There is no question that the overall NFT market volume has suffered from its all-time peak in January. Nevertheless, plenty of sources paint a picture much worse than reality, especially when we think about generative art.
Last week, we saw how QQL netted over $17M (just in primary sales) and a few days ago, Fontana by Harvey Rayner | patterndotco minted out on Art Blocks Curated — the floor is over 2.5 Eth ($3,388) with over 569 Eth (+$771k) on secondary volume alone.
I’ve seen many discussions about the market being dry on FxHash and Tezos, but I feel this might be an example of “the grass is always greener on the other side”.
Just over the last four days, five collections had successful mints on FxHash, commanding over $145k in volume:
September by teaboswell (41k Tezos / $56k).
Lineage by maxwellinked and twistie (33k Tezos / $46k).
Ordinary Places by WILLARD (11.9k Tezos / $16.6k).
Elo by gpitombo (9.6k Tezos / $13k).
Twistings by Nadieh (9.6k Tezos / $13k).
I wanted to go deeper to understand the situation and using my market analyses seemed like a logical place to start.
This report aggregates data from over 30+ market analyses, including active users, total volume, and factoring in the Tezos value volatility. Access the market analysis history here.
Snapshot of FxHash weekly volume across different points in time. Source: dappRadar.com
I started reviewing the FxHash market in November 2021, but it wasn’t until February 2022 that I included weekly volumes and active users. Therefore, I can’t compare FxHash to the January NFT peak. Nevertheless, we can safely see how FxHash has kept growing since then. The FxHash peak came much later, somewhere between June and August. Here are some conclusions:
FxHash volume is much higher than in February, over +56% from the first time I tracked weekly volume.
FxHash weekly volume is down 72% compared to my highest tracked volume week, in July.
The Fxhash heights are related to big drops, such as Horizont(es) by Iskra Velithkova and Zach Lieberman, but also by the tremendous secondary volume from zancan (I wrote about that here).
Snapshot of FxHash weekly active users (artists/collectors) across different points in time. Source: dappRadar.com
Active users remained constant between February and March (between 4k to 3.5k active users), then decreased drastically due to FxHash closing for a while (V2 release).
After the new contract was released, active users proliferated to 8k. At the moment, active users seem to be very similar to those in February and March (3,320), which marks an apparent decrease from its peak. It also shows a solid group of returning users (both artists and collectors).
Keep in mind active users are calculated by taking individual wallets, so the numbers should be slightly lower for users with multiple wallets.
Snapshot of Tezos value across different points in time. Source: dappRadar.com
There is no escape here. Tezos (and all crypto coins) have been trending down aggressively since April. What catches my attention is even if Tezos value goes down, the FxHash market reacts to it. This means artists and collectors think in fiat and not in Tezos. This has some repercussions:
Mint prices might look expensive compared to the early days of FxHash, but in reality, artists are adjusting their pricing to Tezos. E.g., a 5 Tezos mint in February is the same as a 15 Tezos mint price these days.
We can’t be 100% sure, but this could have a psychological effect as 15 Tezos might sound much more expensive than 5 Tezos from back in February (although it is the same). Therefore, emerging artists might have difficulty selling their collections at reasonable prices.
FxHash all-time stats. Source dappRadar.com
In conclusion, we can safely say the overall downtrend has hit FxHash in the NFT market, but not as hard as many other platforms. Some of these stats are encouraging and demonstrate a solid base of recurring artists and collectors. I still believe the overall scene has outrageous expectations, which in addition to the negative headlines, can create an unenthusiastic mood.
Another solid argument is the emergence of more curated platforms, commanding substantial volume and growing the NFT art and generative art space. I don’t have ALL the data at the moment, but I still believe generative art is growing at a healthy pace, something that is very uncommon these days for reasons known to everyone.
Until next time,
- Kaloh
