With the number of NFT transfers falling by 25% in 2022, the market has a dominant position of 33%.

The reporter looked at Glassnode data to assess OpenSea’s performance in 2022 and revealed that the market’s dominance fell from 50% in January to 33%.

At the beginning of the year, OpenSea accounted for 20% of Ethereum’s (ETH) total gas usage. This percentage fell to 9% throughout the year. The number of NFT transfers on the marketplace also fell by 25% in 2022.

NFT transaction share

The following chart represents the number of transactions related to NFT interactions in the Ethereum network by calculating the share percentage.

The metric includes ERC721 and ERC1155 token contract standards traded on major NFT marketplaces (OpenSea, LooksRare, Rarible, and SuperRare). The data starts at the beginning of the year, with a specific color representing the share of each NFT marketplace.

NFT Trading (relative)

The pink area represents the leading NFT market, OpenSea. As can be seen, OpenSea had a market dominance of about 50% at the beginning of the year. However, the market dominance began to weaken at the end of May and was about 33% by the end of the year.

NFT transfer count

The NFT transfer count on the market represents the number of NFT transfers facilitated by payments using ETH or Wrapped Ethereum (wETH). This metric only includes data from OpenSea and LooksRare from the beginning of the year.

NFT transfer counts on the market

A similar decline in OpenSea accounts can also be seen in this metric. Data shows that OpenSea's transfer volume was around 80,000 at the beginning of the year and gradually declined throughout the year. As of December 31, OpenSea facilitated approximately 60,000 transfers, a 25% drop in transaction volume.

NFT Gas Usage

The Gas Usage for NFTs metric calculates a percentage share, representing the relative amount of gas consumed by the Ethereum network due to transactions interacting with NFTs.

Gas usage of NFTs (relative)

OpenSea’s decline can also be seen in its share of gas usage, with the market accounting for 20% of total gas usage at the beginning of the year before falling sharply to 9%.