October NFT market shows signs of recovery, waiting for further positive developments

October NFT Market Displays Signs of Rebound, Awaiting Further Positive Progress

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In October, the price of Bitcoin surged dramatically, and the NFT market showed signs of recovery, with a 15.2% increase in monthly trading volume and user count. Although the data for October improved compared to September, it still falls short of the levels seen in August and previous months. Therefore, it is still too early to assert that the market is beginning to recover. The industry eagerly awaits more positive factors beyond the influence of Bitcoin.

This report’s data is sourced from Footprint Analytics’ NFT research page. This page provides an easy-to-use dashboard with key statistics and indicators to understand the latest trends in the NFT industry and updates in real time.

Key Highlights

Crypto Market Overview

• Nonfungible Tokens (NFTs): The Wild Ride of the Digital World
• Bitcoin Inscription Number 76 The $60,000 Small Fry of the Sub-100 Ordinal Sales
• Blockchain Game Illuvium Prepares for Epic Launch, Aiming to Win Over Mainstream Gamers

• Bitcoin started the month at $26,967 and rose by 27.9%, closing at $34,497.

NFT Market Overview

• Supported by the positive trend in the overall cryptocurrency market, the NFT market experienced growth this month.

• The blue-chip index showed an upward trend in September, rising by 14.4%.

Public Chains and NFT Trading Market

• In October, Ethereum continued to dominate the NFT market with a trading volume of $421.7 million, accounting for 98.7%.

• LooksRare’s trading volume plummeted by 97.8%.

NFT Investment and Financing

• In October, the NFT investment and financing market saw slow development, with only one round of financing totaling $5 million.

Key Updates This Month

• LooksRare released an updated tokenomics model.

• NFT horse racing startup Game of Silks raised $5 million in a new round of financing.

• German postal service company will issue limited edition NFT stamps.

• Spencer Ventures made a six-figure deal with Sotheby’s for the sale of 3AC NFT, purchasing 144 pieces of Pudgy Penguin-like NFTs.

• Yuga Labs completes restructuring and will focus on building Otherside.

Crypto Market Overview

In October, the price of Bitcoin soared significantly, outperforming traditional assets and other cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin started the month at $26,967 and rose by 27.9%, closing at $34,497.

Ethereum started the month at $1,671 and had an 8.3% increase, closing at $1,810.

Data Source: BTC Price & ETH Price

In October, while tech stocks faced downward pressure, Bitcoin stood out and went against the trend by rising. On October 16th, the price of Bitcoin surged significantly, reaching nearly 30,000 million dollars. This sudden surge was triggered by a false report from the cryptocurrency news website Cointelegraph. The website claimed in a tweet that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had approved the first Bitcoin ETF. However, the post was later deleted after BlackRock clarified to Bloomberg that their application was still under review. As a result, the price of Bitcoin dropped to around 28,000 dollars by the end of that day.

Following this incident, Bitcoin received continuous support from the market in anticipation of the launch of a U.S. spot ETF. The SEC did not object to the favorable ruling by the Washington D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for Grayscale. Applications for Grayscale and other spot Bitcoin ETFs are currently awaiting review by the SEC. The price of Bitcoin began to experience a noticeable upward trajectory starting from October 23rd and remained at around 35,000 dollars until the end of the month.

NFT Market Overview

Supported by the positive trend in the overall cryptocurrency market, the NFT market experienced growth this month. The total trading volume in October reached 427.2 million dollars, a 15.2% increase compared to the previous month. The number of transactions remained stable at 1,039,735. In addition, the number of unique users in October also increased to 281,359 people, a 15.2% growth.

Data Source: NFT Market Overview

The market cap of NFTs remained stable in October, hovering around 4.5 billion dollars, with daily trading volume showing an upward trend.

Source: NFT Market Cap & Volume

In October, the buyer/seller ratio in the NFT market was 136.1%, a 33.2% increase compared to September. There were a total of 187,644 buyers and 137,845 sellers throughout the month. It is worth noting that compared to the previous month, the number of buyers increased by 26.9%, while the number of sellers decreased by 4.0%. Although the data for October improved compared to September, it still falls short of the levels seen in August and previous months. Therefore, it is too early to conclude that this marks the beginning of market recovery. Apart from Bitcoin and Ethereum, we are eagerly awaiting positive developments in other areas as well.

Data Source: Daily Buyers & Sellers

The trends of unique users and daily buyers/sellers remain consistent, with a slight increase between October 15th and 18th. According to data from Footprint Analytics, the projects OpenSea Shared Storefront and AI-success on Polygon had relatively more internal interaction during this period.

Data Source: Daily Unique Users

The BlueChip Index showed an upward trend in September, rising by 14.4%.

Data Source: BlueChip Index

Last month, the Pudgy Penguins BlueChip Series launched a physical toy collection in 2,000 Walmart stores, attracting attention. In the last week of September and the first week of October, the floor price and trading volume of Pudgy Penguins saw a significant increase. On October 7th, Horlomite Research expressed concerns on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz acquired funding for Pudgy Penguins from “four exit scam projects” and provided on-chain evidence. Luca Netz immediately responded to these accusations on X. Despite this incident, Pudgy Penguins’ market performance in October does not seem to have been negatively affected.

In addition to Pudgy Penguins, the Winds of Yawanawa collection has also gained attention. Launched in July 2023, Winds of Yawanawa is a collection of 1,000 unique digital paintings that utilize weather data from the Yawanawa tribe villages in the Amazon rainforest, including wind speed, gusts, direction, and temperature. The collection aims to protect their rich culture by bringing Yawanawa art into the digital realm. On October 11th, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) announced that Winds of Yawanawa will be included as a permanent collection, making it the first generative AI and tokenized artwork accepted by MoMA. Following this exciting news, according to Footprint Analytics data, the floor price and trading volume of this NFT collection both saw a significant increase of over 50%.

Winds of Yawanawa #102

Public Blockchain and NFT Trading Market

In October, Ethereum continued to dominate the NFT market in terms of trading volume with $421.7 million, accounting for 98.7%. Compared to September, the trading volume increased by 15.9%. However, the trading volume in October is still the second lowest since 2023.

Data Source: Monthly Volume by Chain

This month, Ethereum’s number of unique users decreased by 3.8% to 130,500. Binance Smart Chain’s user count dropped significantly by 44.8% to 17,500. Polygon’s user count showed a significant growth, reaching 142,200, an increase of 51.8%, approaching the level of August. Although the overall trading volume increased by 15.2% compared to September, there are no clear signs of user engagement recovery.

Data Source: Monthly Unique Users by Chain

In terms of NFT trading market, Blur continues to dominate the market share with a trading volume of $198.1 million, accounting for 46.4% of the market share. Opensea experienced growth in October with a trading volume of $176.7 million, increasing its market share from 23.2% to 41.4%. However, LooksRare’s trading volume sharply declined by 97.8% from $71.8 million in September to a mere fraction in October, and its market share dropped from 19.3% to 0.4%.

Data Source: Monthly Volume by Marketplace – Distribution

LooksRare implemented a major update on September 29, 2023, called “LOOKS Token Economic Model Update.” This update made adjustments to the fee allocation, with 50% of the fees used for token buybacks from the market, 40% allocated to the protocol treasury, and 10% as LooksRare protocol rewards. Due to this update, transaction rewards were suspended, and the LOOKS tokens previously allocated to transaction rewards were transferred to the protocol treasury. These changes are likely the reason for the drastic drop in LooksRare’s trading volume and market share in October, with significantly reduced user activity and a near halt to wash trades.

Data Source: Wash Trading on LooksRare

In October, NFT markets showed mixed performance in terms of unique users. OpenSea maintained its lead by attracting 245,000 unique users, a 29% increase compared to September. However, this number is still lower than the user count in August. On the other hand, Element experienced fluctuation with only 20,300 users, a significant decrease of 50.8% compared to the previous month.

Source: Monthly Unique Users by Marketplace

NFT Investment and Financing Situation

In October, the NFT investment and financing market saw slow development, with only one funding round totaling $5 million.

Game of Silks is a fantasy horse racing startup that connects NFTs with real horse races. It successfully raised $5 million this month, bringing its total funding to over $10 million. Launched in June 2021, Game of Silks has established partnerships with notable institutions such as the New York Racing Association, Belmont Racetrack, Jockey Club, and Fox Sports’ Americas Best Racing. They have created over 7,000 Silks Genesis Avatars NFTs, and owners can earn rewards based on the performance of the corresponding racehorses.

Game of Silks

Combining NFTs with the lucrative fantasy sports industry is not a new concept. Sorare has become one of the most successful platforms in this field. They recently announced partnerships with renowned entities such as the English Premier League, NBA, and famous tennis player Serena Williams.

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