into a tailspin along with much of the crypto world.
Nonetheless, the market has inched back since November after hitting a low of $324 million the previous month, according to CryptoSlam data, with some traders betting on a future for NFTs across games and brands.
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"We'll see another 2021-style run when we can really bring the next big wave of entrants into the space," said Teng Yan, principal investigator at Delphi Digital, estimating that there are 30,000 to 50,000 people actively trading NFTs in this moment.
MYSTERY AND AIR DROPS
Despite the nascent rebound, the future of non-fungible tokens remains shrouded in mystery. Few crypto experts expect a repeat of the 2021 boom anytime soon. Some doubt the long-term appeal of paying to be registered on the blockchain as the owner of a digital file that anyone can view online for free.
Saro McKenna, CEO of Alien Worlds, an NFT metaverse and blockchain gaming company, said NFTs had the potential to help businesses and celebrities engage with customers and fans.
"The most promising aspect of this technology will be as more and more of the Disney and Dua Lipa world turn to NFTs more and more," added McKenna.
Some market players said the January surge in NFT sales volumes was also driven by the entry of a new online marketplace, Blur, which has attracted investor interest since it launched late last year and announced a series of free "airdrops" of coins and other rewards.
NFT trading volumes on Blur's platform totaled $101.2 million over the past seven days, slightly above the $100.4 million seen on mainstream marketplace OpenSea, according to data from DappRadar.
However, in the last 30 days, OpenSea is still first with volumes of $443.98 million, against $366 million for Blur.
BITCOIN JOINS THE NFT PARTY
In another non-fungible development, the novel use of the bitcoin blockchain to mint an NFT collection has caused a stir among cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
Bitcoin Punks is a series of monkey-themed NFTs and a spin-off of the popular CryptoPunks collection. Some media reports have indicated that Bitcoin Punk NFT sells for as much as 9.5 bitcoins, worth around $205,000.
"We're going through a bit of a hype phase for this because it's just new, it's novel, and people are rushing to try to be the first people to mint NFTs on bitcoin," Teng Yan said at Delphi Digital, noting there wasn't a marketplace for bitcoin NFTs, and all transactions were done over the counter.
"The hype will die down in the next two weeks."
Reporting by Medha Singh in Bangalore; Edited by Pravin Char
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