Despite a general recovery in the cryptocurrency market, the non-fungible token (NFT) sector experienced a downturn over the past week, with total NFT sales dropping by 4.7% to $95.9 million.
Bitcoin has recently regained ground, surpassing the $85,000 threshold, while Ethereum slightly strengthened by 2.4%, trading around the $1,600 level. The overall cryptocurrency market capitalization has increased slightly to $2.69 trillion, up from $2.63 trillion last week.
Interestingly, despite the decline in NFT sales totals, market engagement has significantly grown. The number of NFT buyers sharply increased by 96.6%, reaching 252,354 individuals, while NFT sellers rose by 79.2% to a total of 153,892 sellers. Additionally, NFT transaction count saw a healthy gain of 10.4%, with a total of 1,569,670 transactions recorded during the period.
The Ethereum blockchain remains the dominant platform for NFT activity, yet it encountered a notable contraction in sales volume, declining 38.7% week-over-week to $21.6 million. At the same time, Ethereum-related wash trading activities decreased by roughly 23%, reaching $2.1 million.
Polygon solidified its position in second place among blockchains in terms of NFT sales volume, achieving $21.1 million—an increase of 21.5% from the prior week. Overtaking other chains, Bitcoin secured the third spot with $17.2 million in NFT sales volume, representing a significant 42.2% surge. Mythos Chain positioned itself fourth with $14.9 million in sales after a modest gain of 5.4%, while Solana rounded out the top five, achieving $6.8 million in NFT sales, reflecting a positive change of 7%.
Buyer activity grew substantially across all major blockchain platforms, with Solana leading the pack, posting a remarkable 133.7% increase in NFT buyers. Bitcoin followed closely behind with 128.9% growth, and Polygon came in third with a 125% rise in buyers.
A noticeable disappointment came from CryptoPunks, one of the most iconic NFT collections hosted on the Ethereum blockchain. The collection’s sales plummeted dramatically, sliding 80.5% to just $1.7 million compared to the $9.1 million in sales generated the previous week. The slump was also visible in transaction activity for CryptoPunks, with transaction counts down by 51.2%, the number of buyers decreasing by 56.6%, and the number of sellers falling by 59.4%.
Despite weakening overall demand for CryptoPunks, the collection still managed to secure four out of the top five most valuable single-NFT transactions for the week. However, the highest overall sale was a SuperRare NFT (#10093) sold for 255 ETH, equating to approximately $419,772. Other notable transactions included CryptoPunks #3873 (165 ETH, $259,514), CryptoPunks #1820 (72.69 ETH, $118,299), CryptoPunks #1999 (65 ETH, $103,110), and CryptoPunks #7163 (62.5 ETH, $99,167).
