Methodology

The NFT sales data for this analysis were simply selected from the ez_nft_sales table of the Core schema of the Optimism database. Firstly, four different groups based on the NFT price were determined. Then, the total and daily sales activity for each of these groups were aggregated and visualized. The focus of the analysis was on the total and daily share of each group in a particular metric to be able to determine which group is becoming more dominant over time, or in other words, how the user’s behavior is changing with time. The volumes and prices are all in U.S. dollars.

Sales Volume

• The total sales volume of price groups between 0.1-1 ETH and 0.01-0.1 ETH have had a share of more than two-thirds of the total combined, which indicates mid-range NFTs have been popular since the launch of the network;
• On a daily basis, while the NFTs with a price between 0.1-1 ETH had a higher share from May to the end of July, their share started to decline and cheaper NFTs in the range of 0.01-0.1 ETH become more dominant with a daily share of more than 50%;
• There were separate periods where the volume share of more expensive NFTs with a price of more than 1 ETH had risen. However, they were not consistent and immediately fall below other groups;
• Considering the continual decrease in ETH price since the beginning of the year, the change in the purchasing behavior of the users to favor cheaper NFTs becomes more severe, indicating that not only the ETH price of NFTs has declined, but their USD price has also decreased over time.

Introduction

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are one of the major segments in the crypto industry where every blockchain wants to be developed. Optimism, as a Layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum, is no exception. However, with the existing bear market and rising inflations, considering the overall decline in the Ethereum NFT ecosystem, it would be challenging for networks such as Optimism to see a sudden change of pace in their NFT sales activity.

With all that being said, the NFT sales activity on Optimism has been categorized into various price segments and evaluated throughout the whole history of the network.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the price analysis of NFTs of the Optimism blockchain has demonstrated that the cheaper NFTs are the most dominant ones in terms of overall sales activity. However, mid-range NFTs have generated the majority of the sales volume since the launch of the network. While the buyers and overall sales of the more expensive NFTs (still below 1 ETH) have increased in recent weeks, the cumulative trendlines for these NFTs have plateaued and cheaper ones are seeing more drastic changes in their sales activity. Although there have been collections with considerable high prices for their NFTs, their numbers have not been on a scale to challenge the cheaper collections. Overall, this analysis has indicated that the NFT ecosystem of Optimism has not yet suited for NFTs with higher prices. When taking into account the whole NFT decline in the Ethereum ecosystem, one would more or less expect that its layer 2s undergo a similar trend. Even in the current bear market and considering the start of a paradigm shift in the NFT ecosystems, Ethereum has still been the favorite for the majority of creators, especially those with higher marketing budgets who want to generate more social hype around their collections. It is expected that in the short term, this trend continues unless a major transition happens which motivates users to adopt affordable blockchains, especially layer 2s.

Sales

• In contrast with the sales volume, the cheaper NFTs with a price of lower than 0.01 ETH has had around 72% of the total sales;
• Although the NFTs with a price below 0.01 ETH still had a daily share of more than 50%, their daily share decreased from around 90%;
• The increasing share of NFTs in the price range of 0.01-0.1 ETH is promising in terms of higher quality, or more expensive NFTs in general becoming more favorable among the users of the network.

Buyers

• The NFT buyers of each price group have followed a similar pattern as the overall number of sales, with the NFTs of 0.01-0.1 ETH group having more share compared to the cheaper NFTs with a price of below 0.01 ETH;
• The daily share of each price group has also moved in a similar trend as the sales with an interesting difference. The share of buyers of NFTs with a price range of 0.01-0.1 ETH has surpassed the share of cheaper NFTs from mid-September and has had a share of more than 50% since then;
• This also indicates that the users are more willing to pay higher prices (in ETH) for a particular NFT;
• It is worth mentioning that the decrease in the price of ETH after the Merge might also have an impact on this change of behavior.

Traded NFTs

• The profile of the traded NFTs for each of the price groups is identical to the profile of the NFT sales, with only the cheaper NFTs having a slightly higher share;
• It is worth mentioning that the number of traded NFTs has been lower than the number of sales, which is a positive status. This is a healthy indication of the ecosystem, indicating that some of the NFTs are being traded more than one time;
• Cumulatively, the trades of NFTs with a price of below 0.1 have been increasing, while the trendlines for NFTs in price groups with a price of higher than 0.1 have plateaued;
• This indicates that more expensive NFTs have been developing more slowly on the network.

Price

• The timely chart of the average NFT price of each price group has shown a massive decrease in the USD prices with more expensive groups experiencing more drastic declines;
• Interestingly, the average ETH price of each group has had a different trend. The cheaper NFTs have become cheaper and expensive NFTs have become more expensive. This is while the price of mid-range NFTs has stayed relatively the same with a slight decrease;
• From an overall average perspective, the price of all of the price groups, except the group with more than 1 ETH, have been close to the minimum of the range, or better put distant from the upper limit in the range.

Traded Collections

• Collection-wise, the number of collections has been increasing over time with cheaper collections having more share and growing more rapidly compared to the more expensive ones;
• However, the average number of traded collections per day has been so low for all of the price groups;
• Cumulatively, the trendlines for each of the price groups are similar to the trendlines for the traded NFTs with cheaper NFTs rising more rapidly compared to the more expensive collections.