Ubisoft, Square Enix, Sega, and the many other companies that have proclaimed NFTs to be a cornerstone of the future of gaming may want to give their plans some deeper thought. Data from transaction tracker NonFungible, collated by the Wall Street Journal, have revealed that NFT sales have suffered a dramatic decline, from a high of 225,000 in September to a daily average of just 19,000 this week. Active wallets also fell to around 14,000 last week from November’s high of 119,000, an 88% decrease. Declining interest in NFTs is additionally reflected in data from Google Trends.
Numerous game companies have also started selling digital items as NFTs, including Konami and Atari, though this has attracted criticism from some due to the format’s high carbon footprint and what many perceive to be cynical implementation.
However, WSJ reports that many NFT owners are now finding their investments are worth a lot less than what they purchased them for.
An NFT of the first tweet from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, which was purchased in March 2021 for $2.9 million by Sina Estavi, the CEO of Malaysia-based blockchain company Bridge Oracle, was put up for auction earlier this year and didn’t receive any bids above $14,000.
Source: Wall Street Journal (via VGC)