NFTs (non-fungible tokens) significantly simplify the process of buying and selling pieces of digital art, in-game items and metaverse objects. Over the past year, the NFT market has grown by more than 1000%, and its capitalisation now stands at more than $10 billion.

Demand for NFT tokens is strongly correlated with the total capitalisation of the cryptocurrency market, which explains why trading volumes tanked hard in 2022. However, from about mid-April, the situation changed completely as weekly volumes reached $1 billion.

One driver of this growth was the Moonbirds collection, which ranks first place in the ranking, with $165 million in sales over the past week alone. During this period, 1309 market participants completed 1821 trades. Meanwhile, the most expensive image went for 350 ETH (equivalent to $1 million). All in all, the collection consists of 10,000 birds.

The Moonbirds collection is available on the major NFT marketplace OpenSea. The platform is making every effort to push the popularity of the NFT market while also seeking to maximise the number of works it offers. This week, news broke that the company is acquiring the NFT platform Gem. OpenSea is already implementing several of its unique features, such as more user-friendly search and rights collection tools. 

The NFT market's revival is strengthening the positions of blockchains that support smart contracts. Ethereum is the NFT leader with a market share of 92% and a turnover of $876 million over the past week. The network's high practicality has ensured the coin's growth relative to Bitcoin starting as far back as 2020. Then, the project's main rally coincided exactly with the dawn of new industries like NFTs and DeFi.

Ethereum's future expansion is largely dependent on the network's migration to a proof-of-stake protocol, which will ultimately lead to increased speeds and lower transaction costs. This is expected to take place in Q3 of this year, though the 'switchover' date has already been postponed multiple times.

StormGain analytical group

(cryptocurrency trading, exchange and storage platform)