NFTs Just Had One of Their Worst Years Since 2020—But Gaming Might Be the Silver Lining

Despite a strong start, the non-fungible token market fizzled out hard, recording one of its weakest years since the 2020 boom. And yeah, that’s even as the broader crypto space surged with Bitcoin and Ethereum hitting new highs.

The Rise, the Fall… and the Slight Recovery

According to DappRadar’s latest report, the year started off with a bang. Q1 trading volume hit $5.3 billion, making some folks think NFTs were about to make a serious comeback. But that hype didn’t last long.

By Q3, volumes had crashed to $1.5 billion, only bouncing back slightly to $2.6 billion in Q4. Overall, 2024 ended with a 19% drop in trading volume and an 18% dip in total sales compared to the previous year.

So what happened? Rising ETH prices meant NFTs got more expensive, and apparently, that didn’t sit well with buyers. Fewer people were trading, and fewer NFTs were changing hands.

As DappRadar put it:

“NFTs had one of their weakest years since 2020… Maybe 2024 helped us realize that NFTs don’t need to be expensive to matter in Web3.”

Gaming to the Rescue?

It wasn’t all doom and gloom. Gaming NFTs were the unexpected heroes of the year, dominating the space in both usage and sales count.

More and more games embraced NFTs as a way to give players true ownership of in-game assets, power digital economies, and unlock new earning models. While big-ticket art sales slowed down, millions of lower-cost gaming NFTs kept the ecosystem breathing.

Battle of the Marketplaces: Blur vs. OpenSea

In the marketplace wars, Blur held the crown for most of 2024, thanks to clever airdrops and its zero-fee trading model—a dream come true for flippers and traders.

OpenSea, on the other hand, had a rough year. First came the Wells Notice from the SEC in August, raising eyebrows about whether it was offering unregistered securities. Then came the layoffs—56% of the team gone by November. Ouch.

They’re now betting on a rebuild with something called “OpenSea 2.0”, and rumors of a token launch are flying.

Meanwhile, Magic Eden quietly pulled ahead. Originally built for Solana, it branched out to Ethereum, Polygon, Bitcoin, and even newer chains like Base and Arbitrum. Then in December, it dropped the ME token and stunned the space with a $700 million airdrop.

So… Are NFTs Dead?

Not quite. But 2024 reminded everyone that the NFT space needs more than hype and monkey pictures to survive. Cheaper assets, real use cases (like gaming), and actual utility are what’s keeping the lights on.

If nothing else, it was a wake-up call—and maybe exactly what the space needed to grow up.