Crypto Gloss

NFT Market 2024

The NFT market is not dead — but the NFT market of 2024 is fundamentally different from the 2021–2022 speculation frenzy. Understanding the current NFT landscape requires disentangling three separate phenomena: (1) the collapse of purely speculative “PFP” (profile picture) NFT valuations that were driven by hype rather than utility; (2) the structural changes to NFT marketplace dynamics (the Blur/royalty war); and (3) the emergence of new NFT use cases — Bitcoin Ordinals, brand NFTs, soulbound identity tokens, and NFT financialization — that represent genuine product-market fit beyond speculation.

The 2021–2022 NFT Bubble: What Happened

The following sections cover this in detail.

Peak Metrics

January–May 2022 peak:

  • Monthly NFT sales volume (all chains): $5–6B
  • BAYC (Bored Ape Yacht Club) floor price: 90+ ETH (~$300,000)
  • CryptoPunks floor price: 100+ ETH (~$350,000)
  • OpenSea monthly volume: $5B+
  • Average secondary sale profit: Positive for nearly any NFT purchased in 2021

The mechanics of the bubble:

  • Low-interest environment: Crypto gains from Bitcoin/ETH bull market needed deployment
  • Social signaling: Using a high-value NFT as social media profile picture became status symbol
  • Celebrity amplification: Athletes, musicians, and actors publicly purchased BAYC (Eminem, Paris Hilton, Justin Bieber, Steph Curry) driving mainstream attention
  • “Community” narrative: NFTs became entry tickets to exclusive Discord communities with perceived networking value
  • Financial incentive: Rising floor prices created positive feedback — buy now before price goes higher

Why it collapsed:

  • Macro: Fed rate hikes (2022) crashed risk assets broadly; ETH itself fell 80%
  • Saturation: 10,000+ new NFT collections launched weekly during peak; demand couldn’t absorb supply
  • Lack of utility: PFP NFTs had no use case beyond status and speculation
  • Celebrity liquidations: Several celebrities who publicly bought BAYC began selling, signaling exit
  • LUNA collapse (May 2022): Destroyed crypto wealth, reducing NFT buying power

Blue Chip Floor Prices 2024

The current state of “blue chip” NFTs:

Collection All-Time High 2024 Floor % from ATH
BAYC ~90 ETH ~10–15 ETH -83% to -89%
CryptoPunks ~100+ ETH ~45–55 ETH -50% to -55%
Azuki ~30 ETH ~5–8 ETH -73% to -83%
Doodles ~20 ETH ~1–2 ETH -90%+
CloneX ~20 ETH ~1–2 ETH -90%+
Mutant Ape YC ~25 ETH ~3–5 ETH -80%+

CryptoPunks’ relative resilience: CryptoPunks have held value better than BAYC because they were the original (2017 genesis collection) with genuine historical scarcity (10,000 total, no derivatives). Punk ownership signals participation in crypto’s earliest community. Larva Labs transferred ownership to Yuga Labs (BAYC creators) in 2022.

BAYC’s challenges: Several significant negative events accelerated BAYC’s relative decline vs. CryptoPunks:

  • ApeCoin (APE) launch token value erosion (from $26 to $1.50)
  • Otherside metaverse land sale mismanagement (caused $170M+ in failed ETH gas fees)
  • Internal team disputes and allegations against founders
  • Yuga Labs lawsuits (vs. Ryder Ripps over copyright)

The Royalty War: Blur vs. OpenSea

The following sections cover this in detail.

How NFT Royalties Worked

Original model:

  • Artists/creators could set “royalty” amounts (typically 5–10%) in NFT contract metadata
  • Marketplaces enforced these royalties: Secondary sales on OpenSea automatically sent 5–10% to the creator
  • This provided ongoing creator revenue stream beyond initial sales

Example: A 5% royalty on a 10 ETH BAYC secondary sale sent 0.5 ETH to Yuga Labs. At 2021 volumes, Yuga earned millions per month in royalties.

Blur’s Disruption (2023)

Blur launched as an “NFT marketplace for traders” with features appealing to high-frequency NFT traders:

  • Aggregated listings from OpenSea, LooksRare, and others in one interface
  • Advanced trading tools (sweep floor in one click, custom price adjustments)
  • Zero marketplace fees
  • Optional royalties — traders could choose to pay 0% creator royalty

OpenSea responded: To compete with Blur, OpenSea reduced its fee and eventually made royalties optional as well (after previously trying to enforce royalties via a blocklist of royalty-optional marketplaces).

The result by 2024:

  • Creator royalty enforcement is effectively dead for resales on most major platforms
  • Collections that launch now typically receive minimal secondary royalties
  • Some communities explicitly moved to “on-chain royalty enforcement” via smart contract transfer restrictions (but these are bypassed easily via peer-to-peer sales or non-compliant marketplaces)
  • BLUR token: Blur’s governance token (launched via airdrop to historical traders); the airdrop drove billions in wash trading that distorted volume data

The Aftermath

Manifold’s royalty solution (partial):

Manifold created a Creator Registry that some NFT projects use to enforce royalties at the smart contract level — but enforcement requires the NFT contract to block transfers that bypass royalties, and this creates friction that reduces liquidity.

Blur’s dominance:

As of 2024, Blur + Blur’s Blend (NFT lending, discussed below) accounts for 60–70% of Ethereum NFT trading volume — a remarkable market share capture from OpenSea in approximately 18 months from launch.

NFT Financialization: The Blend Lending Protocol

The following sections cover this in detail.

What Blend Is

Blur’s NFT Lending Protocol (Blend):

  • Launched May 2023
  • Peer-to-peer NFT lending: BAYC holders can borrow ETH using their NFT as collateral
  • No expiry: Unlike previous NFT lending protocols (Arcade, BendDAO with fixed terms), Blend loans have no expiration, only a refinancing mechanism
  • Buy now, pay later: Blur also enables purchasing NFTs on leverage (pay 50% today, owe 50% via Blend loan)

Mechanics:

  • Borrower lists NFT as collateral and specifies desired loan terms (ETH amount, APR max they’ll accept)
  • Lenders bid to provide the loan at competitive rates
  • When the lender wants exit: They trigger a “refinancing auction,” and if no new lender takes over the loan within 22 hours, the borrower must repay or lose the NFT

Impact on the market:

  • Blend facilitated >$2B in NFT-backed loans in its first 6 months
  • BAYC holders borrowed large amounts of ETH against Apes, effectively leveraging their NFT positions

The cascade problem:

When the NFT market declined in Q3 2023, many Blend loans on BAYC were undercollateralized to market conditions:

  • Borrower had 30 ETH loan on a BAYC worth 28 ETH → underwater
  • Refinancing auctions triggered en masse
  • Cascade of NFT liquidations flooded the market simultaneously
  • BAYC floor dropped from 40 ETH to 28 ETH in a matter of weeks partly from Blend liquidation cascade

Lesson: NFT financialization creates the same cascading liquidation dynamics as leveraged crypto derivatives, but with more illiquid underlying assets (NFTs cannot be liquidated in milliseconds like BTC).

Bitcoin Ordinals: A New NFT Primitive

The following sections cover this in detail.

What Ordinals Are

Ordinals (launched January 2023 by Casey Rodarmor) inscribe arbitrary data directly onto individual satoshis (the smallest Bitcoin unit) on the Bitcoin blockchain:

  • Each satoshi can have an “inscription” — image, text, HTML, code
  • The inscription is stored in the witness data of a Bitcoin transaction (enabled by SegWit and expanded by Taproot)
  • The ordinal is permanently immutable — stored on Bitcoin’s censorship-resistant blockchain
  • No separate token standard required: Ordinals use Bitcoin directly; no ERC-721 equivalent

Why Ordinals matter:

  • Bitcoin-grade immutability: Unlike Ethereum NFTs (often pointing to off-chain IPFS images that can disappear), Ordinals data is entirely on-chain and permanent
  • No gas token other than BTC: Ordinals use BTC directly; no separate marketplace token
  • Cultural shock: The “art on Bitcoin” concept divided the Bitcoin community deeply

Bitcoin community debate:

  • Pro-Ordinals: “Bitcoin should be able to store value beyond financial transactions; data inscription is a legitimate use of Bitcoin blockspace”
  • Anti-Ordinals (Bitcoin maximalists): “Ordinals waste blockspace meant for financial transactions; inscription fees are pricing out regular Bitcoin users”

Key Ordinals collections:

  • Bitcoin Punks (Ordinals equivalent of CryptoPunks, early inscription)
  • NodeMonkes (popular, high-value)
  • BitcoinFrogs
  • OMB (Ordinal Maxi Biz)

Ordinals marketplace: Magic Eden (cross-chain, integrated Ordinals), Gamma.io (Ordinals-native), Ord.io.

Brand NFTs and Utility NFTs

The following sections cover this in detail.

Corporate Brand NFTs

Major brands that launched NFT programs:

Nike .SWOOSH:

  • Nike’s on-chain digital goods platform
  • NFTs representing Nike virtual clothing/shoes
  • Interoperable across partner games/experiences
  • AR try-on features integrated

Adidas Digital:

  • Into the Metaverse NFTs (2021)
  • Collaborations with BAYC, Gmoney, Pixel Vault
  • Physical merchandise redemption utility

Starbucks Odyssey:

  • Launched 2022, ended 2024
  • NFTs earned through app engagement (“Stamps”)
  • Redeemable for exclusive benefits (coffee tastings, merchandise)
  • Controversy: Long-term holders felt abandoned when program closed

What brands learned:

  • NFT programs require sustained investment and community management
  • One-time drops without ongoing utility disappoint buyers
  • “Phygital” (physical + digital) utility NFTs perform better than purely digital art NFTs

Ticketing and Access NFTs

Concert tickets as NFTs:

  • NFT ticket prevents secondary ticket scalping (programmable royalties enforce maximum resale price)
  • Post-event, ticket NFT becomes collectible proof of attendance (POAP equivalent)
  • Avenged Sevenfold (“Deathbats Club”) and Kings of Leon early adopters
  • Fan.me, GET Protocol, YellowHeart — NFT ticketing infrastructure

Soulbound Tokens (SBTs): Non-Transferable Identity NFTs

The following sections cover this in detail.

What SBTs Are

Proposed by Vitalik Buterin (2022 paper with E. Glen Weyl and Puja Ohlhaver):

  • Non-transferable NFTs representing credentials, achievements, memberships
  • Cannot be sold (enforced by smart contract) — soulbound to the wallet
  • Creates a “Decentralized Society” (DeSoc) where on-chain identity accumulates verifiable history

Use cases:

  • Educational credentials (university diplomas on-chain)
  • Professional certifications (CPA, medical license)
  • Proof of event attendance (“I was at ETHDenver 2024”)
  • Quadratic voting weight (1 person = stronger vote than 1 ETH)
  • Reputation for undercollateralized lending (reputation-based credit score)

Solana NFTs

Separate section from main Ethereum analysis; Solana NFT market has distinct dynamics:

  • Metaplex standard: Solana NFT protocol; $0.01 minting cost vs. $50–200 on Ethereum
  • Magic Eden: Dominant Solana marketplace; expanded to Bitcoin Ordinals, Ethereum, Polygon
  • Tensor: NFT DEX on Solana with limit order book for NFTs
  • Popular collections: DeGods (controversial migration from Solana to Ethereum and back), Solana Monkey Business (early blue chip), Boryoku Dragonz, Okay Bears

Compressed NFTs (cNFTs): Solana state compression enables minting up to 1 billion NFTs for the cost of a few thousand Ethereum NFTs — enabling NFT ticketing, collectible programs, gaming items at scale.

Social Media Sentiment

Post-2024, NFT market CT discourse has matured from hype to pragmatism. Collectors who survived the peak discuss utility-first NFTs — gaming items, brand memberships, event tickets. The speculation-driven PFP model is broadly acknowledged as largely failed outside a few blue chips. Magic Eden’s multi-chain expansion and Tensor’s Solana dominance are the active marketplace conversation topics.

Last updated: 2026-04

Related Terms

Sources

Nadini, M., Alessandretti, L., Di Giacinto, F., Martino, M., Aiello, L.M., & Baronchelli, A. (2021). Mapping the NFT Revolution: Market Trends, Trade Networks, and Visual Features. Scientific Reports, 11, 20902.

Vasan, K., Janosov, M., & Barabási, A.L. (2022). Quantifying NFT-Driven Networks in Crypto Art. Scientific Reports, 12, 2769.

Dowling, M. (2022). Is Non-Fungible Token Pricing Driven by Cryptocurrencies? Finance Research Letters, 44, 102097.

Wang, Q., Li, R., Wang, Q., & Chen, S. (2021). Non-Fungible Token (NFT): Overview, Evaluation, Opportunities and Challenges. arXiv:2105.07447.

Buterin, V., Weyl, E.G., & Ohlhaver, P. (2022). Decentralized Society: Finding Web3’s Soul. SSRN Working Paper 4105763.