OpenSea, an Ethereum-based marketplace for NFT crypto collectibles, has seen an immense surge in activity in recent weeks amidst renewed interest around tokenized digital artwork. According to data from analytics firm DappRadar, OpenSea has amassed $1.22 billion in trading volume over the last 30 days alone.
That’s a staggering 950% month-over-month increase for the marketplace, reflecting the sudden boost in activity from NFT collectors in recent weeks. While OpenSea is used for brand new NFT collectible drops, including the recent Fortune NFT magazine covers by artist pplpleasr, it’s best known as the most popular secondary marketplace for buying and selling NFT collections such as CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, and Pudgy Penguins.
OpenSea’s recent surge has been especially pronounced just over the last couple of weeks. According to DappRadar’s data, the marketplace has logged more than $800 million in trading volume just since the beginning of August amidst soaring price floors for popular collections and a number of top-dollar NFT sales of late.
DappRadar’s data suggests that August 14 was OpenSea’s biggest day yet, with more than $75 million in daily volume across nearly 80,000 transactions performed by just under 25,000 users. Compare that to data from a month prior, on July 15, when OpenSea had $12.6 million in daily volume based on nearly 23,000 transactions from 7,300 users.
An NFT is like a deed of ownership to a digital item, whether it’s a cartoonish profile picture, a digital painting, a video clip, or a usable video game item. The NFT market blew up earlier this year, with $2.5 billion in total transaction volume across marketplaces in the first six months of 2021. The buzz around NFTs had quieted in late spring and early summer, however, prior to the recent resurgence.
OpeaSea CEO Devin Finzer recently tweeted that the marketplace had just $21 million in total transaction volume during all of 2020. Now the marketplace has more than tripled that sum in a single day during the recent surge in NFT demand. OpenSea recently raised $100 million in funding in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the startup at $1.5 billion.
Amazingly, the hottest single NFT project over the last 30 days doesn’t even trade on OpenSea. Ethereum-based monster-battling game Axie Infinity has seen surging trading volume lately for its NFT creatures, land plots, and other items—some $775 million in trading volume worth of activity over the last 30 days alone, per CryptoSlam. The project also recently crossed the all-time mark of $1 billion worth of NFT sales. Axie Infinity moved its NFTs to its Ronin sidechain before the recent boom, however, so OpenSea doesn’t see any of that action anymore.
However, OpenSea is the primary place to trade the seminal CryptoPunks NFT collection, which has accounted for more than $305 million in trading volume across all marketplaces in the last 30 days, per CryptoSlam’s data. NFT project Art Blocks is next on the list with $161 million in volume over the same span, with Bored Ape Yacht Club just topping $100 million.
Trading volume for popular projects CryptoPunks, Bored Apes, and Meebits did drop last week compared to the previous frame, however, while Art Blocks and Pudgy Penguins both saw week-over-week increases.
