The recent crypto price crash has wiped off billions of dollars in value of all digital assets, and non-fungible tokens are no exception. Over the past six months, the price of both NFT collections and NFT coins plunged, causing many NFT buyers to vanish from marketplaces. Still, the revenues of NFT marketplaces continued rising.
According to data presented by CryptoPresales.com, global revenues of NFT marketplaces are expected to hit $2.5bn by the end of 2022, showing a massive 60% increase year-over-year.
Revenues Surging Despite Crypto Price Crash
NFT marketplaces make their revenue from charging transaction fees. For example, the world’s largest NFT marketplace, OpenSea, charges a fee of 2.5% for every transaction. But NFT holders also have to pay transaction fees to miners for completing NFT transactions with Ethereum.
According to a Statista survey, NFT marketplaces grossed around $16 million in 2020. In just a year, this figure surged by a jaw-dropping 15,000% and hit $1.57bn in 2021. Although growth slowed down in 2022, revenues still jumped by a massive 60% YoY to $2.52bn. The following years are also set to witness double-digit growth. Statista expects the revenues of NFT marketplaces to jump by another 46% to $3.6bn in 2023. By 2025, this figure is set to reach over $6.2bn.
Statistics show the average revenue per user has grown 136% in the last two years, rising from around $24 to $56.8. In the next three years, ARPU is expected to double to $104.6.
The Number of Users Jumped by 22% YoY
Although investors’ confidence in NFTs has been fading since the crypto market crash, with the lack of clarity, theft, and scams as additional drawbacks, the Statista survey showed the number of people trading on NFT marketplaces continues rising.
Back in 2020, NFT marketplaces had around 670,000 users. Since then, their number has increased 65 times, reaching over 44.2 million in 2022. In the last year only, the number of users went up by 22%. Statista expects users to rise to 50.3 million in 2023 and continue growing to almost 60 million by 2025.
Another Statista survey showed Thailand took the lead as the country with the highest number of NFT users worldwide, with 5.6 million in 2021. Brazil ranked second with nearly 5 million users, and the United States followed with 3.81 million.
When considering the countries’ population sizes, Thailand was still ahead of other countries, with 8% of its people owning digital property. In comparison, only 3.6% of Canadians were NFT collectors, and Brazil had only a 2.3% share of NFT users.