2021 has been a crazy year for the crypto industry, with an unparalleled exorbitant demand explosion.
Crypto currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and Co. rushed from one all-time high to the next. The industry was out of control, everything that was thrown onto the market was bought up.
The greed for ever-rising prices and profits made many investors’ brains fail.
And the still young market for NFT artworks also experienced an unprecedented boom. The major auction houses such as Christie’s also took notice, causing prices to increase tenfold again.
Hundreds of millions of dollars were paid for individual works of art or collections.
The unprecedented bull run of the NFT market
Last year, 2021 saw the flash in the pan in the NFT market. In July, more than $178 million worth of NFT was bought and sold on average every day in July.
This increased until the beginning of this year. In January 2022, the average daily NFT turnover was almost $190 million.
The most expensive NFT artwork sold was CryptoPunk #9998, which sold for 124,457 ETH, which was about $530 million at the time.
This sale took place on October 28, 2021 and the unknown buyer has also acquired many other NFT artworks and collections. These included works by Fidenza and Meebits, which were among the most expensive NFTs at the time.
9 Rare CryptoPunks from @LarvaLabs own collection to star in our May 21st Century Evening Sale in New York.
All coin numbers under 1k and yes, there is a rare Alien! Punks 2, 532, 58, 30, 635, 602, 768, 603, 757 #CryptoPunks
More at: https://t.co/o41OzqP1UB pic.twitter.com/N0blESQdR1
— Christie’s (@ChristiesInc) April 8, 2021
The rapid decline of the NFT boom
The bull market was short-lived and lasted until early 2022. Then came the rude awakening. Even faster than prices rose, they fell again.
The daily volume of total NFT sales has plummeted by more than 90% and some NFTs have dropped in value by as much as 99% or received no bids at all.
Even the industry’s formerly celebrated stars, such as the works of CryptoPunks or the legendary Bored Ape Yacht Club, are now unsaleable or worth next to nothing.
Even the most popular artists like Beeple get almost nothing for their artwork anymore.
His NFT digital artwork, Everydays: The First 500 Days, which sold for $69.3 million at a Christie’s auction in March 2021, was the most expensive digital work ever sold at the time.
The amazing thing was that his work was more expensive than the most valuable old master paintings on the art market at the time.
Beeple could also sell his other works in 2021 for several million dollars per NFT. Currently, the highest bid for an NFT from Beeple is a relatively paltry price of $1,215.
These formerly expensive NFT works and collections are now worth almost nothing
There are currently hardly any offers for NFT works by the formerly very popular artist XCOPY. Nobody wants to buy them anymore, at any price.
Last year his NFT works fetched more than $6 million, today the highest bid is $3,114.
In December 2021, rapper Snoop Dogg paid almost $7.1 million for the most expensive XCOPY NFT “Right-Click and Save as Guy”, today the bid is 0.0001 ETH, so less than $0.13 before.
The MekaVers NFT collection sold for $1.8 million on December 30, 2021, up from $552 today.
The ENS Domains NFT Collection paid more than $1.5 million on Oct. 9 and could sell for $12.92 today.
A work from the “CryptoKitties” collection sold in September 2021 for more than $600,000. No offers today – value equals $0.00.
For the collection ‘Invisible Friends’, which was still worth more than $ 590,000 in March 2022, you could get almost $ 4,800 today.
The future of the NFT market
The NFT market may recover somewhat, but the question is whether crazy prices such as in 2021 will ever be paid for individual NFTs again.
But the future will show that it is not impossible, even if it is unlikely. At least as far as the art NFT market is concerned. But NFTs have much more functions than looking “pretty”.