NFT sales sink 20% to $58.3M as Bitcoin stalls near $70K and market sentiment sours
The NFT market has logged a second straight week of declining activity, with total sales sliding to 58.34 million dollars over the past seven days—a drop of 20.34% compared with the previous week. The pullback comes as broader crypto markets lose momentum: Bitcoin is struggling to hold the 70,000‑dollar level, while Ethereum trades close to 2,000 dollars, dragging overall risk appetite lower.
NFT trading cools, but participant numbers rise
Despite the fall in dollar-denominated sales, activity under the surface tells a more nuanced story.
– Total NFT buyers increased by 21.97% to 296,018.
– Sellers climbed 24.63% to 270,495.
– Transaction count slipped 4.33% to 660,674.
In other words, more wallets are interacting with NFT markets, but they are transacting in smaller sizes or at lower prices. This divergence between user growth and dollar volume suggests a rotation toward lower-cost collections, experimentation by new entrants, or simple risk-off behavior among bigger spenders.
Macro backdrop: shrinking crypto market cap weighs on NFTs
The NFT slowdown is unfolding against a backdrop of broad crypto weakness. The global cryptocurrency market capitalization has retreated to 2.41 trillion dollars, well below last week’s 2.83 trillion. Bitcoin’s retreat to around 70,000 dollars and Ethereum’s stagnation near 2,000 dollars have trimmed speculative enthusiasm across the board.
Historically, NFT volumes tend to track large-cap crypto performance: when BTC and ETH rally, traders feel wealthier and become more willing to deploy capital into higher-risk, illiquid assets like NFTs. The current drawdown is reversing that effect. With asset prices under pressure and volatility elevated, capital is rotating back into core tokens or stablecoins, sidelining much of the demand that had previously flowed into JPEGs and digital collectibles.
Ethereum remains dominant, even as its volumes shrink
Ethereum continues to anchor the NFT sector, remaining the top blockchain by sales despite experiencing one of the steeper declines:
– Ethereum NFT sales: 34.97 million dollars, down 23.63% week-on-week.
– Number of buyers: 33,663, up 20.44% from the previous week.
– Wash trading volume: 2.91 million dollars over the same period.
That combination—falling nominal sales but rising buyer counts—mirrors the broader market pattern. More market participants are engaging, yet the average ticket size appears to be shrinking. The presence of nearly 3 million dollars in wash trading also underlines an ongoing structural challenge: distinguishing genuine organic demand from volume generated by incentives, farming schemes, or price manipulation.
Bitcoin NFTs slip into second place
Bitcoin holds the number two position among NFT blockchains, though its metrics also point to a cooler market:
– Bitcoin NFT sales: 4.66 million dollars, down 32.81% week-over-week.
– Buyers: 12,770, up 17.10%.
The decline in total sales, coupled with a rising number of buyers, hints at a similar pattern of fragmentation: more participants, but fewer high-value purchases. Interest in Bitcoin-based NFTs and inscriptions remains alive, yet the market appears to be transitioning from speculative mania to a more subdued, experimental phase where collectors test lower-priced assets.
Base, BNB Chain, and Solana show pockets of resilience
Not every chain is moving in lockstep with the downward trend. Some networks are quietly gaining traction even as headline numbers decline:
– Base clinched third place with 4.14 million dollars in NFT sales, rising 8.46% week-over-week and attracting 83,552 buyers (up 6.09%).
– BNB Chain ranked fourth, with 3.93 million dollars in sales, a 20.62% decline. Yet the number of buyers jumped 21.37% to 39,715.
– Solana rounded out the top five, generating 2.61 million dollars in sales, a modest 1.14% increase. Buyer numbers surged 56.69% to 80,610.
These figures suggest that while dollar volume is under pressure, user interest is far from dead—especially on chains known for lower fees and faster settlement. Solana and Base, in particular, appear to be benefitting from cost-sensitive users who might be priced out or discouraged by Ethereum’s fee structure during periods of heightened network activity.
Immutable slides, reflecting gaming sector headwinds
Immutable (IMX), a key player in NFT gaming infrastructure, slipped to sixth place with 2.34 million dollars in sales, a 29.10% decline. This drop may reflect broader headwinds in blockchain gaming: as token prices soften and speculative capital retreats, in-game item trading and play-to-earn economies often feel the impact quickly.
Still, gaming-focused chains like Immutable remain strategically important for the long-term evolution of NFTs, as they shift the narrative from pure collectibles toward utility-driven assets—characters, items, and skins that serve functional roles inside virtual worlds.
Collection rankings: Flying Tulip PUT retreats, CryptoPunks roar back
On the collection level, Ethereum-based Flying Tulip PUT remained at the top of the leaderboard, though its dominance is fading:
– Flying Tulip PUT (Ethereum)
– Sales: 11.41 million dollars
– Weekly change: down 49.06%
– Transactions: 530
– Buyers: 259
The sharp drop in sales hints at cooling speculative fervor after earlier surges. With relatively few buyers and transactions accounting for such a large dollar total, the collection remains highly concentrated, and therefore more vulnerable to large swings as key holders step back.
In stark contrast, CryptoPunks staged a robust comeback:
– Sales: 4.71 million dollars, up 146.56% week-over-week after a prior 52.35% decline.
– Transactions: 69
– Buyers: 44
Both the number of trades and distinct buyers more than doubled over the week. As one of the oldest and most recognizable NFT collections, CryptoPunks often act as a bellwether for high-end NFT sentiment. Their rebound, even in a broadly weaker market, suggests that some collectors continue to rotate capital into blue-chip assets they deem more resilient over the long term.
Other major collections: mixed performance in a fragile market
Beyond the top two, the leaderboard underscores how uneven the market has become:
– A Base-based collection secured third place with 2.11 million dollars in sales, up 15.82%—a notable outlier to the downside trend.
– Pudgy Penguins recorded 2.09 million dollars, down 6.96%.
– Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) booked 1.90 million dollars in sales, soaring 59.79% week-over-week.
– TokenVestingPlans (Ethereum) took sixth place with 1.65 million dollars, jumping 67.85%.
– Guild of Guardians Heroes rounded out the top seven on 1.50 million dollars in sales, declining 22.82%.
Blue-chip collections such as BAYC and Pudgy Penguins seem to be stabilizing after a prolonged period of repricing. Meanwhile, collections tied to specific use cases—like vesting-related NFTs or game assets—are trading more in line with expectations around future utility than hype alone.
High-value trades: CryptoPunks dominate the top tier
When it comes to the biggest-ticket NFTs of the week, CryptoPunks clearly stood out, capturing three of the five highest-value individual sales. That concentration at the top reinforces the notion that, even in a downcycle, capital gravitates toward brands with strong historical significance, established communities, and a perceived store-of-value narrative within the NFT world.
Such high-profile purchases can also function as sentiment signals: while smaller collections struggle for liquidity, deep-pocketed collectors may be quietly consolidating what they view as culturally important digital artifacts.
What the numbers say about the next phase of NFTs
Taken together, the current data paints a picture of a market in transition rather than collapse:
– Sales volume is falling, especially in dollar terms, as major cryptocurrencies lose altitude.
– User participation is rising, with more distinct buyers and sellers entering the space.
– Average deal sizes are shrinking, indicating caution and fragmentation.
– Blue chips are showing resilience, absorbing a larger share of high-value trades.
– Lower-cost chains are gaining traction, hinting at a shift toward more accessible NFT activity.
This combination often characterizes a post-hype, normalization phase. Speculative mania cools, leverage unwinds, but the underlying user base continues to expand and diversify. For builders, it can be a healthier environment: less noise from frothy price action and more focus on real products, communities, and utility.
Key risks and structural challenges
Despite signs of resilience, the NFT ecosystem still faces several structural issues:
1. Price sensitivity to macro moves
The sharp correlation with broader crypto prices makes NFTs vulnerable to any extended Bitcoin or Ethereum downturn. If BTC decisively breaks lower from the 70,000‑dollar region, further declines in NFT valuations are likely.
2. Wash trading and inflated metrics
Millions of dollars in wash trading on major networks continue to muddle analytics. Filtering genuine demand from artificial activity remains crucial for institutional and retail participants trying to assess true market health.
3. Liquidity concentration in blue chips
High-value trades are heavily clustered in a handful of flagship collections. While that supports those brands, it leaves the long tail of projects extremely illiquid and at constant risk of sharp repricings or abandonment.
4. Regulatory uncertainty
As authorities scrutinize crypto markets more closely, questions about securities laws, taxation, and consumer protection around NFTs remain unanswered in many jurisdictions—potentially weighing on institutional adoption.
Where opportunity may be shifting
For participants looking beyond the weekly noise, several emerging themes stand out:
– Utility-based NFTs: Assets tied to gaming, identity, event access, or financial rights may gain ground over purely speculative art and collectibles.
– Cross-chain strategies: The growth in Base and Solana buyers suggests that multi-chain collectors and projects are increasingly important.
– Community and brand building: Collections like CryptoPunks, BAYC, and Pudgy Penguins demonstrate that durable narratives and strong branding can weather market cycles more effectively than short-lived fads.
– Lower entry barriers: Rising buyer numbers amid smaller trade sizes indicate that NFTs are gradually becoming more accessible to non-whale participants, especially on lower-fee chains.
Outlook: pressure persists as long as Bitcoin wavers
As long as Bitcoin remains unstable around 70,000 dollars and the broader crypto market cap trends lower, sustained recovery in NFT sales is unlikely. High volatility keeps large buyers on the sidelines, and many retail traders are prioritizing capital preservation over speculative bets on illiquid assets.
However, the rising number of active wallets, the resilience of leading collections, and the growth on alternative chains suggest that the sector is far from “dead.” Instead, it is undergoing a recalibration: valuations are adjusting, speculative excess is being flushed out, and the market is slowly shifting toward more mature, utility-driven, and brand-led use cases.
In the short term, further downside in crypto prices would almost certainly drag weekly NFT volumes lower. Over the medium term, if Bitcoin and Ethereum stabilize or resume a gradual uptrend, the current period could be remembered as a consolidation phase during which the next wave of NFT narratives, infrastructure, and applications quietly took shape.