Tag: Non Fungible Tokens

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NFTs sale volume falls 92 percent since January’s high

Amid the economic turmoil we find ourselves in today, growth tech stocks and speculative digital assets are having to bear the brunt. Stocks like Tesla, Meta and Netflix are down more than 50 percent from the highs in November 2021, whereas the cryptocurrency market has taken a harder tumble, with market leaders Bitcoin and Ethereum down more than 70 percent from their November highs.

A highly speculative facet of the digital asset market is NFTs (non-fungible tokens), sales of which fell to a 12-month low in June, according to crypto research firm Chainalysis, via The Guardian.

Compared to the NFT mania in January of this year, where the speculative assets amassed a total of $12.6 billion USD (roughly $16.2 billion CAD) in sale volume, the month of June saw a 92 percent decrease in volume, coming in at just $1 billion USD (roughly $1.28 billion CAD) sale volume.

According to Chainalysis economist Ethan McMahon, the slowdown in NFT sales is related to the downturn in the larger cryptocurrency market, which has plummeted in value from around a $3 trillion market cap in November 2021 to less than $1 trillion.

“Times like this inevitably lead to consolidation within the affected markets, and for NFTs we will likely see a pullback in terms of the collections and types of NFTs that reach prominence,” said McMahon.

While the downfall seems monumental, it’s worth noting that the asset class has already surpassed 2021 in sale volume. Last year, NFT sales totalled $40 billion USD (roughly $51 billion CAD), and the total for 2022 has already surpassed that figure, totalling more than $42 billion USD (roughly $54 billion CAD).

While NFTs like Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s first Tweet, which was sold for more than $2.9 million back in March 2021, have lost most of their value, so-called Blue Chips are faring much better. The price of the cheapest Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT has dropped by only one percent in the last month, as tracked by DappRadar. “Blue-chip collections are performing vastly better than the vast majority of NFTs,” said DappRadar’s head of research, Pedro Herrera.

Further, The Last of Us and Days Gone veterans Michael Mumbauer and John Garvin recently teamed up to form a new gaming and entertainment studio called Liithos, according to VideoGamesChronicle. The studio’s first game is expected to be called Ashfall and will incorporate NFTs.

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Source: Chainalysis Via: The Guardian

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Canadian actor Keanu Reeves changes mind on NFTs, joins NFT project

In December, during an interview with The Verge, Canadian actor Keanu Reeves was laughing about NFTs and digital items as he thought they were “easily reproduced.”

Now, that’s changed, with Reeves and his partner Alexandra Grant joining Non-Fungible Labs and Fluf World as advisors for their Futureverse Foundation project. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the foundation will help make the metaverse more accessible to those in disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Matrix Resurrections, in which Reeves stars, had 100,000 NFTs presented by Warner Bros. and Nifty which were up for sale.

Grant, who is a well-known artist, will also work with Brooke Howard-Smith, co-founder of Non-Fungible Labs, to help transition artists to digital art and guide them on how to make their sellable NFTs.

Non-Fungible Labs have already pledged $250,000 USD (around $324,787 CAD), along with its first single donation of €100,000 EUR (about $136,707 CAD) to Nana Oforiatta Ayim, to help her efforts to curate the Ghanian Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale.

For more information on the Futureverse Foundation, check out this link.

Image credit: Fluf World

Sources: Fluf World, The Hollywood Reporter Via: The Verge

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Bill Gates bashes NFTs, says they’re based on the ‘greater fool theory’

You likely won’t ever see Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates rocking a Bored Ape. At a climate conference hosted by TechCrunch, the former world’s richest man claimed that NFT projects are “based on the greater fool theory.”

Gates states that speculative overvalued assets are great until you can find another person to bid for them, though if there is no one to bid higher, the asset is as good as worthless. He went on to clarify that he is not involved in the space, and isn’t long or short on Non-Fungible tokens (NFTs).

“Obviously, expensive digital images of monkeys are going to improve the world immensely,” said Gates, firing shots at the Bored Apes Yacht Club collection, which, unironically, currently has a floor price of 83.5 $ETH ($121,323.83 CAD), down from 152 $ETH as recorded on April 29th.

Gates has been vocal about the risk that comes alongside investing in the cryptocurrency space. Back in 2021, when Elon Musk’s Dogecoin mania was in full swing, Gates suggested that retail investors should stay away from Bitcoin, whereas investors with a bigger stack of capital, like Elon Musk and Tesla, can afford to weather out the storms of the volatile asset.

“I do think people get bought into these manias who may not have as much money to spare,” said Gates. “My general thought would be that if you have less money than Elon, you should probably watch out.”

Gates stated that he is comfortable with his way of investing, which has clearly worked out for him over the years. “I’m used to asset classes, like a farm where they have output, or like a company where they make products,” he said.

Gates’s comment comes at a time when financial markets globally are in turmoil, and Bitcoin, which was born out of the 2008 recession, is faring no differently. The biggest cryptocurrency in the world is trading 69 percent below its all-time-high price achieved on November 10th, 2021.

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Source: TechCrunch