Volume of NFT Trading Reached $311 Mln in Q1, Report Says

The volume of NFT trading has skyrocketed over the first quarter of this year, a report issued by DappRadar showed, reaching $311 million so far. 

DappRadar pointed out that $417.5 million was invested into blockchain gaming and metaverse projects in Q1 2023 in light of the increasing popularity of virtual worlds and NFTs, according to Coindesk.

Virtual land trading reached record levels in the past quarter, hitting 147,000 trades. This increase occurred because of the growing virtual land trading on platforms such as Yuga Labs’ Otherside and MG Land. 

As for the NFTs, Otherdeed NFTs, which are linked to the Otherside metaverse, saw an unprecedented boom in trading volume as they went up 237% compared to the previous quarter, recording $222 million. An Otherdeed NFT was the highest recorded sale for virtual land in the last quarter as it was sold for 186 ETH (about $2.85 million at the time). 

Yuga Labs’s announcement of details for the second test of its gamified Otherside metaverse platform could be a reason for this hike, Sara Gherghelas, a blockchain analyst at DappRadar, suggested. Gherghelas pointed out that NFT marketplace Blur’s “airdrop seasons and farming” could be another reason for this increase in the trading volume. 

Other virtual worlds, such as The Sandbox, Decentraland, and Axie Infinity, were also among the top decentralized apps (dapps) last quarter. However, outlandish Createra Genesis Land became one of the top virtual world dapp in terms of trading volume that hit $14 million. In January 2023, Createra Genesis Land raised $10 million in funding and focuses on enabling user-generated metaverse creations.

Moreover, the number of unique active wallets on Decentraland grew over the last week due to Decentraland’s upcoming Metaverse Fashion Week. The expected event also bolstered the trading volume on the platform by 63%.

It is worth mentioning that NFT sales in 2022 hit 101 million last year, an increase of 67.57% from the year before.