NFT Sales Are Flatlining – WSJ

Rising interest rates have crushed risky bets across the financial markets—and NFTs are among the most speculative.

Since hitting highs in November, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has fallen 23% and bitcoin has fallen by 43%. The Federal Reserve is slated to raise rates this week and next month. As the central bank’s easy money policies wind down, investors have turned to more defensive stocks like consumer staples.

Many NFT owners are finding their investments are worth significantly less than when they bought them.

An NFT of the first tweet from

Twitter Inc.

co-founder

Jack Dorsey

sold in March 2021 for $2.9 million to Sina Estavi, the chief executive of Malaysia-based blockchain company Bridge Oracle. 

Earlier this year, Mr. Estavi put the NFT up for auction. He didn’t receive any bids above $14,000, which he didn’t accept.

Mr. Estavi said failure of the auction wasn’t a sign that the market is deteriorating, but was just a normal fluctuation that could occur in any market. The NFT market is one that is still developing, he said, and it is impossible to predict how it will look in a few years.

“I will never regret buying it because this NFT is my capital,” he said.

Another NFT buyer purchased a Snoop Dog curated NFT, titled “Doggy #4292,” in early April for about $32,000 worth of the cryptocurrency ether. The NFT, an image of a green-skinned astronaut standing on what looks like a Hollywood Walk of Fame star, is now up for auction, with an asking price of $25.5 million. The highest current bid is for 0.0743 ether—about $210.

Nonfungible token sales volume by category, daily

Avatars, animals and other digital assets

Gameplay items such as equipment or weapons

Works made manually or computationally

Accessories, real estate and other items used in

virtual worlds

Avatars, animals and other digital assets

Gameplay items such as equipment or weapons

Works made manually or…