Cryptocurrency exchanges collapsing to free-to-mint projects

The bear market has had a significant impact on the blockchain business in 2022 in ways that many people didn't expect. Everything about NFTs has drastically changed over the past year, from entire cryptocurrency exchanges collapsing to free-to-mint projects ruling the charts to some of the biggest NFT businesses beating the odds and growing even greater.

But although obvious market changes, such as Reddit's overnight NFT empire and Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter, have had a noticeable impact on Web3, there are less obvious changes taking on at the forefront of the NFT ecosystem. Established marketplaces like Rarible, SuperRare, and similar ones have been innovating behind the scenes, transforming little by little as organizations like Gamestop, Reddit, and now Instagram continue to enter the NFT marketplace competition in full force.

The condition of NFT markets

Even the most well-known points of sale have been losing out since NFT marketplaces aren't what they once were, but this isn't for a lack of trying. It is obvious that the NFT market as a whole is in decline when we take into account that the total sales volume on OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace in the world, is down about 90% in December 2022 compared to December 2021.

Perhaps this is the reason why a number of markets have been gradually leveling up. Many of the top platforms in the NFT market have been changing, whether it's to keep their market share or just to advance the NFT market. It may have first appeared that each NFT marketplace update—from adding new features to improving user interfaces—was an isolated occurrence, but it is now challenging to deny the palpable trend among market movers.

Rarible's reconfiguration was conceivably one of the most noticeable. The marketplace released Rarible 2, a feature-rich update, in the fall of 2022. The platform was updated to become an aggregated NFT marketplace (similar to OpenSea and LooksRare), and the RARI Foundation was formed, taking Rarible one step closer to becoming completely decentralized.

In order to avoid being eclipsed by a rival in any way, Rarible's new version was released at the same time that the exclusive platform SuperRare was also making news by announcing something called the RarePass. This service allows collectors to buy artwork from up to 24 extremely significant crypto-artists in a single transaction. Even others, like OpenSea, have thrown their hats into the competition. After undergoing similar transformations, they now give consumers more comprehensive curatorial options, statistics, and security measures.

Although these more noteworthy incidents undoubtedly represent the aforementioned trend, platforms like Magic Eden have also had to undertake significant infrastructure adjustments as a result of the controversy around NFT creator royalties. In the NFT industry, stagnation is clearly getting old as zero/optional royalties marketplaces like Blur, X2Y2, and others grow in popularity. We will have to wait and watch whether the present market evolutionary craze and/or changing of the guard will be favorable or detrimental for Web3.