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NFT Sales Surge 31% This Week as Bitcoin NFTs Secure Second Place in Blockchain Sales

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Non-fungible token (NFT) sales witnessed a minor rise last week, registering a humble increase of around 1.46% compared to the preceding week. The cumulative value of NFT sales amounted to $149.31 million from April 29 to May 6, 2023. Nevertheless, the most recent week exceeded anticipations, as sales skyrocketed by 31.22%. Throughout the seven-day interval, NFT sales attained $208.17 million. The substantial rise in this week’s NFT sales can be credited to the appearance of NFTs originating from the Bitcoin blockchain.

Bitcoin-Based NFT Sales Gain Significant Momentum

Bitcoin NFT sales have emerged as a key contributor in the digital collectible sales landscape, among 21 distinct blockchains as per cryptoslam.io data documented on May 14, 2023. Ethereum NFT sales continued to reign supreme with $111.26 million in NFT sales; however, the runner-up position was held by Bitcoin-based NFTs, also known as Ordinal inscriptions.

Data demonstrates that Bitcoin NFT sales secured $53,433,451 and clinched the second-place position regarding blockchain sales out of the 21 chains. Bitcoin’s NFT sales leaped by 187.54% compared to the prior week.

Mythos blockchain’s NFTs also experienced a sizable boost as NFT sales climbed by 69.66% to claim $11.73 million this previous week. The ascent propelled Mythos into the third-largest rank considering top blockchains by NFT sales volume.

Solana, which formerly occupied the second-largest spot, now stands at fourth in terms of NFT sales per blockchain. In the last seven days, Solana recorded $8,789,106 – a reduction of 21.16% compared to the previous week. The fifth blockchain with the greatest sales volume for this past week was Polygon’s $7.79 million, decreasing by 7.07%.

Regarding NFT collections, cryptoslam.io data discloses that “Uncategorized Ordinals,” essentially random Ordinals not part of any collection, achieved the top collection status in sales this week. Uncategorized Ordinals managed to register $15.62 million in NFT sales.

Ethereum’s Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) claimed the second spot this week with $13.80 million in overall sales within the past seven days. The Mythos chain’s Dmarket collection secured third place, and the majority of Mythos’ NFT sales stemmed from the Dmarket collection’s transactions.

In fourth place, ORDI BRC-20 NFTs documented $11,044,110 in weekly sales, while Ethereum’s Milady Maker NFT collection amassed $10,376,102 in sales during the identical timeframe and ranked fifth this week. A notable climber this week concerning NFT sales was Bitcoin-based Space Pepes with $4,607,834 accrued over the past seven days – a spike of 2,142.35% compared to the previous week.

Moreover, a single NFT from the series was sold for $4.5 million, making it the most expensive sale of the week. Interestingly, the remaining top five most valuable NFT sales in the past week all belonged to the Uncategorized Ordinals category.

What are your thoughts on the recent surge in NFT sales and the impact of Bitcoin-based NFTs? Share your opinions and insights in the comments section below.

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Why Meta Launched A NFT Minting Feature On Instagram

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Big tech company Meta, formerly known as Facebook, will extend its non-fungible token (NFT) features to the social network Instagram. According to an official announcement, the company partnered with the Ethereum-based second-layer solution Polygon to allow creators to mint their digital assets.

Meta is stepping up their NFT capabilities by implementing new features. In May 2022, the company introduced digital collectibles to Instagram for U.S.-based users. The new features allow creators to connect with their fans, monetize, and have more control over their content. 

In addition to minting their own NFTs, creators can trade them on the social network’s digital marketplace. As seen in the image below, Instagram will describe an item or collection and its price and let users connect their crypto wallets. 

NFT features on Instagram, collection descriptions, and prices. Source: Meta via Twitter

So far, users can connect their Polygon, Ethereum, wallets, and addresses from third-party providers, such as Coinbase, Dapper, and MetaMask. The company announced it would test the new features before releasing them to U.S. users and other countries. Sandeed Nailwal, Polygon Co-Founder, stated the following about the new feature: 

This move represents a remarkable milestone in the evolution of Instagram’s existing NFT functionality and a natural next step to bring Web3 to the mainstream. The value added to the creator economy is unmatchable and championing verifiable digital ownership on a platform with such reach will help us further our goal of onboarding the next billion users to Web3.

Meta Committed To Web3 And NFT Sector

The company will launch a toolkit for Polygon to support the feature, allowing creators to mint their digital assets directly with Instagram. The social media platform will also expand its existing features to other blockchains by supporting Solana and Phantom wallets. 

The team behind Polygon added the following on the integration with the social media platform: 

Instagram plans to integrate a full end-to-end toolkit that can be used for the whole process — from creation, starting on the Polygon blockchain, to showcasing and selling NFTs both on and off the popular social media site.

Meta claims NFTs will provide their users with a greater capacity to capture the economic value and for audiences to support their creators. The company is taking several steps to improve its crypto and Web3 capabilities. 

Soon you’ll be able to make and sell #NFTs on @instagram, starting with @0xPolygon. You can also now connect to @solana and Phantom wallet, and see information about @opensea collection: https://t.co/aH8035Tk8n

Comment your #NFT below pic.twitter.com/dvHau9n9Yu

— Meta (@Meta) November 2, 2022 

Investors Feel The Pain

However, the company’s shareholders might not share the passion for the nascent sector. Reports from several news outlets state that investors feel “disgusted” and “frustrated” about Meta’s plans to allocate capital to Web3 and the Metaverse. 

The latest earnings meetings allowed investors to vent their “anger” with the company’s vision. In that regard, the price of META has plummeted by over 20% in the past weeks. Despite these reactions, the company seems adamant about staying on its current course. 

META’s price trends to the downside on the daily chart. Source: METAUSDT Tradingview

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NFTs In A Nutshell: A Weekly Review

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Move aside, traditional playmakers in NFTs. The buzz this past week wasn’t with Ethereum or Solana powered NFTs, but rather with new emerging players. That’s right, we saw some ‘unusual suspects’ with blockchains like Cardano and Aptos making noise in the NFT space this past week.

We’ll review those, as well as some of the biggest headlines in the NFT space – including moves from major tech and social behemoths like Twitter and Apple – in our weekly Nutshell. Let’s dive in.

This Week’s Non-Fungible Token News

Twitter’s New ‘NFT Tweet Tiles’

Last week, it was Reddit’s time to shine as the social media platform had a $2.5M day in NFT sales, and sold out of their initial 40K NFT distribution in less than a day. However, this past week was certainly Twitter’s time to take the realm. Between an Elon Musk takeover that would take the company from public to private ownership, and rumors of a new crypto wallet in development, the social media still managed to find time to announce testing of a new NFT feature.

The new feature, titled by the dev team as ‘NFT Tweet Tiles,’ aims to allow a handful of NFT marketplaces and platforms the ability to have in-app displays of NFTs for buying and selling.

Apple Addresses NFTs… With A Lot To Be Desired

Let’s say you have an app that is listed on the Apple App Store: can you, or can’t you, sell NFTs? Well, if there was any question before, you can put it to rest after this week. However, the answer isn’t likely the most appetizing for those educated with the space.

Apple’s new NFT terms for it’s app store specify that while NFTs are approved for minting, listing, and transferring, sales of NFTs on apps would be subject to Apple’s criticized collection fees (roughly 30%). Additionally, NFT ownership within apps cannot “unlock features or functionality” within any app, meaning that you can throw in-app utility potential out of the window.

Overall, it’s simply not a model that makes sense for NFTs, making this progress in name only for Apple and blockchain technology.

New DC Comics NFTs

Iconic comic book studio DC Comics has rolled out ‘Superman’ NFTs as their latest digital engagement activation. It’s the latest powerhouse IP to see ‘digitization’ via NFTs as DC Comics, a Warner Bros subsidiary, shows a continued investment in the space. We’ve seen other IP from the studio, such as Batman, as well as other Warner Bros. owned IP, like Looney Tunes, find their way to NFTs over the course of the past year. We’ll see what comes next from the legacy studio.

Aptos (APT) has been live for less than two weeks, but has already found a home for NFT consumers. | Source: APT-USD on TradingView.com

A New Player In Town? Aptos Enters The Arena 

Aptos has been all the talk of the town lately, and is seemingly making swift moves into NFTs. The blockchain is brand new after years of hype and development, but it took no time at all for Aptos-based NFTs to gain steam; as our team at Bitcoinist covered early last week, some projects with free or cheap mints quickly found their way to $1K+ floor prices, as the chain introduces itself to the latest in a growing roster of potential ‘Solana killers.’

No Bear Market Here, Cardano 

Speaking of ‘Solana killers,’ should Cardano be considered a legitimate threat in the NFT sector? Surges in volume suggest perhaps so, as they’ve hit record-highs for the blockchain recently. A DappRadar report published in recent days noted that Cardano has pushed to be the third-largest NFT protocol in volume (behind top dogs Ethereum and yes, Solana).

Solana-challengers like Cardano, the aforementioned Aptos, Avalanche, Flow, and more will allow the entire ecosystem to flourish and improve (Solana included).

Azukis Go IRL, Bring In Over 1,800 ETH

Who said Azukis were dead? Well, plenty of NFT naysayers might’ve said so, but Azuki whales stepped up and made their presence known when bidding was live for eight 24K gold-plated skateboards last week. The custom skateboards brought in over 200 ETH a piece, boasting the title of the most expensive skateboards sold in documented history. The top buyer shelled out a cool 309 ETH for their board – each of which, of course, came with a paired NFT.

Featured image from Pexels, Charts from TradingView.com

The writer of this content is not associated or affiliated with any of the parties mentioned in this article. This is not financial advice. This op-ed represents the views of the author, and may not necessarily reflect the views of Bitcoinist. Bitcoinist is an advocate of creative and financial freedom alike.

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Topps Reveals 2022 MLB Postseason NFTs Prior to the World Series

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As fans prepare for game one of the World Series between Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Philadelphia Phillies and the Houston Astros, the candy and collectibles firm Topps released the company’s 2022 NOW MLB Postseason non-fungible token (NFT) collection. The MLB Postseason NFT collection is being released in three drops via the Topps NFT marketplace.

Topps Drops 2022 NOW MLB Postseason NFT Collection

Topps has introduced a number of NFT collections during the last two years and prior to the upcoming World Series, the company dropped the 2022 Topps NOW MLB Postseason collection. According to the collectibles company, the collection “curates the top 12 Topps NOW moments from each round of the MLB Postseason and will be released in three drops.” The first drop called the “Wild Card/Division Series Set” occurred on Tuesday, Oct. 25th via the web portal toppsnfts.com.

On Nov. 1, Topps plans to drop the “Championship Series Set” and following that drop the company will release the “World Series Set” on Nov. 10. “The MLB Postseason is always an exciting time for baseball fans and we can’t wait to bring that thrill to digital collectors everywhere,” Tobin Lent, the vice president and global general manager of Topps Digital, explained. Lent further added:

Through each round of the playoffs, fans can look forward to collecting the unforgettable moments that make postseason baseball so special, with newspaper and broadcast-style imagery exclusive to this digital collection.

The Topps NOW MLB Postseason packs of NFTs are $35 per pack and come with five cards per pack. Topps notes that there are 2,750 packs available with 73.64% of the cards being “common.” 26.18% are “rare” NFT cards and 0.18% of the digital cards are “legendary” items. Topps says that each pack of NFT MLB Postseason cards is guaranteed to provide at least one rare card.

The latest Topps NOW MLB Postseason NFT collection comes at a time when NFT sales have dropped considerably during the last year. NFT floor values have also shed enormous value during the last 12 months. As far as the latest Topps NFT collection is concerned, the company says the “gold Legendary design will highlight three key milestone moments from the 2022 regular season.”

“[The gold Legendary design will offer] fans the rare opportunity to collect Aaron Judge’s 61st and 62nd home runs, as well as Albert Pujols’ 700th home run,” Topps explained on Friday. The NFT collection drop from Topps featuring MLB postseason athletes is taking place during the 118th World Series which begins on Oct. 28, between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Houston Astros.

What do you think about the Topps NOW MLB Postseason NFTs? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

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There’s a Reason Meta and Apple Have Such High NFT Fees: They Aren’t Web3

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In April of 2022, Meta made headlines when the company announced details about forthcoming tools for Horizon Worlds, a virtual reality video game created by the company. Meta is developing new features for the game that will enable creators to sell digital items and art. In a blog post published on April 11, the company revealed that it would be taking a cut of 47.5 percent from all sales.

First, they charge a “hardware platform fee” of 30 percent for any sales completed via the Meta Quest Store (a marketplace for VR-enabled apps and games). Second, there is a 17.5 percent fee that comes from Horizon Worlds itself.

Six months later, Apple made similar headlines. The company announced that it would allow creators to sell NFTs but charge its standard 30 percent “Apple Tax” on all such purchases.

This announcement ruffled more than a few feathers. It seems like another case of major corporations with billions of dollars taking advantage of smaller creators.

Yet, sizeable fees aren’t new to those regularly interacting with the blockchain. Nearly every prominent NFT marketplace has a variety of fees, and many NFT marketplaces are also rolling in wealth. So, is there really that big of a divide between Meta’s 47.5 percent cut, Apple’s 30 percent, and that of other marketplaces? Are people right to be angry?

Image Credit: Meta Quest

Interacting with the blockchain costs money

This won’t be new information to most, but blockchain transactions always cost money. How much money they cost depends on the blockchain and the type of transaction.

For example, Ethereum (like many other blockchains) charges fees to users when they conduct transactions — when they mint an NFT, swap coins, list NFTs for sale, and so on. These gas fees, as they’re called, are basically payments made by users to compensate for the computing energy required to process and validate transactions.

Ultimately, the gas fees vary from blockchain to blockchain because they all use different consensus mechanisms. But all this can get a bit technical and confusing, so we won’t get into the different consensus mechanisms and why some cost more and others cost less. To better serve this article, the fee amounts are what really matter.

Historically, the Ethereum blockchain has changed the most fees for NFT transactions. In 2021, fees ranged from as low as $9 to as high as around $300 per transaction. Yet, Solana and Tezos, the second and third most popular NFT blockchains, regularly reported transaction fees amounting to just fractions of a dollar. What’s more, Ethereum changed its consensus mechanism in September of 2022, so transactions on the blockchain now cost far, far less.

There’s no way to tell what percentage of the profits gas fees equate to until an NFT sells. If an NFT sells for a lot of money and the gas fee was low, the gas fee may be less than one percent of the sale price. But let’s say an NFT sells for just $15 and the gas fee was $50. That means the fees will be well over 100 percent of the earnings. And yes, this does happen.

However, these gas fees may not be the best thing to compare with Meta’s and Apple’s fees.

Critically, blockchain gas fees don’t go to blockchain companies. Ethereum and Solana aren’t taking money from users and giving it to themselves. Rather, these gas fees go to other blockchain users who are verifying the transactions. Conversely, when a user sells an item on Horizon Worlds, Meta takes a cut. When a user sells an item in Apple’s store, Apple takes a cut.

So, for a better comparison, we have to look at the actual act of trading NFTs — we have to take marketplace fees into consideration.

What’s the cost of trading NFTs?

Because of how they structure their fees, we can tell immediately the amount that will be taken off the top by the marketplace in which an NFT is listed. Here’s the breakdown.

Zora: Zero fee platform. When minting an NFT, users just pay gas fees. They take no commission on sales.

LooksRare: No minting fee, users just pay gas fees. Takes two percent of every final sale price.

OpenSea: No minting fee, users just pay gas fees. Takes 2.5 percent of every final sale price.

Rarible: No minting fee, users just pay gas fees. Takes 2.5 percent of every final sale price.

SuperRare: No minting fee, users just pay gas fees. Takes three percent of every final sale price.

Foundation: No minting fee, users just pay gas fees. Takes 15 percent of every final sale price.

From these figures, it’s clear that Meta and Apple have higher fees than practically every NFT marketplace. A lot higher fees. But the problems that individuals have with Meta and Apple are about more than just fees.

Meta, Apple, and Web3

In their announcement, Apple stated that creators can’t use NFTs to “unlock features or functionality within the app.” In response, individuals stated that Apple was banning utility NFTs. However, these rules aren’t new. Apple wants to keep all purchases within its ecosystem so it can take a cut — that 30 percent fee — from all sales. Still, many individuals in the NFT space take serious issue with the stance that Meta and Apple have chosen. Detractors say that the NFT ecosystem, and Web3 in general, is built on the ideology of decentralization. They say that the positions that the companies have taken make Web3 feel too much like Web2.

Apple banning utility NFTs.

Turns out a lot of web3 will feel like web2. pic.twitter.com/cspgr8gCvn

— Mando (@greatmando_nft) October 25, 2022

The problem with this position is that Apple and Meta don’t feel Web2. They are literally Web2. They are absolutely entirely centralized.

When people say that we need Web3 because the infrastructure it’s built upon will enable users to get away from the intermediaries that determine when and how users and businesses interact and engage, they are literally talking about getting away from Meta and Apple. The point of Web3 was never to convince Facebook or Apple to adapt. The point of Web3 was to build new systems and infrastructure and make Web2 obsolete.

The post There’s a Reason Meta and Apple Have Such High NFT Fees: They Aren’t Web3 appeared first on nft now.

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How Reddit’s Collectible Avatars Blew Up the NFT Space

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On July 7, 2022, Reddit announced the launch of a new project: Collectible Avatars. These limited-edition PFPs, created by independent artists in partnership with the company (in addition to popular Reddit community creators), would confer unique platform benefits to their owners. Backed by the Polygon blockchain and available for purchase at a fixed price in fiat, it was Reddit’s first large-scale foray into the NFT space.

The announcement took many by surprise. The social platform’s NFT subreddit had long been a terrifying and cacophonous place where you were equally likely to encounter either seething NFT hatred or annoying and malevolent NFT scams. Even Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian essentially advised people to stay away from the toxic section of the website at one point. What was the company doing diving head first into a technological trend whose reputation was battered even outside the walls of its own platform?

Reddit’s Collectible Avatars

Yet, in a bizarre Web3 twist, just three months after the company introduced its NFT project, four separate Reddit Collectible Avatar collections hold spots on OpenSea’s Top 10 list for 24-hour trading volume, with one collection knocking CryptoPunks out of the number one spot. On top of that, it recently came to light that Reddit users have created 3 million Vault crypto wallets on the platform since July, surpassing even OpenSea in the number of active wallets on its platform.

All of which sounds a bit insane. So, how did Reddit, a Web2 social media platform, become the dark-horse hero of Web3 NFTs?

What are Reddit NFTs?

Reddit’s CryptoSnoos NFTs are digital, limited-edition collectibles based on the social platform’s mascot, Snoo. They’re designed by independent artists and Reddit creators from popular creative communities like r/Comics that users can buy with fiat currency. The avatars give users platform benefits (like unique profile animations) and allow Redditors to use their avatars as they see fit off the platform.

These NFTs emerged from the context and the success of Reddit’s then-recently-updated Avatar Builder, which the platform launched in 2020. Users could use the Avatar Builder to customize their Snoo with hairstyles, jackets, jerseys, and other gear, allowing them to personalize their profile picture.

Reddit takes the top spot via OpenSea

The current Collectible Avatar NFTs are also a conceptual extension of Reddit’s first NFT collection, which it released quietly back in June 2021 as a set of four artistic interpretations of its Snoo avatar. Selling for as high as 175 ETH ($234,000 at the time), their success undoubtedly encouraged the company to continue exploring the potential of the technology.

Where to buy Reddit NFTs

If you’re looking to find a Collectible Avatar in Reddit’s Collectible Avatar Marketplace, you’re out of luck — they’ve all sold out. You can find them on OpenSea, however, where secondary sales are beginning to skyrocket. Here are four of the most popular.

Popular Reddit NFT Collections

Foustlings x Reddit Collectible Avatars is one of Reddit’s best-selling collections, having done more than 430 ETH in trading volume. Created by Reddit user Tyler Foust, the collection features Snoos in his signature squiggly line style surrounded by vibrant colors.

Spooky Season: poieeeyee x Reddit Collectible Avatars and Spooky Season: Rojom x Reddit Collectible Avatars are two Halloween-themed collections of nearly 2,000 Snoos created by Redditor poieeeyee and Rojom, respectively. Poieeeyee’s collection currently holds the number-one spot on OpenSea’s Top 10 list by 24-hour trading volume, and has seen 514 ETH in trading volume (as of writing). The fourth collection in that Top 10 list is The Senses x Reddit Collectible Avatars, another Rojom creation.

How did Reddit pull this off?

Reddit knows its community well. It’s also aware of the controversial status NFTs hold in the minds of the non-Web3 initiated. Before the introduction of Collectible Avatars, the company released a report called The ABCs of NFTs in which they found that 70 percent of Reddit users were open to buying an NFT from their favorite brand, but 35 percent thought that brands could also “ruin the future of NFTs.” In other words, they knew they had to execute their approach to NFTs carefully, minimizing bad optics connected with technology while making it easy to purchase them.

And they walked a very fine line. The company hired independent artists and recognized talent within its own platform to make artistically unique digital avatars that grant owners specific utility on Reddit, gave NFT owners something akin to a CC0 license in terms of intellectual property usage, incentivized platform users to get a cool, new PFP in the process, and made them available for purchase using fiat instead of crypto. And they did this all while consciously avoiding using the term “NFT.” The word doesn’t make a single appearance in Reddit’s July announcement.

Cosmic Abyss via Rojom

This strategy certainly wasn’t lost on its user base, as evidenced by this recent post from a community member. But at this point, no amount of the acerbic, clever, sometimes toxic rhetoric that Reddit users have earned an infamous reputation for can do anything to hold back Collectible Avatars’ monumental rise.

“Seeing [NFTs] take off got us thinking — what would happen if we gave artists on Reddit license to make any style of avatar they wanted?” the company pondered in its July announcement.

If you had said the answer to that question was “get multiple Reddit Collectible Avatar collections into OpenSea’s Top 10 list, with one knocking the mighty CryptoPunks out of the number-one spot,” you the decentralized community may have looked at you with furrowed brows.

What Reddit has achieved here is difficult to overstate, and its strategy of approaching NFTs without even using the term is one that many more Web2 companies on the fence about NFTs will probably implement, given this success story. For now, the Snoo has turned our heads.

The post How Reddit’s Collectible Avatars Blew Up the NFT Space appeared first on nft now.

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