NFT sales fell 44% as crypto dipped, memecoins steal ‘mind share’ in Q2

A recent flood of celebrity, political, and animal-themed memecoins, along with a crypto market downturn, may have contributed to a 44% fall in the sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in Q2, according Apollo Crypto’s investment chief. 

Data from CryptoSlam shows NFT sales fell from $4.14 billion in Q1 to $2.32 billion in Q2 as part of a broader market downfall.

“Q2 was a difficult market with Bitcoin declining by 15% and many altcoins performed significantly worse than that,” Henrik Andersson, chief investment officer at Apollo Crypto, told Cointelegraph.

NFT monthly trading volume since June, 2017. Source: CryptoSlam

“[But] meme coins are likely taking some of the mind share away from NFT[s]” as well, Andersson added.

Mind share is a marketing term referring to the amount of consumer awareness or popularity surrounding a particular product or idea.

While NFTs sales have slowed, Memecoins continue to see massive trading volumes, including $3.4 billion in the last 24 hours alone, CoinGecko data shows.

Much of this has been sparked by a rise in PolitiFi memecoins linked to the United States presidential election, while several new celebrity tokens emerged on Ethereum and Solana.

MAGA (TRUMP) and Pepe (PEPE $0.000012) are among memecoins that rose in price in the second quarter.

Ordinal inscriptions to take more market share

Developments in Bitcoin-based Ordinals may also drive attention away from traditional NFTs in the months to come, Andersson noted.

Longer term we believe Bitcoin ordinals will continue to take market share in the NFT space, in particular given the many Bitcoin L2s coming to the market.

However, network activity on Ordinals and Runes has also fallen in recent weeks.

Runes transactions fell 88% from their highest point in June, while both Ordinals inscriptions and Runes have contributed less than 2 Bitcoin (BTC) per day in miner fees over the last week.

NFTs have bounced back before

NFTs made a minor comeback in the last quarter of 2023, tallying over $3 billion in sales, which could spell hope for an NFT resurgence in the back half of 2024.

It included a $1.77 billion sales month in December 2023, the largest since NFT summer started to dwindle in June 2022.

Top NFT collectibles like CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Clubs still boast large market caps of $994.9 million and $345.9 million respectively, CoinGecko data shows.

Largest NFT projects by market cap. Source: CoinGecko

By comparison, the two largest Ordinals projects, NodeMonkes and Bitcoin Puppets, have market caps of $121.1 million and $94.2 million.