Digital Art Market on Ethereum – September 2024

The NFT market peaked in April 2022, marking the beginning of a bear market that has persisted for 2.5 years. While duration of this downturn remains uncertain, encouraging signs of recovery are there

State of the digital art market on Ethereum

Despite challenges like the end of Blur farming incentives, the digital art market on the Ethereum blockchain continues to lead the NFT space with more than 76% of the traded volume in September 2024.

We've observed significant price rebounds for some top-tier collections: Beeple’s Everydays , Refik Anadol ’s Winds of Yawanawa , both projects, part of Grail Capital's second SPV acquisition program, saw gains of 25-30% in September.

Some statistics to put things into perspective

NFT trading volume in September reached 115,000 ETH (source ), a 94% decline from its peak of nearly 2 million ETH in March 2022. This represents the lowest ETH volume since Q1 2021.

However, despite the drop in trading volume, the number of collectors, investors, and traders on @OpenSea has increased eighteen-fold, from 6K to 110K +.

Although most are currently inactive, recent weeks have seen a resurgence in activity from prominent collectors and ETH whales.? These individuals have primarily focused on acquiring higher-priced Cryptopunks and Squiggles, potentially signaling a renewed interest in top-tier NFT collections.

Furthermore, emerging collections like Elman Mansimov's AlignDRAW and Beef Brothko by "Die With The Most Likes" have also attracted attention and their floor prices appreciated substantially in September. These developments suggest a potential shift in the NFT market, and continued observation is recommended. But (NFT) AI art is definitely hot!

While in a bear market, great new initiatives in digital art and culture

September saw a lots of new initiatives that we found interesting and positive for the ecosystem:

SquiggleDAO donated an art piece to a Museum! And it’s Chromie Squiggle #3650 that has been donated to The Institute of Contemporary Art Miami. One with a colour spread of 22, which is similar to one being part of Grail Capital ’s first vintage.?

Lo?c Gouzer, renowned for orchestrating the record-breaking sale of Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi" at Christie's for $450 million in 2017, and the $69 million auction of Beeple's digital artwork in March 2021, has launched a new auction platform, Fair Warning Art. On September 26th, it auctioned one of the 512 Larva Labs ' Autoglyphs for $413,000 (against an estimate of $150,000-$200,000), with proceeds benefiting Oceana 's initiative to combat plastic pollution.?

The “about us ” on Coinbase website of the leading US crypto exchange is displaying the bio of the 8 executives, and one of them ( Jesse Pollak , VP Engineering) decided to use his cryptopunk as his profile picture. Gary Gensler (SEC chair) will appreciate it dearly…

What to expect for the remaining of 2024

We remain more bullish long term than ever regarding digital art on blockchains, and we believe existing and new builders, entrepreneurs, collectors and investors will expand the market over the next 5 years. Stay updated by registering to our free monthly newsletter about digital art on the Ethereum blockchain!

We’ll be in Paris for two art fairs: on October 17-20 for Art Basel Paris and on November 6-10 for Paris Photo ?

If you plan to be there as well please contact us

We founded Grail Capital with the goal of shaping the future of art and culture by making it easy, profitable and safe for more collectors and investors to participate in the digital art market on blockchains. Our mission extends beyond being an investment fund, aiming to contribute to onboarding and welcoming 1 million new collectors into the digital art space over the next decade and to contribute to making the digital art market to $1 trillion market in the next 10 years.

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