NFT Market Hit $4.7B in Sales in Q1: DappRadar

The NFT sector appears to be clawing back as the sentiment around the broader crypto market recovers.

The emergence of new players and changing dynamics have resulted in a rapid evolution of the non-fungible token space. Despite a frantic start, NFTs had a strong Q1 2023.

NFT Market Recap: Q1 2023

According to a report by DappRadar, the NFT market has had an impressive start to the year. In fact, Q1 2023 turned out to be the best quarter since Q2 2022. While NFT trading volume noted a slight decline of 15.65% in March as a result of turbulent market conditions, the overall performance remained bullish. Let’s take a closer look at the key highlights from the NFT market performance in Q1.

The trading volume for the whole of Q1 was up by 137%, reaching a total value of $4.7 billion. The figure in February was boosted by the Blur token farming period, while the NFT sales count for the following month dropped only by 4.63% in March, with 2.7 million NFTs sold.

Zooming out, NFT sales accounted for 19.4 million in Q1 2023, representing an increase of 8.56% from the last quarter of 2022.

With respect to blockchains, Ethereum remains the dominant player in the NFT market by volume, accounting for nearly 90% of the market share in March. Its quarterly trading volume also surged by more than 245% to $4.1 billion in Q1 2023, compared to Q4 2022.

Trailing behind is Solana, with a trading volume of $242 million. Since the previous quarter, the layer 1 blockchain witnessed an increase of 4.55%.

Polygon had a remarkable start to the year as well, with trading volume surpassing $29 million in March, despite a 24.20% decrease from the previous month. Furthermore, gauging quarterly data, the layer 2 scaling solution had a trading volume of $85 million in Q1 2023, meaning a 125.04% increase from the previous quarter, making it one of the best three-month periods recorded since Q4 2021.

Highlight: Blur Vs. OpenSea

OpenSea has long held its position as a dominant NFT marketplace. The emergence of Blur, however, raised an open battle against the once-undisputed market leader. The report revealed that Blur dominated the NFT market in the first quarter of the year, recording a trading volume of $2.7 billion, an astonishing 783.89% increase from Q4 2022, and a market dominance of over 57%.

Blur was hit by a decline in trading volume by 6.56% to $1.2 billion, even so, the platform had a dominance of more than 70% over the market.

After facing stiff competition from Blue, OpenSea’s market share hit the smallest figure since February 2021, with just 22% in March. With regards to Q1 2023, the marketplace registered an increase of 68.41% with a trading volume of $1.4 billion. Its quarterly market dominance stood at 31.10%.