It seems that almost half of the NFT buyers have vanished from NFT marketplaces.

The emergence ofnon-fungible-tokens (NFTs)have made it easier for blockchain artists and digital creators to gain recognition and make quick profits from selling their artwork. However, a new data by CryptoSlam reveals that half of theNFTbuyers have vanished from the NFT marketplaces.

According to the data obtained from CryptoSlam NFT tracker, in January the sales in NFT plunged to $4.6 billion. By the end of March, the NFT sales stood at $2.44 billion, a decline of 53 per cent in NFT sales. The data further shows that the number of unique buyers dropped from 9.98 lakhs in January to 6.4 lakhs in March and currently stands at 3.81 lakhs for the month of April, a decrease of 66.5 per cent unique buyers.

An average NFT in January was sold at $623 , which has dropped to $425, a decline of nearly 68 per cent.

But there is some good news for artists utilising Ethereum networks. According to blockchain intelligence firm IntoTheBlock, the number of NFT collections on the Ethereum network has increased by over 100 per cent in 2022. In 2021, only 15,500 NFT collections were available, and now more than 80,000 NFTs are available on the Ethereum network, making it the most preferable choice for ‘minting’ an NFT.

Further, among all the Ethereum based NFT collections, Bored Ape Yacht Club is owned by 6,422 addresses, making it the most valuable NFT project. The ape avatar collection has recorded $3.18 billion in sales—and is classified as the biggest NFT series in terms of valuation. CryptoPunks and MutantApeYachtClub are the second and third biggest NFT series by valuation, respectively, worth 471,000 ETH and 456,000 ETH.

Meanwhile, Solana based digital collectibles have also recently caught artists’ attention. Transaction fee or ‘gas fee’ while operating on Solana is less than a dollar. Therefore, many NFT projects and collectors have migrated to its blockchain for scalability and cheap transaction costs.

Degenerate Ape Academy, a hugely popular collection of 10,000 unique NFT Apes only available on the Solana blockchain, had its highest sale for one single Ape at $1.1 million in September 2021. Earlier in 2021, NFT sales jumped to more than $17 billion in 2021, according to NFT data company nonfungible.