Trading volume in the non-fungible token (NFT) market increased to $2 billion in February, reaching pre-LUNA crash levels, according to DappRadar’s industry report.
NFT trading volume spiked 117% from $956 million in January, as DappRadar data show.
Despite the sharp increase in the volume of NFT transactions, the number of sales recorded a drop of 31.46%, falling to 6.3 million from 9.2 million in January.
In February, Ethereum (ETH) remained the top blockchain by NFT transaction volume. The chain recorded a transaction volume of $1.8 billion, which is a 174% increase from $659 million in January. Based on these figures, ETH represents 83.36% of the entire NFT market.
Solana (SOL) and Polygon (MATIC) followed ETH as the second and third chain, with the highest NFT transaction volume in February. Even though SOL ranked second in facilitating $75 million in transaction volume, it still saw a 12% decline from $86 million in January. MATIC, on the other hand, marked a 147% increase in February, hitting $39 million from $16 million the previous month.
Blur against OpenSea
In February, Blur triumphed over OpenSea in terms of trading volume. Blur facilitated over $1.3 billion in trading volume throughout the month, while OpenSea came second with $587 million. These figures indicate that Blur accounted for 64.8% of all trading volume in the NFT market, while OpenSea accounted for 28.7%.
X2Y2 and LooksRare followed OpenSea to third and fourth place in the rankings with $39 million and $29 million in trading volume, accounting for 1.9% and 1.4% of the overall market, respectively.
Profit seekers versus art lovers
Even though the difference in trading volumes indicates that Blur is the most active NFT marketplace, OpenSea still holds the largest number of users. Currently, Blur has 96,856 users compared to 316,199 for OpenSea. To catch up with OpenSea on this front, Blur also tried to increase its user base by issuing airdrops to loyal users.
Referring to this contrast between the number of users and the volume of transactions, DappRadar said:
“This (the contrast in numbers) confirms that the trading patterns on Blur are largely driven by the breeding of NFT whales on the platform rather than typical commercial activity.”
In support of this Blur perception, a whale recently sold 139 NFTs and earned $9.6 million.
A specific part of the community also criticizes Blur for stripping NFT art and luring people in by promoting big comebacks. A representative of this crowd, Aaron Sage, recently wrote:
“I just wish the NFT space could change its focus on what we used to be – on art and culture (i.e. monkey noises in the clubhouse and even lazy lion raids on Twitter), but not what it is today with Blur.“