DappRadar observed a sharp increase in the number of NFTs transacted

Despite the significant decline in the NFT industry, the year's end was practically on level with 2021 because of how well it had begun.

The overall number of NFTs sold last year was almost as high as it was in 2021, according to statistics from DappRadar, despite the fact that sales and prices had been declining for months. A busy start to 2022 on the NFT market increased the total at the end of the year and helped make up for a few lulls in activity.

According to DappRadar, the natural trading volume of NFTs on marketplaces and blockchain platforms was roughly $24.7 billion in 2022. The NFT market experienced a spike in activity and interest as tokenized collectibles expanded beyond a niche interest in 2021, reaching a total of $25.1 billion.

Transactions that are regarded as wash trades or that have been altered in any way are not included in the "organic" statistics on DappRadar.

Wash trading is the practice of traders selling their own NFTs at inflated rates back and forth between their own wallets. This is frequently done in an effort to manipulate a marketplace's token rewards model. The figures didn't include wash trading, which was worth billions of dollars. This was observed at exchanges like LooksRare and X2Y2, which offered tokens as a transaction incentive.

Despite the fact that trading volume was largely steady for the year, DappRadar observed a sharp increase in the number of NFTs transacted. The analytics firm tracked around 101 million NFT deals in 2022 as opposed to 58.6 million NFT trades in 2021. In other words, more NFTs were traded at lower USD values as the prices of both crypto and NFTs declined.

In 2022, NFTs

The crypto market lost a lot of value during the year, and the losses accelerated in May when Terra's LUNA and UST fell in value. The so-called "crypto winter" was made worse by the failure of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and the repercussions it had on the sector. The prices of cryptocurrencies were further impacted by this.

The NFT market followed a similar pattern of movement all year long. Because of the enthusiasm from 2021 continuing into the new year, sales increased in January. With trades totaling $5 billion, the largest marketplace, OpenSea, enjoyed a record-breaking month.

For a few months after that, trading volume decreased, but the massive rollout of NFT land plots for Yuga Labs' The release of Otherside, a metaverse game with a Bored Ape Yacht Club theme, in late April helped the market and propelled OpenSea to a record-breaking single-day trade volume. At that time, it appeared that 2022's sales of NFTs would easily surpass those of 2021.

But the increase was brief. NFT trading slowed down in May along with the decline in crypto values, which led to a dramatic decline in pricing. Monthly volume decreased from about $3.3 billion in May to slightly over $1 billion in June, but it hasn't above $1 billion since, according to DappRadar.

The NFT market had a less explosive year's finish than it had at the start of 2022. However, the total volume of trading increased little from November, and the number of NFTs sold in December increased after declining the month before.

According to DappRadar, the value of organic trades on the NFT market in December was close to $684 million. This exceeds November's adjusted total of approximately $662 million. During the month, approximately 6.7 million NFTs were sold, above the 4.8 million and 6.1 million sold in November.

According to DappRadar, OpenSea continued to be the leading marketplace for trading organic NFTs in December, with over $297 million in trades. This amount is higher than November's figure of roughly $259 million. With token payouts in the future as an incentive for NFT transactions, Blur, a more recent rival, increased its cash flow from around $115 million in November to about $177 million in December.

The value of the Solana blockchain fluctuated constantly, falling from $95 million in November to just under $70 million. After a busy September in which the launching of y00ts resulted in approximately $134 million in NFT sales, it had fallen to $67 million in October. The FTX crisis caused a dramatic decline in SOL value throughout November and December.

After two months of drops of at least 50%, Flow, the blockchain platform that powers NFL All Day and NBA Top Shot, stopped the bleeding. Flow's NFT sales in December were about $6.8 million, a decrease from about $7.4 million in November.

NFT sales increased to $2,2 million in December (according to CryptoSlam) from less than $2,1 million in November, marking Top Shot's first marginal month-over-month growth after months of declines. Following a gradual fall in NFT platform activity earlier this week, the price of the FLOW token hit a new record low.