Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), once the darlings of the digital art and collectibles world, are facing a harsh reality check.
According to a recent conducted by Web3 review website dappGambl that used data from crypto tracking sites CoinMarketCap and NFT Scan, more than 95% of NFT collections are now effectively worthless.
This revelation highlights the bursting of the NFT bubble that had seen extravagant sales and hype just a year ago, when digital art pieces with price tags in the millions of dollars regularly changed hands.
Out of a total of 73,257 NFT collections examined in the study, a staggering 69,795 of them held a market capitalization of precisely zero Ether ().
The study indicates that millions of people are currently holding NFTs that have no tangible value.
The results of the study were widely shared among crypto community member on the social media platform X, with some admitting that the NFT market is now “super dead:”
Explosive growth in 2021 and 2022
The once-skyrocketing NFT market saw explosive growth in 2021 and 2022, peaking at $2.8 billion in monthly trading volume.
During this period, high-profile collections like Bored Apes and CryptoPunks traded for millions of dollars, and celebrities such as Stephen Curry and .
As the study’s findings indicated, however, the market has since cooled significantly.
An overwhelming 79% of all NFT collections remain unsold, creating an environment favoring buyers at the expense of increasingly desperate sellers.
Even when filtering out lower-value projects, the majority of collections retain little value today.
Among the top 8,850 collections by market cap, 18% are worthless, and 41% are priced at a modest $5 to $10.
Furthermore, less than 1% of collections are valued above $6,000, marking a stark contrast to the million-dollar deals that were once commonplace.