In 2022, the decline of Ethereum NFT collection market caps reached almost 60%. More than half of the total market capitalization belongs to Yuga Labs projects.
Analyst service DappRadar published a detailed report on the results of a study of the eight dozen largest Ethereum NFT collections. The overall conclusion is a decline in the projects’ cap from $9.3 billion at the beginning of 2022 to $3.7 billion at the end of the year. However, CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club owned by Yuga Labs account for 46.7% of the total market capitalization.
At the end of 2022, Yuga Labs cemented its leadership in the Ethereum NFT market. The Yugaverse ecosystem created during the year, in addition to CryptoPunks and BAYC, includes the collections Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC), Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), Meebits, and Otherdeed for Otherside. Otherdeed was the leader in cap loss among Yuga Labs projects, with an 86.15% drop by the end of the year.
Among the collections released last year prior to Terra’s collapse, only three showed major capitalization gains:
- Azuki — 113.89%;
- Degen Toonz — 204%;
- Pudgy Penguins — 260%.
NFT collections launched after the Terra collapse performed better. DappRadar’s report cites Potatoz (+134.68%), DigiDaigaku (+209.88%), Renga (+211.63%), and God Hates NFTees (+1653.28%) as examples.
Analysts noted that the fluctuations in the NFT market weren’t caused by “a reflection of NFT’s utility, but rather a result of bad actors and market manipulations.” A prime example of market manipulation is the botnet on Twitter, which was used en masse to promote scam NFT projects. Furthermore, the overall cap loss of the Ethereum NFT market coincided with the price dynamics of ETH, which plummeted by 60% during the last year.
