WSJ says 'the NFT market is collapsing' but the data says otherwise

cointelegraph.com:

An article in the Wall Street Journal has claimed sales of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are “flatlining” — in the same week that the top five collections alone accounted for more than $1 billion in primary and secondary sales.

The article cited data from NFT market analysis platform Nonfungible suggesting the number of NFT sales has fallen by 92% since an all-time high in September 2021. Wallets active in the Ethereum (ETH) NFT market were also said to have declined by 88% since a high in November 2021.

“The NFT market is collapsing,” the article concluded.

However, onchain data from Dune Analytics’ dashboard suggest that the NFT market is still robust, with information showing that NFT users and transactions are much higher than what’s reported by Nonfungible.

Analytics also show that volume per day in USD on Ethereum NFTs over the week is some of the highest seen since February with popular marketplace OpenSea seeing nearly $550 million in volume on May 1 alone.

Analysis from Tom Schmidt, partner at venture capital firm Dragonfly Capital shows a similar story when focused on OpenSea transactions and USD volume.

come on, man pic.twitter.com/CTJFldAHNk

Sub-sectors within the NFT market are emerging and while some areas of the oversaturated market are in a downturn, others are seeing major gains.

Nansen’s analytics platform which indexes NFT collections by type show that “Blue Chip” NFTs — established and highly prized brands such as the Bored and Mutant Ape Yacht Club and Azuki tokens — are far outperforming art or gaming tokens.

The Nansen Blue Chip-10 Index tracking the top 10 NFT projects is up 81% year to date (YTD), while comparatively the indexes tracking the top art and gaming NFT collections are respectively down 39% and