NFT market in December: Blur blazes past OpenSea as year ends

• Blur’s trading volume has significantly exceeded OpenSea’s this month.
• OpenSea has seen a decline in its NFT sales and traders count in the last 25 days. 

The non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace and aggregator Blur [BLUR] is poised to end 2023 on a high note, with trading volume expected to surpass OpenSea significantly.

Blur’s meteoric rise has seen it lead the pack in monthly sales volume for over half of the year, marking a major shift in the NFT landscape.

According to data from DappRadar, in the last month, Blur’s NFT sales volume totaled $590 million, ranking above all other NFT marketplaces.

OKX NFT Marketplace and Magic Eden closely trailed behind, achieving sales volumes of $558 million and $144 million, respectively, during the same time period.

OpenSea came in fourth place with a sales volume of $119 million. During the 30-day period considered, the once-leading NFT marketplace recorded a mere 29% uptick in month-over-month sales.

Source: DappRadar

OpenSea in December

The low sales volume recorded by OpenSea when compared with Blur, OKX, and Magic Eden may be attributed to the decline it has witnessed in its count of NFTs sold this month. 

AMBCrypto found that so far this month, 204,212 NFTs have been sold on OpenSea in December. This represents a 33% decline from the 305,062 total NFTs sold in November and a 92% fall from the 1.14 million NFTs sold at the beginning of the year.

Source: Dune Analytics

The decline in OpenSea’s monthly active users, which began in February, has continued in December, according to data from Dune Analytics. So far this month, the number of traders that have completed NFT trades on OpenSea totals 99,428.

This marks a 13% decrease from the 114,819 unique traders the marketplace recorded in November. As Blur’s market control skyrocketed, the monthly count of traders that use OpenSea has plummeted by 81% since the 528,991 traders it recorded in February.

However, despite the decrease in the count of unique traders and the total number of NFTs sold this month, there has been a slight uptick in platform fees on OpenSea. This is the fee the marketplace charges for facilitating sales transactions.

According to data from Dune Analytics, so far this month, it has seen $3.08 million in platform fees. This stands at a 17% growth from the $2.83 it recorded in platform fees in November.

December to remember

The general NFT market has recorded considerable growth in the last month.

As of this writing, the general NFT market capitalization was $8 billion. Data from NFTGo showed it has grown by over 10% in the last 30 days.

During the same period, NFT sales volume has risen by 38%. At press time, this was $674 million. 

Source: NFTGo