Ignore the hype, NFT sales are not as lucrative as they seem
Published in · 6 min read · Jan 28, 2022
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The NFT market has grown into a major sector of the crypto industry over 2021, with the total money spent on purchasing NFTs surpassing $12.6 billion, up from $162.4 million at the start of the year. The industry has grown 200x since.
Per the hype, Twitter’s Jack Dolsey sold his first tweet for $2.9m. Other expensive NFT sales include The Merge, which sold for $91.8m, and Everyday, which sold for $69.3m. Matter of fact, NFT sales have turned into the new drug money of the digitaleconomy, but the hype, and popular media, are not telling us the whole story.
To be exact, selling your digital arts is not the best way to make money from NFTs. It’s not at all as lucrative as the hype makes it look. Data obtained from OpenSea, the biggest NFT marketplace yet, were computed and the statistical returns revealed some serious shortcomings of NFT sales. These shortcomings have to do with gross inequality, and excessive fees.
The inequality
It was found that 33.6% of NFT sellers sell their NFTs for $100 or less, and they’re the largest percentile. Those who make the most money, hitting the generally recommended sell-price of 0.5 ETH for NFTs, and above, is a disappointing 1.8%. So those who make the most money on the NFT market is a negligible percentile of the entire participants.
Seen from this angle, selling NFTs appear not to hold up to the promises of decentralization, particularly that of giving artists equal opportunities to win big. The biggest NFT money is in the hands of a negligible few, just like we have in 10% of the world’s population controlling 85% of the world’s wealth, or Google handline a staggering 92% of internet searches.
The problem of fees
The money made by the 33% are before charges are deducted. When charges are considered, things get a bit worse. For the $100 earners, the data revealed that you can expect to have 72.5% — 157.5% of their sale deducted as fees. That’s an average of 100.5%, leaving them with a $0.50 deficit or more. This reality of humongous…
