Quick take:
- OpenSea has been overtaken by the likes of Blur, OKX NFT and Magic Eden in terms of transaction volume generated over the past 30 days.
- But Finzer argues the new marketplaces have incentivised traders by issuing their own tokens, thus boosting transaction volumes.
- Finzer also thinks Ethereum will still continue to be the preferred blockchain for NFTs because of its relatively more cost-effective layer-2s.
The non-fungible token (NFT) market experienced a significant slowdown during 2023, with total sales volume down 63% to about $8.7 billion according to a Bloomberg report citing data from CryptoSlam.
However, based on the transaction volumes of the final quarter of 2023 and the last 30 days, the industry is now beginning to bounce back. After registering a transaction volume of about $918 million between October and November 2023, NFT sales shot to $1.775 billion in December.
The data also shows that over the past 30 days, the NFT industry registered a transaction volume of more than $1.5 billion, with Bitcoin the leading blockchain over the same period.
The Bitcoin blockchain witnessed a transaction volume of $692 million, which is more than double Ethereum’s $320 million.
Yet, OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer believes Ethereum is the NFT blockchain of choice, despite the growing popularity of Ordinals and Solana NFTs.
According to Finzer, Layer-2s have made transactions on the Ethereum blockchain faster and cheaper, allowing the platform to be more suitable for building a diverse type of applications. “I really do think that the sorts of applications that you can build on Bitcoin will probably be limited to art-type use cases as opposed to more diverse stuff,” Finzer told Bloomberg in an Interview.
Finzer also seems unfazed by the fact his company, which was at one point the biggest NFT marketplace with a valuation of $13.3 billion has fallen below the likes of Blur and OKX NFT.
According to a DappRadar report cited by Bloomberg, Blur witnessed a transaction volume of $623.7 million in the past 30 days, while the OKX NFT marketplace had 538.6 million. On the other hand, OpenSea, which had a lower transaction volume than Magic Eden’s $211.9 million witnessed just $111.1 million.
Finzer thinks “trading volume can be a little misleading at times” especially because some marketplaces have incentivised traders by using their own token as a reward.
Finzer and his team are now working on OpenSea 2.0, an upgraded marketplace that lists NFTs based on use cases, including NFT tickets. “We really want to have a marketplace interface that can be better customized to suit each type of use case,” he said.
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