Key takeaways:
- January is shaping up to be the best month in OpenSea’s history in terms of the number of NFTs sold, transaction volume, and generated fees
- The number of registered users who have made at least one trade has surpassed 1 million for the first time this month.
- The newly-launched LooksRare NFT marketplace is showing stellar results, but many crypto analysts suspect wash trading is the culprit
OpenSea, the leading non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace, has already hit its highest monthly transactional volume to date despite there being nearly two full weeks until the end of January. A renewed interest in NFTs, the spike in sales, and the growing number of registered users have all played a significant role in driving trading activity on the platform to new heights.
OpenSea’s previous monthly ATH of $3.42 billion has been broken with two weeks left in the month
According to the community-driven blockchain analytics platform Dune Analytics, OpenSea has cleared $3.5 billion in transactions this month and has thus managed to easily beat its previous record from last August, when the popular NFT marketplace recorded $3.42 billion in transaction volume.
The total number of traded NFTs will, in all likelihood, also reach an all-time high this month, as the number of NFTs sold in January already surpassed 1.42 million. The previous record of 1.65 million NFTs sold during a single month was set in August of last year.
OpenaSea seems poised to set a new record in terms of transaction fees generated in a single calendar month as well – the platform has raised $218 million so far and requires only an additional $19 million to break the previous record, which was also set last August.
LooksRare is catching up with OpenSea, prominent crypto outlets suspect wash trading is taking place
Despite OpenSea’s impressive showing in January, the recently launched community-first NFT marketplace LooksRare is taking all the spotlight in the last week.
LooksRare offers an enticing proposition to NFT traders. Unlike OpeaSea, which charges a 2.5% fee on each transaction, LooksRare charges 2% on basic sales and offers zero percent fees on private NFT items. Throughout its first week, LooksRare dominated daily volume charts, having generated more than $500 million in transactions in five out of the first seven days since its official launch.
However, the high transaction volume on LooksRare might be a result of wash trading (which is a process of repeated buying and selling to create artificial activity in the marketplace), as reported by Cointelegraph and DappRadar. It remains to be seen whether the accusations levied against LooksRare turn out to be correct.
