By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 22nd, 2024
Against popular belief that the transition to proof-of-stake will help revive all the metrics of the Ethereum network, most of its metrics remain down.
Recently, interest in Ethereum non-fungible tokens (NFTs) appears to be dwindling. This is despite the continued dominance of Ethereum NFTs in the digital art space. In August, the total transactions plunged to a new low, signaling a reduced interest in digital collectibles from the Ethereum ecosystem.
New Low for Ethereum NFTs Transactions
In the months that led to August, especially between April to July, transactions of Ethereum NFTs surpassed one million monthly. However, August saw a negation of this trend, with NFT transactions dipping to 998,433, per CryptoSlam data. Interestingly, however, this reduced activity may have been related to the network’s highly-anticipated transition to proof-of-stake.
In addition to the total transaction which went low, unique buyers also went deep to levels not seen since last November. Unique buyers dipped in numbers by over 13% to 199,454, representing a nine-month low.
Meanwhile, the Ethereum NFTs best sellers for August included NFTs from the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). But they also saw a decline in unique buyers. For the entire month, BAYC only saw interest from 263 unique buyers who transacted 438 times in that period.
For CryptoPunks, the story was no different. The third-highest-grossing NFTs in history could only manage to see 103 unique buyers who transacted a total of 159 times.
Solana Topples Ethereum in NFT Transactions
Despite the reduced interest in Ethereum, the only blockchain that surpassed its number of NFT transactions in August was Solana. Solana racked up approximately 1.6 million transactions within the month.
Flow blockchain, which hosts the popular NBA Top Shot collection saw 648,169 transactions last month, while Polygon and Wax each saw 556,791 and 495,801 respectively.
Nonetheless, there are hopes that the transition to proof-of-stake will help revive all the metrics of the Ethereum network. These include its total value locked (TVL), total sales volume, and most importantly, the ETH price. However, it remains a wonder that most of those metrics are still down at present. For what it’s worth though, the Merge has only just begun.