Something scary is happening with OpenSea: Can it survive the crypto winter?

Three different sources in the media report a significant drop in the popularity of the largest marketplace for NFT, OpenSea. This article will examine whether this is the end of the NFT era or just a temporary phenomenon. 

Big problems in the NFT market

There is more and more evidence that OpenSea is slowly dying. We already wrote on this topic at this link, but more and more confirmations of this unpleasant trend are coming.

According to DappRadar’s public statistics, the daily trading volume in ETH on OpenSea exceeded $400 million on May 1 and was only $5 million on August 28. It’s easy to calculate that the trading volume over the summer fell by more than 90%.

If we measure not by the daily trading volumes but follow the active users of the service, then according to Xangle data, the result is similar and very sad:

And finally, according to Dune Analytics, sales volume on OpenSea dropped 62% from May to July, and the decline accelerated in August. The overall downward trend that began in January continues to rattle the market, with monthly dollar sales down 90% in dollars and 82% in ETH.

It’s not all bad

Opponents of this scandalous statistic are trying to argue against the decline of OpenSea. They make the following arguments:

• They believe that the comparison is not quite correct, because they took a day with abnormally high trading volume and atypically low at the end of August (this argument can be partially accepted, but the market decline is huge on any other day as well).
• In addition, the volume was measured in ETH instead of US dollars. Since May 1, the cryptocurrency has fallen in value by almost 50% (though the significant fall took place both in dollars and ETH, so this argument is feeble).
• In summer, the NFT market has a traditional drop in demand. It’s a seasonal drop (which is temporary), not a trend (time will tell the truth of this statement).