12/06/2024 NFTs Fail to Regain Appeal as Investors Turn to New Ether ETFs

Most popular collections’ prices are down at least 40% in 2024 ‘Crypto markets are all about capital rotation,’ analyst says

Many investors are betting thatBitcoinandEtherwill set fresh highs this year, but there’s one corner of the cryptocurrency market that is getting the cold shoulder:nonfungible tokens.

The tokens, better known as NFTs, which can be digital artwork of apes or other collectibles recorded on blockchains, are losing even more of their appeal. This month Google searches for NFTs hit theirlowestlevel since 2021, when the tokens began to enter the mainstream, according to Google Trends.

In the first five months of the year, NFT sales are down by more than 6% to $8.5 billion from the same period a year ago, according to researcherDappRadar. In stark contrast, the industry sold $17.2 billion of NFTs in one month back in January 2022 — its peak.

Sentiment worsened last month after the US Securities and Exchange Commissiontook its first steptoward approving exchange-traded funds investing directly into Ether. In advance of an approval, some investors began moving into Ether, and dumping NFTs, said Nicolas Lallement, co-founder of data tracker NFT Price Floor.

“Crypto markets are all about capital rotation,” Lallement said. “It is foreseeable that Ethereum will continue attracting and absorbing market capital, and causing price drops in other assets.”

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Year-to-date, prices for many popular NFT collections are down 40% to 50%, according to NFT Price Floor. The floor price forCryptoPunks, which is minted on the Ethereum network and bought and sold with Ether, is around 2021 levels and is down 29% from its lowest point of last year, when the market wasso bad everyone thought the crypto-winter bottom hit. Popular collections likeBored Ape Yacht ClubandChromie Squiggle, by Snowfrohave price floors, based on Ether, that are about half of what they were at the lowest point of last year, said NFT Price Floor.

“We’re still seeing a majority of NFT collections continue to sell off or remain flat after peak euphoria in 2021,” said Daniel Maegaard, a well-known NFT collector, in an email.

Maegaard said he sold a number of his blue-chip NFTs recently, including works by digital artists XCOPY, Hackatao andColdie. Some NFT art collections from artists like XCOPY posted positive returns over the last 90 days, according to Lallement.

Also prospering is NFT marketplaceMagic Eden, which has been gaining market share as trading of tokens on its platform has picked up, according to Sara Gherghelas, an analyst at DappRadar. In April, it posted record volume, though it’s since decreased, according to DappRadar.

Arts

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-11/nfts-fail-to-regain-appeal-as-investors-turn-to-new-ether-etfs

Interesting NFTs
/ TWO BLINDFOLDED EYES /
Trust your Intuition, two blindfolded eyes look much clearer than a blind mind.
Punk #33
Inscription #457
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By OthersideDeployer
AI Huascaq #3/5
Transdimensional art is a movement of blending online and offline stylesassisted blending and combining different styles of online and offline art. AI Huasca uses a DMT style AI blending over a kaleidoscopic remix of a painting that was "generated" via acrylic paint after an entheogenic trip.
The Moth Catcher
In this psychologically bed-headed portrait, a creature sets in a trance; his eyes devolved and vestigal, his third eye open but hardened and in a form resembling a Sharingan. The imagery therefore expresses an awareness existing in corporeal introspection. The creature’s mind sprouts, on the left side, an emerging face, grinning. To the right side of the head, red tentacles and fingers intertwine–a collaboration of invertebrate and vertebrate consciousness cooperatively handling paint brushes of the sort used to build an oil painting. The neck and throat bristle with random thorns, as from a rose or the upper portions of a beak sprouting from its flesh. The neck itself disassociates into layers of membranous material, terminating upon an abstracted base of convoluted forms composing its body. The nose is virtually non existent, more a sinus reiterative of the shape of the third eye. Set against the exposed teeth peering out of thick, meaty cheeks, a skeleton-like impression results. That impression sets behind a visceral set of lips and tongue, which is the creature’s prime seat of awareness. Sensual, organic, the tongue organ hangs, meaty, and with consciousness of a sea cucumber. It illuminates at the tip, drawing the attraction of a nearby moth–with mystery of purpose.