NFTs Find New Buyers, Chains, & Niches

NFTs are Seeing New Buyers, Even as Volume Slows

• NFT daily sales volumes have been on a downtrend since early September. Despite that, the number of unique NFT buyers has slowly trended upward, with a recent spike at the end of October.
• This reduction in volume is in part due to the cool-off we’ve seen across even the biggest NFT collections on secondary markets, some of which have experienced substantial decreases in sales volumes and trading activity over the past couple of months.
• Another explanation could be lower average ticket prices as less crypto-native buyers enter the fray. With NFT NYC happening right now, the hype around this growing sector has become a mainstay on Twitter, attracting a host of celebrities and even billboard flexes on Times Square.

ETH and Ronin Lead NFT Volume, Wax Volume Picks Up

• Since late May, ETH and Ronin NFTs have dwarfed other chains in terms of NFT sales volume (note: the above chart is in log scale, so they’re well ahead of the rest).
• NFTs such as Cryptopunks and Art Blocks were instrumental to the ETH-led “NFT season,” which seems to have peaked in late August/early September. In addition, Axie Infinity’s sidechain Ronin saw a notable explosion in Q2/Q3 following its release.
• WAX NFTs seem to be worth paying attention to as they have seen sales volumes pick up significantly since the beginning of October. Some games utilizing WAX NFTs have been seeing notable player growth recently such as Farmers World, which explains the sharp increase in sales volumes.

SuperRare Dominates High-End NFTs

• OpenSea and SuperRare make up the bulk of daily average NFT sale prices in the $30k-60k range. However, SuperRare stands out when it comes to big-ticket sales.
• On 6 occasions, SuperRare surpassed $100k+ in daily average sale price. (It’s a feat no other platform has come close to hitting.) This suggests SuperRare has found favor among higher-end NFT collectors, as compared to the more “degen” retail NFT flippers on OpenSea.
• That said, OpenSea still boasts the bulk of NFT market share, representing ~97.8% of total trading volumes among NFT marketplaces (note: this calculation excludes marketplaces like Ronin so it’s not exhaustive).

Dog Coin Fight

• At this point of writing, SHIB and DOGE are contesting for the spot of top dog (coin); SHIB managed to surpass the market cap of its OG peer in the last few days of October. However, nothing is set in stone as the infamous wallet owner that turned $8K into $5B from SHIB has been actively moving funds, which can cause immense selling pressure once distribution begins.
• Love them or hate them, meme-coins — and dog-coins, in particular — have played an undeniable role in driving attention to crypto markets. With market caps in the tens of billions of dollars, they are nothing to scoff (woof) at, though their utility beyond pure speculation is lackluster to say the least.

Notable Tweets

Crypto Lessons 101 by Jason Choi

How to Get Rich in Crypto (without getting lucky):

— Jason Choi (@mrjasonchoi) November 3, 2021

Zero Trading Fee on Coinbase?

Coinbase confirms it is testing Coinbase One, a subscription service that internal docs show could feature zero trading fees and prioritized phone support (@fintechfrank / The Block)

https://theblockcrypto.com/post/123134/coinbase-is-testing-a-subscription-service-with-zero-trading-fees-and-prioritized-support

— Tech Meme (@techmeme) November 3, 2021

How Rari was Exploited due to TWAPs

All TWAPs are subject to manipulation. Devs must carefully analyze and monitor pools for which they use TWAPs. Concentrated liquidity makes it cheaper to manipulate TWAPs. Even the most liquid stablecoin pool is manipulatable. A community pool in Rari paid the price today
— Mudit Gupta (@Mudit__Gupta) November 2, 2021