NFT Weekly Recap — July Week1
Another quiet week of little NFT activity, despite the emergence of several new projects. The weird pattern of decreasing volume and increasing trader count returns this week, with weekly volume down 10.63% and trader count up 11.92%. The winter continues and there is no sign of spring yet.
Hello guys,
Hope you all had a great weekend. Welcome to this week’s NFT market recap, covering basic stats and notable news with my observations. If there is anything else you’d like to see in the recap, please let me know. DMs are open.
Basic Stats
As usual, let’s begin with numbers.
Trading volume is trending downwards once again. Daily volume was around $20–25 million this week. On a weekly basis, volume is down 10.63%. In fact, trading volume is down every single week in June. The NFT market processed a total of $1.09 billion this month, averaging $36.23 million per day, the lowest since July 2021.
Interestingly, the weird pattern of decreasing volume and increasing trader count returns this week, as the weekly number of active traders increased by 11.92% week over week. It is encouraging that NFTs are still attracting players despite the massive drop in trading volume and floor price.
In terms of floor price, performances varied. While Otherdeed went up by 10.19% in anticipation of its beta launch in July, both BAYC and MAYC went down. The most prominent art NFT project, Chromie Squiggle by Snowfro, outperformed the market once again and increased by 16.29%. Its floor price is already comparable to long-term blue-chips like Doodles, Clone X, and Azuki. Moonbirds also did well with a 9.82% increase. With a floor price of 24.7 ETH, Moonbirds firmly separates itself from the rest of the tier-2s including MAYC. God Hates NFTees had a fabulous week, but the hype may not sustain. Even goblintown is slowly fading away, not to mention projects like “i’ll poop it” which were trending a couple weeks ago.
Notable Events
Axie Infinity Land Staking
Axie Infinity announced land staking on July 1. Players are now able to stake up to 30 plots of land to receive daily AXS rewards. Staking rewards are based on the rarity of the plots. The rarest Genesis plots collect 32.70 AXS every day, while the most common Savannah plots earn 0.08 AXS.
The Axie Infinity map is 300*300, i.e., the max supply is ~90,000 plots. But only a small percentage is made available at the moment. According to Axie Infinity’s official staking website, the circulating supply is 16,794 plots. Among those, 15,139 plots, or 90.15% of the circulating supply, are already staked within 3 days of the launch of land staking.
I made a returns chart for Axie Infinity lands based on their current marketplace price and daily rewards, assuming the price of AXS remains constant (I know this assumption appears very optimistic). The returns look quite enticing in the current environment, where most DeFi protocols are unable to offer double-digit APRs. All 75 Genesis plots are no longer available for sale at the time of writing (the chart uses Genesis plot’s last listing price), but the other four types can be purchased via Axie Infinity’s official marketplace.
Currently, staking rewards can be claimed without any requirements. However, Axie Infinity claims that, “once any type of gameplay for Land is released that can support token rewards, these Land Staking rewards will transition to rewards through active gameplay.”
Axie Infinity has been going downhill for a while. The rates offered by land staking may lure some yield farmers in the short term. But the implementation of land staking is not going to have a major impact on attracting players back to the play-to-earn franchise. New players are the life blood of Axie Infinity. Unless they revolutionize their gameplay and make it exciting again, the downward trend will not be reversed.
Other News
Some other news you might be interested in learning more:
- Mech.com, an NFT-based metaverse gaming company, raised $6 million in a seed round led by Shima Capital.
- R Labs, a blockchain fintech company, has closed a $5 million pre-seed round led by SoftBank, AGF and Prodege.
- Zigazoo, a Web3 education platform for kids, announced that it has closed a $17 million Series A funding round led by Liberty City Venture.
Closing Thoughts
Another quiet week of little NFT activity. The winter continues and there is no sign of spring yet.
The original post can be found here at https://www.tokeninsight.com/en/cryptocurrencies
