BLUR Flips OpenSea and NFT Trading Reaches $4.5 BILLION in Q1 – Is the Bear Market Over??

Let’s deep-dive into CoinGecko’s 2023 Q1 Crypto/NFT Industry report to discover if we have bounced back from the bear market blues of yesteryear! To begin, the start of 2023 marked new beginnings for the crypto market. It rebounds from its end-of-2022 slump and sees a 48.9% increase in market cap from $831.8B to $1.238T by March 31, 2023. This resurgence helped recover losses resulting from the collapse of FTX and Luna.

It also propelled Bitcoin and Ethereum prices to approximately $28,000 and $1,800, respectively. Let’s learn more about the new direction in which the crypto space is headed.

NFT Bear Market No More! 2023 Looks Promising for Crypto & NFTs

CoinGecko’s all-encompassing 2023 Q1 Crypto Industry Report provides an overview of the crypto market landscape. Further, is gives an analysis of Bitcoin and Ethereum, an in-depth look at DeFi and NFT ecosystems, and a review of the performance of both centralized and decentralized exchanges. Bitcoin (BTC) of all cryptos, experienced an impressive gain of nearly 72% in Q1 2023. During the same period, the crypto market performed strongly with a total market cap of $1.2 trillion.

This reflects a 48.9% gain compared to the end of 2022. Average daily trading volume also increased by 30% compared to the previous quarter. During Q1 2023, the top 15 stablecoins experienced a 4.5% decrease in market cap ($6.2 billion). This is primarily due to the shutdown of BUSD by Paxos and the brief USDC depegging event. Tether (USDT) continued to lead the stablecoin market with a 20.5% increase in market cap ($13.6 billion).

In exciting news, NFT trading volume increased by 68% from $2.1 billion in 2022 Q4 to $4.5 billion in 2023 Q1! Most of this volume comes from the new platform Blur. Blur grew its market share from 52.8% in December 2022 to 71.8% in March 2023, Meanwhile, OpenSea’s share shrunk from 29.3% to 21.7%. Additionally, Solana’s ecosystem saw a decline, with Magic Eden’s trading volume dropping 67.9% from December 2022 to March 2023, and y00ts and DeGods migrating to other chains.

DeFi & Spot Trading Growth

In 2023 Q1, spot trading volume on the top 10 crypto exchanges increased by 18.1% from the previous quarter, totaling $2.8 trillion. Monthly trading volume has been increasing since December 2022. However, it has yet to reach the levels seen in H1 2022. DEXs grew faster than CEXs due to regulatory crackdowns, but CEXs still accounted for over 90% of trading volume.

Liquid staking governance tokens led the charge in the DeFi sector. They drove a 65.2% increase in market cap during 2023 Q1, representing a $29.6 billion increase. In particular, the confirmation of Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade saw liquid staking governance tokens surge by 210.9%. This pushed it to become the 3rd largest category in DeFi. On the other hand, DEX governance tokens grew by 44.3% in Q1. However, it saw a -5% drop in market share since January.

The full 44-page detailed CoinGecko industry analysis slider is found here, for more details on various sectors and micro-movements within the crypto/NFT industries.

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