NFT collectors sent $37B to marketplaces in 2022, nearly equaling 2021 already

May 6, 2022 Coin Telegraph

NFT collectors sent B to marketplaces in 2022, nearly equaling 2021 already

Despite sporadic market conditions NFT collectors are on track to spend more on NFTs in the first half of this year than in all of 2021.

Collectors of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have already sent more than $37 billion in value to NFT marketplaces this year (as of May 1), a figure that nearly exceeds the total amount in all of 2021.

According to a report from Chainalysis, investors sent $40 billion worth of cryptocurrency to smart contracts associated with NFT collections and marketplaces throughout 2021.

Since the beginning of last year, NFT transaction volume has grown considerably, but the overall growth of the industry has been inconsistent.

The report outlines that NFT transaction volume occurs sporadically, and has been in a downturn since mid-February. The NFT market has since made a brief recovery as of mid-April — most likely due to the recent hype around Moonbirds and the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s metaverse project, Otherside.

Despite the short-term fluctuations in NFT transaction volume, the number of people around the world buying and selling NFTs remains strong, with 950,000 unique addresses buying or selling NFTs in Q1 2022.

As of May 1, Q2 2022 491,000 unique addresses have transacted with NFTs, putting the market on track to continue its growth trend in the number of participants.

By analyzing the web traffic of the major NFT marketplaces, Chainalysis determined that NFTs attract users from all corners of the globe, with Central and Southern Asia leading the charge, followed closely by North America and Western Europe.

The report contradicts the conclusion of a recent article published by the Wall Street Journal, which claimed that NFT sales were flatlining. The article stated that “The NFT market is collapsing,” yet, in the same week the top five NFT collections alone accounted for more than $1 billion in primary and secondary sales.

Chainalysis’ report also comes the day after Coinbases’ launch of its in-house NFT marketplace failed to generate any major interest. On-chain data showed that a mere 150 transactions occurred on May 4 — the first day of trading — with just $75,000 in volume moving through the platform.

GameFi is showing signs of a mature landscape: Report

May 2, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

New industry report on the GameFi landscape traces its development from the embryonic stages to an established industry.

Blockchain games are set to overtake decentralized finance (DeFi) as the number one contributor to decentralized application (DApp) activity in terms of uniquely active wallets. A new 18-page report by DappRadar surveys the nascent ecosystem behind this rise.

Although still dwarfed by the traditional gaming industry, blockchain games, sometimes dubbed GameFi, have seen an early spurt of exponential growth, according to the report’s data.

“The evolution of blockchain games” report, which discusses play-to-earn (P2E) as a new paradigm for gaming, is available on the Cointelegraph Report Terminal to purchase. It details how the play-to-earn model gained traction in the COVID-19 pandemic when players from emerging economies were seeking new sources of income. In Q2 of 2021, which was notable for a quarter-over-quarter growth of 503%, Wax’s successful space mining game called Alien Worlds was one of the main profiters. Other key players in the space included Axie Infinity, Decentraland, Splinterland and Upland.

The report projects that although resistance from the traditional gaming industry and mainstream media are still considerable due to negative press coverage, an improving understanding of blockchain technology could assuage those concerns. The researchers argue that increased public awareness of comparatively energy-frugal proof-of-stake (PoS) technology and the possibility of robust ownership of in-game assets could make GameFi fit for the mainstream in the long run. They conclude that “the horizon for blockchain games is opening up quickly.”

DappRadar also breaks down the development of GameFi on different layer-1 ecosystems. Some games have grown large enough to sustain their own blockchains such as Axie Infinity with the Ronin blockchain, DeFi kingdoms with the Harmony Protocol or Splinterlands with Hive. Moving to dedicated chains may be a way for blockchain games to deal with scalability issues that still plague some projects.

Download the full report complete with charts and infographics from the Cointelegraph Research Terminal

For example, Polygon, which was developed as a layer-2 solution to deal with Ethereum’s notorious scaling problems, has not been entirely able to withstand the transaction volume generated by GameFi. At the start of this year, it suffered heavily under the agriculture game Sunflower Farmers and saw transaction fees spike to 500 Gwei. Although such technical teething problems will concern developers in the space for some time, the overall conclusions of the report are positive.

The accelerating influx of venture capital investments is one of the strong signs that the field is consolidating as an industry, the report argues. While only $70 million were raised by blockchain game companies in 2020, the sector attracted $4 billion in VC investment in 2021 and has already seen an influx of another $2 billion in the first quarter of 2022. With the rise of dedicated VC companies such as Hong Kong-based Animoca Brands, GameFi is likely to gather further momentum through dedicated infrastructure.

An assessment of the interplay between DeFi, NFTs and the Metaverse completes the comprehensive analysis. The increasing interoperability, decentralization and democratization of games made possible through the symbiosis of these technologies promise an exciting future. The full contents of the report can be viewed here.

This article is for information purposes only and represents neither investment advice nor an investment analysis or an invitation to buy or sell financial instruments. Specifically, the document does not serve as a substitute for individual investment or other advice.

Singaporean investors’ appetite for crypto is key to mainstream adoption — Survey

April 28, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Independent Reserve’s survey revealed a strong affinity for various financial opportunities brought forward by decentralized finance and other investment opportunities.

As Singapore continues to play an active role in boosting crypto adoption across the Asia-Pacific region, the country’s first licensed crypto exchange Independent Reserve conducted a retail-focused survey to better understand the underlying potential of the regulated market.

Independent Reserve’s survey — conducted across all age groups and genders of the Singapore population — revealed a strong affinity for various financial opportunities brought forward by decentralized finance (DeFi) and other investment opportunities.

As explained by Raks Sondhi, managing director of Independent Reserve Singapore, the country’s rapid crypto adoption is driven by high level of trust and confidence in the future of crypto:

“58% [Singaporeans surveyed] perceive Bitcoin as an investment asset or a store of value.”

Supporting the above trend, more than half of the surveyed individuals showed a likeliness to recommend cryptocurrency investments to their friends and family. In 2021, nearly 60% of investors in Singapore believed in crypto’s potential to reach mass-scale adoption. This year, however, 15% of the respondents have started considering Bitcoin (BTC) as a real form of money.

*Factors for increasing trust among Singaporean investors. Source: Independent Reserve*

According to Independent Reserve, increasing investors’ trust in the Singapore market boils down to tackling seven key factors: clarity around government regulations, education about how it works, businesses using it, stability in price, an option to ensure crypto, ease of access and use and not being monitored.

Based on the survey, clarity around government regulations will result in the highest participation from Singaporean investors. It was also found that investors coming from high-income households were more likely to invest in cryptocurrencies.

The price stability of cryptocurrencies and education were also revealed to be the top factors impacting the participation of crypto investors. Despite the concerns, interest in crypto continues to be on an uptrend in Singapore, with continued interest to purchase:

“47% plan to increase investment into their current crypto portfolio in the next 12 months.”

Concluding the survey, Independent Reserve highlighted that younger adults between 18 and 25 years were most willing to diversify into DeFi or nonfungible token (NFT) projects.

The Singaporean government approved legislation, giving the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) additional power to respond to crypto firms doing business outside the country.

As Cointelegraph reported, MAS revealed that the latest legislation will require crypto businesses working off-shore to be licensed and subject to Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) requirements. Speaking on behalf of the new ruling, MAS board member Alvin Tan stated:

“Digital token service providers could easily structure their businesses to evade regulation in any one jurisdiction, as they operate mainly online.”

The NFT sector is projected to move around $800 billion over next 2 years: Report

April 28, 2022 Coin Telegraph

The NFT sector is projected to move around 0 billion over next 2 years: Report

Coin Telegraph

More than 50% of respondents highlighted that they have a HODL mentality and see a future where non-fungible tokens could be important items in games.

Although NFTs have been a part of the cryptocurrency market since 2014, interest and adoption ha risen rapidly over the last two years. At their height in August 2021, the total trading volume of NFTs rose to over $5 billion, kickstarting what briefly came be to known as “NFT Summer”.

According to a report by Coingecko, the NFT market is now expected to move more than $800 billion in the coming two years. The report, which mostly utilized investors from Asia and the Pacific, highlighted that of 871 respondents, around 72% of them already own NFT(s), with more than 50% of them declaring that they had 5 or more.

As for investors, the report indicated a balance between the generations, suggesting 43.6% of NFT investors surveyed were between 18-30 years old and 45.2% are between 30-50 years old.

While the bulk of the NFT market appeared to be concentrated in popular collections such as the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and CryptoPunks, 35.8% of respondents said they were interested in NFTs linked to play-to-earn and metaverse games, and 25% stated that they prefer art NFTs.

"The metaverse sector is projected to move around $800 billion over the next 2 years, and gaming appears to be the most likely entry point into the NFTs market," the report highlighted.

"Our respondents have indicated that "flip & earn" was the primary motivation behind their NFT purchases, though 2/3 of respondents indicated that NFTs only made up <25% of their overall crypto portfolio. When asked what would incentivize them to hodl NFTs instead of flipping, more than half indicated that "having current / future utility" would be a primary factor in choosing to hodl." Bobby Ong, CoinGecko's Co-Founder and COO, told Cointelegraph.

Although data from TeleGeography stated that there were already more than 7.1 billion active mobile devices worldwide, the PC remains the preferred choice for NFT trading and minting, with 60% of investors doing so. Mobile lags behind with a mere 21% of responses. "This can be attributed to the ease of using a PC to navigate time-sensitive NFT mints/trades," the report highlighted.

When it comes to tracking new or upcoming NFT projects, 60% of respondents said they prefer to use Discord and Twitter. The minimum price also appeared to be important for the perception of value. The report revealed that when it comes to evaluating NFTs before buying, the majority of respondents (38.5%) were interested in the floor price and only 23% and 21.8% selected “strong community” and “artistic value/attachment” respectively.

On the other hand, most market investors said they were not interested in selling their NFTs. More than 50% of respondents highlighted that they have a HODL mentality and see a future where non-fungible tokens could be important items in games. Even with all the hype, NFTs only make up a small part of most cryptocurrency portfolios, with 70% of respondents reporting that they only represent 0-25% of their cryptocurrency portfolios.

Ethereum remains the dominant chain for NFTs among respondents at 46.3%, according to the report. In second place was Polygon with 13.8%, followed by Solana with 13.5%. Other smart contract platforms together accounted for 26.4% of NFTs traded by Coingecko respondents.

When it came to marketplaces, the data confirmed the dominance of OpenSea, which was responsible for 58.7% of trading activity. Runner-up Solanamart held just over 10% marketshare, while and LooksRare had less than 4%.

“Interestingly, Crypto.com, VEVE Official and Immutable X are some of the most cited examples parked under “Others” by the respondents, perhaps alluding to their rising prominence. LooksRare and X2Y2 on the other hand, despite their generous incentive programs, failed to build stickiness despite early success”, pointed Coingecko.

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Lack of proper financial services boosts crypto ownership in Nigeria, says report

April 12, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

One of the main reasons investors across the globe seek to diversify traditional assets into crypto is to counter rising fiat inflation.

A new study has revealed staggering growth in crypto adoption across Nigeria, fueled by limited access to affordable fiat-based financial services in Africa.

Crypto exchange KuCoin’s “Into the Cryptoverse Report” highlights that many Nigerian citizens have started using cryptocurrencies as a viable alternative to store and transfer assets.

According to the report, 35% of the Nigerian population aged 18 to 60 — or 33.4 million people — have owned or traded cryptocurrencies during the last six months. Out of those people, nearly 17.36 million (or 52% of Nigerian crypto investors) have allocated over half of their assets to cryptocurrencies.

One of the main reasons why investors across the globe seek to diversify traditional assets into cryptocurrencies is to counter rising fiat inflation. For example, a selection of United Kingdom investors was surveyed last month, and the majority considered tokens to be safer and more secure than traditional investments such as gold, oil, stocks and real estate.

The KuCoin report further highlights peer-to-peer trading as the most popular method among Nigerian investors to convert fiat into crypto assets. Doubling down on the crypto adoption spree, roughly 23.38 million Nigerians, or 70% of existing crypto investors, will increase their cryptocurrency investments over the next six months.

The value of the naira, the nation’s fiat currency, has fallen by over 209% in the past six years, which stands as one of the key drivers for local investors to eye deflationary assets such as Bitcoin (BTC).

The report also shows that while a majority of Nigerian crypto investors began their hodling journey many years ago, 26% began investing in cryptocurrencies just six months back — owing to the 2021 bull run, which saw BTC prices briefly cross the $69,000 mark.

In October 2021, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari introduced the country’s central bank digital currency, the eNaira. Numerous governments across the globe intend to use CBDCs as a digitized fiat replacement, primarily aimed at reducing operational costs and speeding up cross-border payments.

The eNaira is considered the most developed CBDC, scoring 95 out of 100 across both the retail and wholesale categories in PwC’s recently released “2022 Global CBDC Index.”

Earlier in April, a study released by crypto exchange Gemini confirmed a massive rise in global crypto investors in 2021.

As Cointelegraph reported, India, Brazil and Hong Kong witnessed the highest crypto adoption, with more than 50% of respondents acknowledging investing in cryptocurrencies.

*Cryptocurrency ownership by country. Source: Gemini*

Gemini’s report also found that Indonesia and Brazil are leading the world i the share of cryptocurrency investors among the general population.

Blue Chip and Metaverse NFTs propel growth of NFT Market, says Nansen report

April 11, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Art

Blue Chip NFT collections such as Azuki, Clone X and Doodles are leading the growth of the steady growth of a market that has traded over $17 billion.

On Tuesday, blockchain data analytics platform Nansen released its quarterly report on the state of nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. The report highlighted the rapid growth of the NFT market over that of the cryptocurrency market year-to-date, and it predicts of an $80 million market cap by 2025.

As Cointelegraph previously reported, Nansen recently released six NFT indexes weighted by market capitalization denominated in Ether (ETH): Nansen NFT-500, Nansen Blue Chip-10, Nansen Social-100, Nansen Gaming-50, Nansen Art-20 and Nansen Metaverse-20.

According to the Nansen 2022 Quarterly NFT Report, The NFT market continues outperforming the cryptocurrency market year-to-date, putting in a 103.7% return when denominated in ETH and 82.1% when denominated in USD. Despite a downturn in the global markets across most asset classes at the end of February 2022, the last 30 days saw an 5.9% increase in the NFT-500 in March.

Louisa Choe, research analyst at Nansen, stated that NFTs have "proven to resonate with retail investors over the past year" especially in Q1 of 2022, and added that only time will tell which sectors become the market's driving force as more and more artists, creators and builders innovate.

The volatility of each of these sectors may differ, and the Nansen report revealed that Blue Chip NFTs, which are categorized by market capitalization, are the least volatile. OpenSea chart topping collections like Azuki, Clone X, and Doodles have been categorized as Blue Chip. This is likely because they have become well-known within the crypto community and can be considered good long-term investments due to their track record of growth and value.

On the other hand, the report considered Metaverse and Art NFTs to be most volatile segment of the NFT market. Nansen categorizes land and real-estate NFTs, avatar and utility NFTs under the Metaverse segment. Evaluating the prices, especially of virtual of land in Decentraland or The Sandbox, can be challenging.

When it comes art NFTs, the subjective nature of value perception as well as art's relatively illiquid nature are also contributing factors to its volatility. Nansen illustrated that generative art is the most popular segment of art NFTs overall, and stated that most metaverse and art market participants tend to behave as "speculators."

The Nansen indeces also point to a decrease in overall growth within the gaming ecosystem. The Gaming-50 index saw the biggest drop in performance year-to-date when compared to other NFT sectors, with Play-to-Earn, or P2E, NFTs and Role Playing Game, or RPG, NFTs seeing the majority of the decline. Traditional gamers have been hesitant to embrace NFTs and aren't afraid to voice their opinions like in the cases of Good Luck Games, Ubisoft or GameStop.

Recently, Nansen published another report on the popular play-to-earn game Axie Infinity (AXS), citing the over 2.8 million unique addresses that are currently holding 11.1 million Axies. However, after losing $625 million to a hacking incident involving Axie's play-to-earn gaming platform's underlying blockchain, the Ronin Network, the price of AXS keeps falling.

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