Crypto Market : NFT sales fall due to weakness in crypto market

The crypto market, which has been facing a steady decline for the last few months, has also affected the sales of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Monthly sales volume on OpenSea, one of the major NFT marketplaces, fell to about $700 million in June, from about $2.6 billion in the previous month. Data from NonFungible.com, which tracks sales on the blockchains Ethereum and Ronin, shows that average NFT sales fell to around $412 at the end of June, from about $1,754 at the end of April. A Reuters report quoted NonFungible.com co-founder Gauthier Zuppinger as saying, "The slowdown in the crypto market has definitely had an impact on the NFT. We've seen a lot of speculation about this type of asset. It is understood that they cannot become millionaires in two days from this."

The value of Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, has declined by about 57 percent and that of Ether by about 71 percent in the first six months of this year. Using blockchain technology in NFTs, tokens of unique items are authenticated which are linked to reproducible digital assets. These can include art, music, in-game items, and videos. These can be traded online but they cannot be duplicated.

With the increase in business in this segment, there has also been an increase in scam cases. In some such cases, the buyers of NFTs have suffered heavy losses. In the US, some big cases of fraud related to this segment have been exposed. Some of the accused have also been arrested in these. These cases have raised apprehensions about trading in this segment.  A recent survey by financial services company Mastercard of about 35,000 people in 40 countries found that about 45 percent of these people have bought or may consider buying NFTs.