In the past week, the non-fungible token (NFT) market saw a significant downturn, with sales totaling $145 million. This figure represents a 9.68% decline from the previous week’s sales, continuing a trend of decreasing sales in recent weeks. Notably, four out of the top five blockchains by sales volume experienced decreases during this period.

Bitcoin Leading the Pack

Despite the overall decline, Bitcoin (BTC) maintained its position as the leader in weekly NFT sales. Over the last week, the Bitcoin network achieved the highest sales volume among blockchains, bringing in approximately $44.1 million. However, this figure still marks an 11% drop from the previous week.

Ethereum (ETH) followed Bitcoin with $38.4 million in sales, reflecting a slight decrease of 1.59%. Interestingly, Ethereum also recorded around $34.2 million in wash trading. Wash trading involves buyers and sellers in a transaction being the same person or individuals working together to create a false impression of high demand. Combining both actual and wash trading figures, Ethereum’s total NFT sales volume would exceed $72 million.

Other Top Blockchains

Blast, a newcomer to the top five, ranked third in NFT sales with $15.943 million, marking an 8.48% decline. Solana (SOL) came in fourth with $14.26 million, suffering a steep 44.73% drop from the previous week. Polygon (MATIC) was the only blockchain in the top five to see an increase, with $12.14 million in sales, up by 20.37%.

Among NFT collections, Uncategorized Ordinals led in sales volume with $16.4 million, despite a 26.73% weekly decrease. Blast’s Fantasy Top took second place with $15.93 million. Mythos’ Dmarket came in third with $5.58 million, followed by Bitcoin’s Nodemonkes with $4.74 million. Immutable-Zk’s Guild of Guardians rounded out the top five with nearly $4.4 million in sales.

High-Value NFT Sales

The week saw some high-value NFT sales, with Cryptopunk #741 fetching $792,046, the highest price for an NFT in the period. An Ordinal inscription was the second-highest sale at $681,497. Other notable sales included Earthnode #184 from Cardano at $56,026, a PepperMints NFT from Solana at $40,384, and a Blast Chain NFT just under $40,000.

There was a notable increase in the number of NFT buyers and sellers last week. According to CryptoSlam, the number of buyers spiked by over 166%, while the number of sellers increased by 139%. Despite this, the total number of NFT transactions, at 1,583,262, represented a 27.58% decrease from the previous week.

Legal Troubles for Dolce & Gabbana

In other news, Italian fashion designer Dolce & Gabbana and digital assets platform UNXD are facing a class-action lawsuit over alleged delays in delivering NFT products. According to Bloomberg, the value of the company’s digital assets has plummeted by 97%.

The NFT market continues to experience fluctuations, with significant drops in sales and transaction volumes over recent weeks. Despite these challenges, Bitcoin remains the leading blockchain for NFT sales, and there are still notable high-value transactions taking place. The market’s future direction remains uncertain as it navigates these ups and downs.