Data from on-chain analytics shows that 44% of the trading volume on the three largest NFT marketplaces consisted of wash trading.
The total volume of Ethereum NFT trading in October 2022 was $757.1 million, with wash trading reaching nearly $331.6 million — 43.8% of the total trading volume. This is evidenced by Footprint Analytics data.
The statistics include figures from the three largest NFT marketplaces, which together account for nearly 97% of the Ethereum-based NFT market:
- OpenSea — 42.5%;
- X2Y2 — 35%;
- Looksrare — 19.3%.
Wash trading is a fake trade used to create the illusion of demand in order to stimulate an artificial rise in an asset’s price. According to Footprint Analytics, if we eliminate wash trading, OpenSea accounts for almost 74% of 100% of the real trading turnover.
The top three in percentage of fake trades among the largest NFT collections of all time are:
- Meebits — 96.22%;
- Loot for Adventurers — 73.45%;
- Hashmasks — 70.63%.
Recall that total NFT trading volume is down 98% since the beginning of 2022. Nevertheless, the number of NFT traders is growing, and businesses are actively interested in non-fungible tokens.
