NFT art market - statistics & facts
When a digital collage by American artist Beeple sold for an astonishing 69.3 million U.S. dollars in 2021, the third-highest auction price for a living artist’s work, interest in non-fungible tokens exploded. While global sales of art and collectible NFTs peaked at over 20 billion U.S. dollars the following year, they fell by a staggering 63 percent in 2023. This sharp decline revealed that the NFT frenzy quickly lost much of its momentum, leaving people from the art world and beyond with a valid question: how is the NFT market faring, now that the hype is over?
These figures suggest that rather than upending the art trade or completely disappearing, non-fungible tokens will likely find their niche within the art market, remaining particularly relevant among digital art enthusiasts and collectors. In this regard, looking at the main collecting focus for digital art worldwide in 2023, generative art and blockchain-based art emerged as the most popular types of NFTs, with around half of surveyed collectors being interested in such works.
The new normal of the NFT art market
As shown by the monthly sales of art-related NFTs, the value of transactions fell dramatically towards the end of 2021, then reached a much lower but more stable level since 2023. Similarly, data on the public auctions of art-related NFTs worldwide revealed that, despite a significant decrease in sales compared to 2021, two transactions still managed to exceed one million U.S. dollars in 2023. That year, Dmitri Cherniak and Tyler Hobbs ranked as the global artists with the highest NFT auction revenue, generating a total of nearly eight million and five million U.S. dollars, respectively.Are art collectors interested in NFTs?
In a global survey on the leading channels used by high net worth collectors to purchase art, NFT platforms ranked behind art fairs and artists but ahead of Instagram in 2023, with a third of the sample relying on NFT channels. Meanwhile, in a 2023 study on the average price spent per digital artwork by NFT art collectors worldwide, four in ten respondents reported paying between 101 and 1,000 U.S. dollars per work created, presented, and traded with NFT and blockchain technology.These figures suggest that rather than upending the art trade or completely disappearing, non-fungible tokens will likely find their niche within the art market, remaining particularly relevant among digital art enthusiasts and collectors. In this regard, looking at the main collecting focus for digital art worldwide in 2023, generative art and blockchain-based art emerged as the most popular types of NFTs, with around half of surveyed collectors being interested in such works.
