NFT market erupts with $2 billion trading volume in February: Report

• The NFT market saw increased sales volume in February.
• OpenSea Polygon recorded an all-time high in monthly sales volume.

The Non-Fungible Token [NFT] market continued to show vigorous growth and attracted a wider range of collectors. The ecosystem saw a substantial increase in trading volume in February, a new report from DappRadar revealed.

According to the report, NFT sales volume in February climbed to a high of $2 billion for the first time since May 2022. DappRadar noted that the growth was primarily driven by Blur [BLUR], a popular NFT project that saw $1.2 billion in trading volume alone, representing a 117% increase in trading volume from the previous month.

Source: DappRadar

Polygon logs a milestone 

While Ethereum [ETH] maintained its dominance in the NFT market with a total sales volume of $1.6 billion in February, DappRadar found that trading volume on Polygon [MATIC] grew by a whopping 147% within the 28-day period.

Data from Dune Analytics revealed that collectors on OpenSea traded Polygon-based NFTs worth $109 million in February, causing the monthly sales volume to rally to an all-time high.

Source: Dune Analytics

Comparing February’s largest NFT platforms

Sales volume for Ethereum-based NFTs also jumped to the highest level since the year began. Per Dune Analytics, the monthly sales volume totaled $647 million, a 45% rally from the $446 million recorded in January.

Source: Dune Analytics

The jump in the sale of Polygon-minted NFTs on OpenSea was due partly to the rise in the number of traders. The count of active monthly traders spiked to the highest level since September 2021, culminating in the impressive growth of sales volume. According to Dune Analytics, the number of monthly active users that traded Polygon-minted NFTs on OpenSea was 226,880. 

Source: Dune Analytics

Conversely, OpenSea Ethereum registered a drop in the count of active monthly traders in February, which dropped by 5% during this period. 

Another point of disparity between Polygon-based NFTs and Ethereum-based NFTs on OpenSea in February was the count of NFTs sold. Data from Dune Analytics showed that OpenSea Polygon NFTs saw its monthly sales count increase by 15%. However, the number of Ethereum-based NFTs sold on OpenSea declined by 28% within the same window period.

Source: Dune Analytics

While Ethereum retained its 83.36% dominance over the market in February partly due to increased user activity on Blur, Glassnode, in a recently published report, said:

“The recent attention surrounding Blur has led to a surge in demand for blockspace, resulting in increased fees for validators, and more ETH being burnt via EIP1559.”

However, the report also observed:

“While there has been an expansion in total on-chain activity and growth, the number of new addresses is still 40% lower than this time last year, and the monthly average remains below the yearly, signaling negative momentum.”