28. November 2023

• Nonfungible token trading volumes took a significant dip following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
• Just 11,440 NFT traders were active on March 11, which was the lowest figure recorded since November 2021.
• Despite the trading chills, the market value of “blue chip” NFTs was not materially impacted.

SVB Collapse Chilled NFT Trading Volumes

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) last week caused a massive dip in nonfungible token (NFT) trading volumes as traders feared the repercussions of a major US bank going under. According to data aggregation platform DappRadar, NFT trading volumes dropped from $68 million to $36 million and daily sales count decreased by 27.9% between March 9 to March 11. This was accompanied by an all-time low of 11,440 active traders on March 11 since November 2021.

Impact on Blue Chip NFTs

The depeg of USD Coin (USDC) moved trader attention away from the NFT market and caused some investors to become less active. However, the floor prices of blue-chip collections such as Bored Apes Yacht Club (BAYC) and CryptoPunks only slightly fell – BAYC’s floor price dropped 2% from 68.4 ETH to 67 ETH – showing their resilience against disrupted markets.

Moonbird Collection Price Drop

Notably, however, Moonbirds collection suffered a significant decrease in floor price after it was revealed that PROOF -the team behind them – had considerable exposure to SVB. The floor price fell 35.3% from 6.18 Ether to 4 Ether on OpenSea following this news, causing some investors to sell off their holdings for losses.

Conclusion

Overall, while there was a notable drop in NFT trading activity due to fears surrounding SVB’s collapse, blue-chip collections remained relatively unscathed with their floor prices only slightly decreasing or remaining steady throughout this period of disruption. The more severely affected were those projects with direct exposure to SVB such as Moonbirds collection whose floor prices had significantly fallen during this time period due to panic selling caused by uncertainty over its financial stability post-collapse..

Takeaways

• Nonfungible token trading volumes took a massive beating following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last week as traders fled the markets fearing its repercussions
• Just 11,440 NFT traders were active on March 11 which is an all-time low since November 2021 • Despite the trading chills market value of “blue chip” collections such as BAYC and CryptoPunks only slightly fell showing their resilience against disrupted markets • Moonbird collection suffered considerably due to its direct exposure with SVB leading its floor price dropping 35.3%