NFT Market Research 2023-Are NFTs a Bubble or a Revolution?

2022 has been a very bad year in the crypto-blockchain space. High inflation after the pandemic around the world has led to interest rate hikes in almost all central banks, including the United States. The money whose supply has been reduced has started to come out of risky assets. At the beginning of these, unfortunately, crypto markets came. In this period, we have understood much better that we should not see NFTs as independent from crypto markets. At a time when even the cornerstones of this market, such as Bitcoin-Ethereum, were questioned and lost a great deal of value, NFTs also lost their popularity and value. In a volatile period when ETH fell from $ 4500 to $ 1500, the idea of ​​selling NFTs on a $ basis, not ETH-based, started to become more popular. The series of scandals that continued with the sinking of the FTX, which started with the Luna crisis in particular, lowered the market more than it should have been with the effect of global developments. The group we call altcoins and NFTs were most affected by this. However, despite everything, we have to say that the Bitcoin price stands well against all this. Almost everything that could happen to the industry happened in 2022, but we saw that there was a lot of experience to be gained from here. For example, we can say that it has been positive for the sector that NFT projects that are excessive, useless, and have only been released for the purpose of making money have turned into garbage projects. With the arrival of regulations, much better days will be waiting for us.

When examining the NFT sector, we see that it is not correct to examine this sector independently of macro data and Bitcoin price movements. When we look at the price movements in the past period, we have never seen the Bitcoin price fall seriously for 2 consecutive years. As of the beginning of 2023, we see that the market has recovered a little. As of January 2023, we see a positive start in NFT markets. It was also effective that companies such as Yuga Labs, Doodles, Moonbirds, which are the biggest players in NFT markets, launched some of their projects in January. In this sense, NFT Markets have increased in the last 2 months. According to the Dapp Industry Report, Global NFT sales increased by 38.5 percent in January 2023 compared to December 2022.

Ethereum continues to be the leader in this area, accounting for more than 78% of all transactions in the NFT market. We see the biggest increase in the Polygon blockchain, which increased by 124% to 46$ million in January.

As of January 2023, Opensea remains the largest NFT Marketplace. Blur NFT Marketplace has become the 2nd biggest NFT Market Place after Opensea. The Blur platform has become popular due to its low marketplace and creative fees.

According to the projection made until 2027, the size of the NFT market is expected to increase by 4.5 times and reach $ 13.6 billion.

Expectations from 2023 are that the market will heal the wounds of 2022. However, there are also many crypto exchanges and VCs that are known to be in bad shape. The probability of these companies going bankrupt during this period is not low. Especially with the collapse of the FTX stock market, many VCs (Venture Capital) were badly affected. This bankruptcy directly or indirectly affected many segments of the industry. But no matter what, Bitcoin, crypto and blockchain technologies, NFTs have proven themselves to the whole world. The smartest people in the world continue to come to this industry. The fall in interest rate hikes and the end of the Russia-Ukraine war will reflect positively on the crypto-NFT markets. At the same time, this period, which we call the bear season, will be a ‘Build’ period for many NFT projects and companies in this field. Because there are some key factors that drive NFT market growth. Some of these are many reasons such as the fact that NFTs can now be used in many sectors from logistics to finance, artists are getting closer to digital art with each passing period. We asked in the title “Are NFTs a Bubble or a Revolution? “ question, and we can clearly give the answer ‘Revolution’. In this market, all parties that build and develop themselves will be the winners in the long run.