Is the bubble popping? NFT marketplace volume drops 20% in July

LAGOS (CoinChapter.com) — The decline in monthly nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace volume that began in May continued into July, indicating that the sector is a “bubble” nearing a popping stage.

In detail, data from the on-chain platform Dune indicates that the monthly NFT marketplace volume declined by more than 250 million in July. Notably, as of August 1, the volume for the entire NFT marketplace was $626 million versus $885 million in June.

Moreover, blockchain analytics firm Nansen registered that the volume of Ethereum NFT trades declined by 20% in July to around 449,000 ETH from 555,000 ETH last month.

Furthermore, NFT users’ weekly transactions and general users’ activity also declined significantly. According to NFT aggregator CryptoSlam, Ethereum registered 1.1 million transactions in July, a decline of almost 25% versus June.

Additionally, OpenSea remains the market leader, producing $484.79 million of July’s monthly volume. On the other hand, the Solana-based Magic Eden saw roughly $81 million in monthly volume during the same period.

The collapse in the value of several digital assets has been credited as the main catalyst for the present decline. Other factors include inflation, the war in Ukraine, and increased regulatory scrutiny of NFTs by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Retail Interest In NFTs Rallying

Meanwhile, data from Google search trends has revealed that interest in NFTs is rallying following the recent decline. According to Google Trends, the search for the term ‘nonfungible tokens’ has surged to 22 from 11 last week.

Google Trends uses numbers to represent search interest, with ‘100’ as the peak popularity for the specific term. Although, it’s worth noting that high interest doesn’t necessarily imply an increase in asset price or a rise in actual buying.

Google Trends revealed that at the beginning of the year, keyword ‘NFT‘ searches stood at 57. It also reached its peak between January 23–29 when it achieved a score of 100 for the period. However, joining the entire crypto market in the recent downtrend, the search for NFT plunged to its yearly low last week.

Google search results also disclosed that Hong Kong had been the nation most interested in digital assets in the last seven days. However, a further state-by-state breakdown shows that Singapore, Taiwan, Austria, and Nigeria still have considerable interest in NFTs.

NFT Marketplace Tokens Decline

Additionally, in a parallel development, the price of several NFT coins dropped significantly on the day as the total NFT marketplace cap fell to $18.5 billion in the last 24 hours.

Coingecko revealed that Decentraland’s MANA, The Sandbox SAND, Axie Infinity AXS, and Enjin EJN dropped by around 5%, 4%, 7%, and 3%, respectively in the last 34 hours. The token drop followed the decline in monthly NFT marketplace volume.

However, unlike the rest of the NFT market coins, ApeCoin APE rallied remarkably across all boards. The token was up by 4.5% and trading at $7.08, an increase of more than 55% in the last 30 days.

As a result of the increase, APE’s market cap currently sits at $2 billion. The token also has a 24-hour trading volume of $460 million with a circulating supply of 310 million APE coins and a total supply of 1 billion.