NFTs: the higher they rise, the harder they fall 🤷♂️; FTX is the largest fiat crypto exchange🔥 (but it'd start looking at other revenue opps); Stripe’s betting on SEA as next growth frontier 🚀
Good Morning FinTech, 13 June
Good day Everyone,
And happy Monday! I hope you had some proper time off during the weekend because Monday is hot as ever. Today’s issue is going to cover NFTs (maybe they are done?); FTX becoming the largest fiat crypto exchange (and why it should start looking at other revenue opportunities) and Stripe betting on Southeast Asia as the next frontier for growth. Let’s jump straight into the good stuff:
NFTs: the higher they rise, the harder they fall 🤷♂️
The data 📊 I’ve written earlier that despite the current VC pullback, there are a few tech verticals that are doing quite well. And these are NFTs & Metaverse-related businesses.
But how the overall NFT sector is doing? Let’s look at the data to find out.
More on this 👉 In short, the data isn’t in favor of NFTs. At least right now…
First, weekly NFT sales declined by >70% from a high of nearly 1M units in the third week of 2022 to a little more than a quarter-million in the most recent week in the dataset, which began in the final days of May, according to The Block.
Second, there has been a general decline in NFT trading since the start of the year. A spike in the April/May time frame is because of The Yuga Labs Otherdeed sale, which accounted for the nine-figures worth of dollar volume.
Bonus: the chart below captures the general decline that is visible in both trading volume and trading value.
Finally, it’s worth looking at the floor prices at some NFT projects to see how they are holding on to value. Data from CoinGecko again proves the abovesaid trends:
Bored Ape Yacht Club floor price peak: ~$420,000 (~154 ETH), set on May 1, 2020.
Bored Ape Yacht Club floor price today: $168,500 (~93.88 ETH).
Otherdeeds (also part of Bored Ape universe) have also come down. From around 5 ETH (>$14,000) back at the start of May, to around 2.64 ETH ($4,739) today
So, are NFTs done? Not really… here’s the takeaway though: