Amount of NFT transactions on the rise: report

NFTs transactions are on the rise as a new report shows the number of unique addresses that bought and sold NFTs so far in 2022 has jumped.

A Chainalysis State of Web3 Report explained Q1 2022, 950,000 unique addresses bought or sold an NFT are up from 627,000 in Q4 2021.

According to the report, the number of active NFT buyers and sellers has increased every quarter since Q2 2020. In Q2 2022 as of May 1, 491,000 addresses have transacted with NFTs, putting the NFT market on pace to continue its quarterly growth trend in number of participants.

The number of active NFT collections on OpenSea — meaning those with any transaction activity in a given week — has also grown consistently since March 2021, and currently sits above 4,000.

The Chainalysis report claimed the current NFT market in 2022 is set to beat the $40 billion worth of cryptocurrency NFT collectors sent to smart contracts last year, as collectors have already sent over $37 billion worth of cryptocurrency to NFT-related smart contracts in 2022 as of May.

The authors of the report explain, “However, since late summer 2021, NFT transaction growth has come in fits and starts, with activity largely remaining flat except for two big spikes: One in late August, which was likely driven by the release of the Mutant Ape Yacht Club collection, and one stretching from late January to early February of 2022, which was likely driven by the launch of the LooksRare NFT marketplace.”

After that spike though, NFT transaction activity declined significantly beginning in mid-February, dropping from $3.9 billion the week of February 13 to $964 million the week of March 13 — the lowest weekly level since the week of August 1, 2021.

“The NFT market began to recover in mid-April, however, and is now approaching the weekly volumes it hit earlier in the year, likely due to the recent launch of Bored Ape Yacht Club’s metaverse project,” the authors explained.