NFT trading volume nears $1B as markets turn bullish: Report

December 8, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Nifty News: Trader nabs 800 ETH by baiting a bot, NFT thefts slow and more

August 7, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Blur

A trader walked off nearly $1.5 million richer after tricking a bot copying his trades to buy a slew of NFTs at a markup.

NFT trader's $1.5M bot chess move

YouTuber and nonfungible token (NFT) trader Hanwe Chang said he scored 800 Ether (ETH), around $1.5 million, by tricking a rival trader’s bot into buying his own inflated NFTs.

In an Aug. 5 X (Twitter) post, Chang said he noticed a bot was copying his bids on the NFT marketplace Blur and decided to trick them.

An NFT-focused account A Raving Ape speculated that from a separate, anonymous wallet Chang purchased multiple Azuki NFTs sharing the same background color.

Context on how @HanweChang executed a plan to perfection and made 800e by selling "Off White A - Background color" azuki at 50e each and azuki elementals at 15e each.

This is an epic case of PvP in the current NFT trading market ⚔️

Hanwe has been coasting at the top spot of… pic.twitter.com/M8Ujm8CquJ
— A-Raving-Ape.eth (@a_raving_ape) August 5, 2023

Knowing bots were copying his trades, Chang placed an inflated bid on the NFTs held in his anonymous wallet from his publicly-known hanwe.eth wallet.

Once a bot automatically copied the inflated bid, Chang accepted it from his anonymous wallet and was able to palm off the NFTs at a significant markup.

Seemingly, the owner of the bot known as elizab.eth responded to Chang’s post claiming the funds were stolen and offered to discuss a 10% bounty if the funds were returned.

We would like to discuss a bounty with you. We are offering a 10% bounty of any funds stolen from our bot, which are yours to keep if you return the remaining 90%.
— elizab.ethᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ (@ThinkingETH) August 5, 2023

Chang’s on-chain move triggered discussion over its legality.

Lawyer Gabriel Shapiro said he thinks elizab.eth “might have good legal claims” to get their ETH back from Chang’s trick — but only if they hire a skilled litigation attorney.

NFT volumes nearly halves over July

NFT volumes have continued to slide in the ongoing bear market, having sank by almost half over July.

Figures from NFT data aggregator CryptoSlam show U.S. dollar sales volume decreased nearly 42% over July with the month starting off with $22 million in daily volume before sinking to $12.8 million on July 31.

*Weekly NFT sales with black line depicting U.S. dollar sales volume. Source: Cryptoslam!*

July’s drop comes after a significant rally in late June where daily sales volumes peaked at nearly $58.5 million on June 27, the largest trading day since March 16’s $61.9 million figure.

Royalties from NFTs are also biting creators. A July 25 report from Nansen said out of the 699,816 ETH in royalties paid to NFT projects, just 9.4% of the figure was in the first half of 2023.

Nansen said the effective fee rate for royalties has seen a significant downtrend — average royalties in 2022 were 2.5% which as of July 2023 had dropped to 0.6%, a 98% drop.

Slow month for NFT thefts

On the other hand, NFT-related thefts have seen their slowest month in 2023.

Figures by blockchain security firm PeckShield shared on Aug. 6 show around $1.7 million worth of NFTs were stolen in July. The figure marks a 31% decrease from June.

PeckShield said half of the stolen NFTs were sold within less than three hours, or 165 minutes, on marketplaces such as Blur and OpenSea after being nabbed.

#PeckShieldAlert In July 2023, ~$1.73M worth of #NFTs were stolen, marking a 31% decrease compared to the previous month. Within a span of 165 minutes, half of the stolen NFTs were promptly sold on various marketplaces. The percentage of stolen NFTs initially sold on @blur_io… pic.twitter.com/cknsefpfwe
— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) August 6, 2023

Blur had the highest amount of stolen NFTs sold, with over 67% while OpenSea had just under 20% sold through its platform, PeckShield claimed.

Just over $41.5 million worth of NFTs have been stolen in 2023 up until the end of July. February was the biggest month for NFT thieves, where they stole $16.2 million worth of tokens.

Gary Vee’s NFT project also steps into sneaker trend

VeeFriend’s, the NFT project by entrepreneur and internet talking head Gary Vaynerchuck has joined the latest craze of NFT-related sneakers.

On Aug. 4 VeeFriend’s announced its partnered with Reebok to launch a limited edition sneaker only available to those holding an alpaca-related NFT as part of the collection.

Dreamers, let’s do this. We’re proud to introduce the VeeFriends x @reebok Aspiring Alpaca Classic Nylon, the shoe that will take you wherever you aspire to go. pic.twitter.com/DHsvMdHPGR
— VeeFriends (@veefriends) August 3, 2023

The shoe looks like any other aside from a few changes. The tongue of the shoe depicts the original handdrawn version of VeeFriend’s alpaca NFT and the NFT project’s logo appears in place of Reebok’s.

It’s the third sneaker-NFT project in recent weeks. In late June Dior put up a new line of sneakers that offered an NFT replica and NFT’s came embedded in Puma’s recent sneaker collection.

Other Nifty News

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has finally caught on that criminals are hijacking social media accounts and posing as legit NFT and crypto space figures, posting a warning of the trend on Aug. 4.

NFT protocol JPEG’d confirmed 5,495 ETH worth about $10 million was returned by the Curve Finance hacker, who received a bounty of 610.6 ETH, or $1.1 million.

Magazine: 6 Questions for Simon Davis of Mighty Bear Games

Monthly NFT buyers dip below 800K as searches ‘fall off a cliff’

March 3, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

There were 796,009 NFT buyers on secondary markets in Feb, accounting for roughly $2.6 billion worth of sales. The figures mark significant declines compared to the record month before.

The unique number of NFT buyers in February dipped below 800,000 for the first time since October, and search volume for nonfungibles also dropped significantly.

According to data from CryptoSlam, there were 796,009 NFT buyers on secondary markets in Feb. (down 12% compared to Jan.) that accounted for roughly $2.6 billion worth of sales (down 40% on the month before).

A caveat to that however, is that January was a massive month for NFTs which may suggest the decreases in February are simply part of a relatively healthy pullback. January saw a record number of unique secondary NFT buyers at 904,13 and OpenSea also posted record sales volume in January totaling around $5 billion before pulling back to around $3 billion last month.

Looking at Google Trends, however, it appears that global keyword search volume for “NFTs” has also dropped significantly. Over the past week, interest has dropped roughly 60-70% from the heights of late January (Jan. 23- Jan.29.)

The U.S. represents the most interest globally at the time of writing while Japan currently shows the lowest interest in NFTs out of 61 nations, despite local tech and telecommunications giant Rakuten launching an NFT marketplace late last month.

NFT proponent and managing partner of NFT investment fund Sfermion Andrew Steinwold likened the current pullback to the bull market and subsequent crash of 2017/2018, as he questioned whether interest will pick back up again anytime soon.

Worldwide NFT search volume fell off a cliff

Reminds me A LOT of the crypto 2017 bull market and subsequent 2018 bear market

How long will the disinterest last until it starts to pick back up? Or will it? pic.twitter.com/4iQxcpLuYP
— Andrew Steinwold (@AndrewSteinwold) March 2, 2022

Specific reasons why general interest has waned so dramatically over the past month are unclear, although top platform OpenSea was the victim of a $1.7 million hack in February among other things.

The Russian and Ukrainian conflict may have also shifted the focus to cryptocurrencies, as global attention appears to have shifted to use cases such as digital payments, fundraising and storing value amid uncertain times.

March so far

CryptoSlam’s data also shows that 10 out of the top 12 NFT supporting blockchains have also seen a decrease in sales volume over the past 24 hours. The top two, Ethereum and Solana, have posted dips of 4.24% and 11% each, while the biggest losses are Avalanche and Panini with 27.79% and 36.20% respectively.

Third-ranked Flow and sixth-ranked Arbitrum are the only networks to see gains, with 20.89% and a whopping 539%.

OpenSea NFT trading volume surges as Bored Ape mania intensifies

January 4, 2022 Coin Telegraph

BAYC

Data shows that OpenSea has generated more than $700 million in sales so far this year putting the NFT marketplace on track for another record month.

NFT trading volumes on OpenSea are surging in January amid a renewed speculative frenzy on Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC).

According to data posted by “rchen8” on Dune Analytics, OpenSea has generated more than $700 million worth of trading volume since the start of 2022, with Jan. 3 being the biggest day of the year with a whopping $255.8 million worth of 24-hour volume.

While popular onlookers as Wu Blockchain have asserted that the volume on Jan. 3 was a record high for OpenSea, previous data posted by rchen8 on Dune Analytics shows that Aug. 29 saw the all-time high (ATH) of $322 million.

In December, OpenSea’s monthly volume topped $3.24 billion and fell just 5.3% short of the platform’s ATH in August of $3.42 billion. With the NFT marketplace already conducting more than $700 million worth of trading volume within the first four days of January, the record highs may soon be broken if the momentum continues throughout this month.

Bored Ape mania

A factor that may be contributing to OpenSea’s surging volumes, is the recent mania surrounding the BAYC and MAYC NFTs along with a basket of other projects from Yuga Labs.

Data from CryptoSlam shows that the MAYC is currently the top-ranked NFT project in terms of seven-day volume on secondary markets at $93.2 million, with the BAYC NFTs following closely behind at second with $88.4 million.

Over the past 30 days, the MAYC and BAYC projects have generated $189.7 million and $182.6 million apiece, making them the third and fourth highest ranked NFT collections at the time of writing.

In terms of 24-hour volume, MAYC has garnered $18.7 million worth of secondary volume, while the BAYC has generated $14 million. According to OpenSea, the current floor price for BAYC NFTs is a hefty 67 Ether (ETH) worth roughly $250,000, while the MAYC NFTs are currently going for 15.87 ETH, or $59,300.

In January so far, several Pop-culture icons such as rapper Eminem, musician Britney Spears, and comedian Dave Chappelle all reportedly snapping up BAYC NFTs for six-figure sums this month.

BREAKING: @DaveChappelle just purchased @BoredApeYC #8343 for 99 ETH ($371,343.06) Welcome

Wallet created today, and ENS held the domain davidchappelle.eth for him and allowed him to mint 2 it hours ago

Ironically, his name on OpenSea is "FollowtheWhitePeople" pic.twitter.com/E7B3ynpqCy
— m0rgan.ethᵍᵐ ‍♀️ (@Helloimmorgan) January 2, 2022

NFT Volume